Tax Collectors digital illustration

[Eric UNSL]

Hi all,
I got tired of floating so I thought I'd post something. This is a painting I started in oils then finished in photoshop once I got my wacom. I would like to submit this for the next spectrum competition so comments/ suggestions are most welcome. I'll go back into it if anyone sees something really wrong with it. Thanks. Wazzupp!!! to all my SVA NYC crew floatin' around!!

http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/wilkerson/taxcollectors.jpg

[Prometheus|ANJ]

haha, I couldn't help to notice the Neon Genesis Evangelion techknobs on his head :D

No apparent flaws what I can see. I can't crit this without going into style preferences.

[killing.people]

everything looks incredible. someone has a lot of love to give .. and its you .. :nerd:

i was serching for problems and all i could muster was his fingernails! (the very smallest of details .. but, they look too small or something silly like that.

good luck in spectrum and hi.

[Pontemonti]

WOW!
:eek:

I agree with killing on the fingernails...other than that it's stunning! Very nice! :)

[TJ Verhagen]

Damn, thats nice!
Don't see anything wrong with it man.. good job!

[wolfgang]

nice work,

just one thing, (not completely sure about this :confused: ):

to me, the gunhand to his left looks like beeing in front of him and not on the same depthlevel as his head (size maybe?), and thus not aiming at him. Maybe it would be stonger to bend his wrist a bit...? But this would be maybe too much work at this finished stage of your work?

hope not beeing to critical, just my 1,50 (euro-) cent.

good stuff anyway.

keep it up and good luck for your entry!

wolfgang

[Lono]

FREEZE!!! Or ill Zotz you with this staple gun! :p

seriously,, did you use your staple gun for refrence on the left hand? hah.

nice work!

[deke?]

truly awesome!- reminds me of Shadowrun art/genre - the lighting and environment rocks.

[Eric UNSL]

Hey thanks for the feedback everyone. I really appreciate it.
The only down side to this piece is now I have a unfinished oil painting sitting in the closet.

Prometheus|ANJ: Noticed the techknobs eh? Homage to the character designs from NGE. Loved the designs/ hated the story.

killing.people: The model had dirty crusty fingernails and constantly bit them. I thought it added character to the figure so I left his nails as they were in the shoot.

wolfgang: Hey, no you're not being too critical. I needed to know if it reads or if it is confusing to some. I tried my best to frame the left hand/gun in the image To have room for surrounding environment (phone booth) and have the hand/gun read. If I made the left hand bigger it wouldn't have been as strong. I never thought about angling the wrist but I did think about twisting the hand/gun horizontal like a convenient store robber early on. Both hands work essentially as two big arrows directing the eye to the focus. Ok I'm rambling now.

Lono: Yeah I used a staple gun. I thought I changed it up enough but obviously not. I always wanted to have a staple gun like weapon in a illustration ever since seeing Grifter from the Wildcats comic. In the future the IRS carry guns that shoot laser staples!!!!!!!!!

deke?: Thanks, yeah I remember the shadowrun RPG stuff published by FASA. I sent FASA some of my work awhile ago just before the company closed.:wtf: Oh well.

Here's a detail of the hand and staple gun just for you Lono...
http://img.ranchoweb.com/images/wilkerson/handdetail.jpg

[tacumacah]

I love it. Sadly when I see stuff like this it makes me wonder what happened before this scene and after. Which I guess the best paintings do.

Regards

[ODIN SIX]

It rocks !!!!!! I love the detail and craftmanship,,,,,
The closest I get to painting now a days is my wacom....
Ohh how miss the canvas

[davi]

awesome work!
i honestly don't like the halo lights in the background though, i find them distracting.

[Hudnut]

Eric-

Man that looks friggin' great. Very nice piece. I love the use of pointing hands as a compositional device.

As for crits, I like the red halos in the background, but their unsymmetrical shape is bothering me, particularly the left one (right above the gun on the right). Also, that little piece of the headset/earphones on top of his head looks like the shadow side is too cool when compared to the earphone part and shades. It probably isn't receiving as much reflected warm light since it's up in the hair, but it looks out of place to me as it is.

