Hi! First time here or anywhere else

[swords]

HI everyone !
I'm new here in this cool forum.
This is a must-go forum for any concept artists around^^

Here's a little introduction of myself ..
I'm 23 years old, male and living in southeast asia, Singapore
I'm still an amateur as i do not have any working experience yet since i graduated from a local college in a course teaching
(color theory / basic design theory / drawing / image editing /
3D / games design) currently still in army, left 5 more months before freedom.(seriously counting down)

I like to draw, do characters design/concept , illustration and 3D [mainly modeling or texturing]
here's my first website created a few months ago :
http://www.half-a-bucket.com
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i think this is a great place to find useful crit / comments and advises

Below is one of the portraits i did a few months ago,
fully in photoshop, with a photo reference.
I felt there's much room for improvements especially in the skin tone area, please give me some advises guys , thanks and appreciated :)

ps: and oh i'll try posting other images of character designs too next time rather than just boring portraits, so bear with me :(

http://www.half-a-bucket.com/02_illusbox/01_portrait/ip05.jpg

[jezelf]

Nice site - great work!

I particularly like the way you do hair - the one here, and one on your site a girl with long hair. very convincing.

the only thing I would suggest is to be careful not to get caught up in copying photos too much.

there is a danger where one can rely on the photo reference too much and so creates a gap in standard/style between the photo copies and original work.

you are clearly an observant person from the image here and on your site. use what you learn from those photo copies and put that knowledge into your original work. try using your colour techniques and attention to detail in your character design and other drawings.

If you want to pursue character design, sometimes you have to come up with stuff out of thin air. something I do is exploring other cultures' clothes styles and bringing elements together - just what's out there already is a great source of reference. doing this also expands your wealth of creativity - even down to what you might not think important like looking at different types of footware in a shopping magazine can help.

3D stuff looks good too. you have great potential - especially that you're 23 with an eye for perfection.

welcome to the forum and thanks for showing us your work.
best wishes
jez

[swords]

Hi Jezelf :)

nice to meet u and thanx u for the comments and support:)

Yeah i get what u mean when u said about 'copying' too much from the original sources - the photos.
Initially the reasons why i wanna do portraits is to see if i can do(paint) realistic stuff from photographs. Based on that reason, i probably won't do too much of those, coz like what u pointed out, about creating the gap in standard/style.
However i will once in a while still try different subject
(scenery/human figure/and other objects) so that it's sort of a constant 'practice' to improve observation and painting skills. and thanx for reminding me :)

Yeah ~ i'm always thinking about getting reference from all over anyplace i can find. The clothing and other stuff from different cultures. It's really an exciting thing to me.
Except i haven't really seriously started on any yet.
I'm planning something soon.
First i got to have either a story/concept to support the design
then i'll do the research, and then design the visuals.
I'll probably treat this like a project.

I do like both 2D and 3D, however i've heard(and agreed) that sometimes u got to only concentrate on one single category, like be a sole 3d modeller, or be a concept artist. and not anything in between. It's tough to make decisions like this.
What are your views on this ?

[jezelf]

hi.

I wouldn't worry about having to concentrate on one element. I started off as a concept artist - then did some texture work, then graphic design for marketing and then onto modelling and since I've even had a go at animation.

the thing to remember is this is YOUR life/career. do what you want to do. everyone has strengths and weaknesses. you have to discover what they are, through being honest with yourself and work on those weaknesses. So you eventually have a standard of work which is equal throughout each area.

the beauty of doing everything yourself is that it means you have total control. as a concept artist I would always want to give the modellers as much information as totally possible in my images - that way I've done all I can.

things do evolve from the concept stage, modellers are artists too so they, naturally, want to be creative and could add things to your concepts which could be interpreted as good or bad by the concept artist.

I'm not one to be precious about my work should someone else model my concepts (its a team work thing) but I like to model my concepts if I can for two reasons -

1 - I get to shape my imaginations, change 2d things which don't work in 3 dimensions myself - as a concept artist, you're kind of still re-working your concept if you're modelling it too.

2 - I can stand back at the end of the day and say ' I did this' - pride of work, I kind of got fed up of saying to people who didn't know anything about the process when asking me what I did , I would say ' I did that spaceship, well, I did the concept art for that spaceship' now, I can say sometimes ' I created that spaceship from scratch - what you see is 100% me.

each area for me was another step to making my 2D picture real - which was exciting for me.

so it's how you see your role. I like to give as much as I can to the final result, so what people see out there, when the game is on the shelves, in the magazines is there because of me sometimes - I'm not bothered if I don't get to do the work, I'm happy to let the team work on stuff (as the result is only there because of teamwork) - but it's nice to think that if I didn't exist - I wouldn't have made that difference, and people wouldn't be introduced to whatever I've imagined.

it's kinda what drives me so, for me that's a big part of doing all these other things. it's a romantic ideal, and is usually a lot of hard work, but it's a rewarding thought.

On another note - if you can concept, model, texture etc to a great standard - you will be more valuable to game companies in particular because it's all about money -why hire 2 people when one can do the job? (as long as they respect you )

so, no I don't think you have to stay as one skill. by all means make sure your weak areas are competent enough to compete with other professional out there before you announce them as a skill, but as long as you are proficient at one of them, you can quietly work on the others in your own time.

listen to yourself and what you want to do.

good luck
jez

[Loga4]

Hi,Cheah,and welcome to ConceptArt!
Only I can add is that you are far from an
amateur,to be more specific I thin that you are
already profesional...be persistent and you will
find jop easy.
And I like stuff in your site.
Best luck in finding first gig(jop)

[swords]

To Jezelf : Hi again

What u said did clear my head, much. :)
Thanx for stating your view.
I too agreed that one need not be only good in one area.
If there's the time and chance to work on other skills, why not ? afterall i just like doing them.

Thanx !

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To Loga4 : Hi !

Thanx for the encouraging words
and nice meeting u :)

[NoonThirty]

Swords, that picture is great! Very well done!

I second Jezelf's opinion. Don't compartmentalize your talents. Work on anything and everything that's interesting or useful to you. You'll enjoy it and any employer with an ounce of vision will appreciate your versatility.

I'm going to check out your website when I have some more time. Judging by this pic, I'll be impressed.

Thanks for sharing, and keep posting!


Noon:30