Otherwise, it looks great. Amazing rendering in that hand.

Good luck with Spectrum!

-Dave

[Eric UNSL]

Hey everyone,

tacumacah: I guess before this scene the guy tried to call the IRS to plead for his life just as the collectors came to make him an offer he couldn't refuse. I'm pretty sure the guy died of multiple phaser burns to the head and neck. But that's just what I think happens....

ODIN SIX: Hey thanks man, tell me about it, been awhile since I touched oil myself. That sweet masonite's calling.

davi: Is it the intensity of the light or the overall shape in the background you don't like?

Hudnut: Thanks, that means alot coming from you. Photoshop rocks! I never really saw a problem with the lights. I thought of the scene as taking place in a huge open marketplace area with the street lights being similar to the light poles at a mall parking lot. One light is closer than the other and conforms to the angle of the buildings. i'll do a paint over to see what it looks like without the lights.

As for the little piece in his hair, maybe if I throw a few strands of hair in to overlap it that will set it back into the hair a bit more. I can definitely drop a warm midtone in to balance it out.

All your comments have given me new things to think about. I'm already knee deep in a commission right now but I'll take the time out to make a few minor changes. I would like to get more than one piece in for spectrum 10. This probably won't get in but I still want it to be totally kick ass! Thanks for your help. I'll post a correction in a couple days.

Eric

[Hudnut]

Eric-

Don't get rid of the halos! I love them! (Sorry davi) They make a great color and composition statement. When I said unsymmetrical, I was referring to the fact that since they are some sort of man-made object, presumably a red circular lamp, then their perspectival appearance needs to be a perfect ellipse. The angle of the ellipse with the building looks fine, as far as I can tell. But I think the ellipses of the halos are a little wobbly. I only noticed this because I've been practicing drawing circles in perspective from life (CDs, plates, glasses, etc.) to help tune my eye up for drawing mechanical objects from memory. I'm assuming that even a relatively diffuse light source like your red halo lamps would create a perfectly elliptical glow. This is nit-picking to the nth degree, but I just wanted to clarify.

You've created a killer piece of art and I think as is, it rocks.

Cheers!

-Dave

[Eric UNSL]

Hey Dave,

Ellipses are my enemy. I haven't drawn plates, cup and saucers for ellipse training since my first year of school. It's funny I recently went out of my way to not have to draw a room with multiple circles in perspective by building the entire environment in 3D. At first I thought I was being lazy but now I have this scene with unquestionable accuracy. I see what you're talking about now. I must have painted those lights 4 or 5 times before I felt comfortable. I tried the scene without one of the lights and it weakened the piece IMO. This has been very helpful. Almost feels like being back in a classroom. Dave are you using Photoshop 7 for your work? Is it worth buying? I hear it has new brushes similar to stuff that painter has. If it's just minor differences from PS6 I'll stay with what I have.

Thanks,

Eric

[Hudnut]

Eric-

One thing I do when I have to create a piece of art with a perfect shape like an ellipse or just a portion of an ellipse is to use Photoshop Shape layers (PS6 has them) to do the accurate work for me. You can create an ellipse Shape to fit your perspective and then stroke the path with various size and hardness of brushes until you get the right balance of soft glow, color, value, etc. It’s not very painterly, but it sure beats agonizing over trying to do it by hand. Anything on my website that has an accurate ellipse was done this way.

I’m using PS7 and I’m utilizing about 80% of the new features frequently, especially the new brushes. I bought Painter 7 recently, and while I think that Painter brushes still do a better job of simulating natural media, the new PS7 brushes are WAY more flexible and create better natural looking brushes than PS6. PS7 now registers the tilt and angle of your stylus, so you can actually get directional brush strokes. I think Adobe left the new brush engine out of PS6 just so they would have an excuse to do a new version and milk more dough out of us artists. But it’s worth the upgrade, IMO.

As for using 3D software to build complicated environments in perspective so you don’t have to draw it, you’re not the only one. It’s all about the deadlines.

-Dave

[Darrell Bowman]

hate to say this but my first take was those staple guns.
becareful using references.

sorry. Great job thou.