First Live Birth- Final Entry

[carakhan]

First Live Birth


The scientists at the Moseby Center for the Study of Artificial Life are very excited today, as the announcement of the first bio mechanical marine life form is finally giving birth. After many unsuccessful tries, the baby appears to be healthy and they are hoping to extract her today. "The implications, the experiments, we can't wait to see how she came out, what she's really made of!" one scientist said. There are reports of the "mother" of the mechanism lashing out and injuring scientists, as she has had over 300 miscarriages and is reported to be "unusually protective". Security at the Moseby Center assures that everything is under control.

This was an incredibly long month, but a rewarding one. I think I'm ready to call it quits on this old girl, I learned so much from this contest and now my brain needs time to rest :) Thanks to everyone that offered advice, I can't wait to see how everyone's came out!

[pauscorpi]

I like the idea. I think it could develop into a really nice image.

As it stands right now, I think it needs a bit more implied in terms of narrative/story. When I look at it I get there is a strong emotion, perhaps something important happening, mechanical vs organic, etc. but I do not necessarily relate the image to the theme of birth/rebirth/new birth and whatever else goes around it.

best of luck

[Liffey]

You'll probably want to redraw the organism and character, as right now they're not in perspective.

[carakhan]

Hey Guys, thanks for the constructive criticism!
pauscorpi- thanks, I knew it wouldn't be very obvious right now, I have several ideas but I didn't want to just start scribbling all over my sketch. The sac that she's carrying is holding her babies, but I'm still thinking about how I want to do them.
Liffey- yea unfortunately I drew the character first and then started thinking about perspective of the environment afterward. I honestly never understood how to draw a character like this in perspective, with everything twisting around. I'll figure it out :) This is in no way a final sketch though, I almost never bother with lineart.

I did a bit more last night, exploring color. I'll put it up in a bit.

[carakhan]

I have a real problem with posting progress work. But, I do have some saves so I'll put them up as well.

First:

[carakhan]

And last night I made some dramatic changes, after playing with the background perspective for like 2 hours:

[hala]

Your values are wicked good, but I don't understand where the light source is coming from that is spilling on top of her.
You nailed the reflective red light though, :)

[Nickillus]

Great eye-level and dramatic lighting ThinMint. I'm sure the lighting pattern will all make sense once we see a bit more. You can never go wrong with tentacles and a big glowing orb!

[carakhan]

This is barely enough work to warrant a new post, but I'm avoiding moving on to the background sooo...
Made some color adjustments because I thoguht it was falling a bit flat. Still not sure if I actually like these colors either but they'll work for now. I need to find a way to make the sac appear transparent, I've never done that before. Suggestions are always helpful! ;)

hala: thanks so much, I hope this one turns out good. I want to convey the feeling that she's trapped in either a sewer/well/something with a grate over it. And I've never done underwater so I need to figure out the depth and color.

Nickillus: Thanks! I do feel like its a bit cliche' right now,actually. I'm hoping to break out of it, or at least make it look good enough so no one cares that its cliche', hah!

Still working on it, will post more tonight.

[hala]

oh i see it's gonna be underwater--that will be pretty kick ass :) I understand the light source now and where you're going with it--looking good!

[carakhan]

So I've decided to move on to arts and crafts for the remainder of the evening, but here's what came of today:

[carakhan]

So I left this alone for a while. I wasn't sure if I should come back to it, but when I reopened the image I started getting ideas again, so I returned to work last night. I'm having a bit of trouble on the values within the sac, I want it to look very pink but the newborn shouldn't entirely be. Maybe once I put some texture on it I'll figure it out.

[harris-ejaz]

this looks cool... what is the concept?

[carakhan]

We had the day off from work today, so I decided to take another pass at this. I had hit a wall on the enviro- I had so many ideas, but I was having trouble with color and perspective. I'm getting really excited now though, I think its starting to show through.

I didn't want to post the concept behind it, because I initially wanted to see how you guys interpreted it, and see if I was getting my idea across. But that's taking too long and I need constructive critique :)

The scientists at the Moseby Center for Artificial Life are very excited today, as the announcement of the first bio mechanical marine life form is giving birth today. After many unsuccessful tries, the baby appears to be healthy and they are hoping to extract her today. "The implications, the experiments, we can't wait to see how she came out, what she's made of!" one scientist said. There are reports of the "mother" of the mechanism lashing out and injuring scientists, as she has had over 300 miscarriages. Security at the Moseby Center assures that everything is under control.


It's a work in progress, even the story. Tell me what you think!

[MoonChilD]

hey
i really doubt those chains will stop her to escape,it's not believable enough
it's obvious you've painted those around the tentacles and it would slip easally
when it should grasp them with force...maybe something else would work better

[_MOTH_]

this is awesome

[Nickillus]

Love the way this is going ThinMint, but have to agree with LoveCHILD on the chains credibility. How about if she also has a metal band around her wais that the chains carry on up to so we know thay can't slide down or be wriggled out of. I think my problem is that a lot of us have seen those documentaries about how dextrous octupi are and able to squeeze themselves through ridiculously small spaces.
As already said, I do love it, but want to believe it more - that's all. it's a minor detail but may make a big difference.

[carakhan]

I completely agree with you guys, I was going to do the waist next, I competely forgot to mention that in my last post. I was just hoping to find a better way to do it, but I'll just have to find a more complicated design possibly. And I should know better, I love octopi, I should give her credit :) I should just have her breaking through those chains. Thanks so much for the input guys!

[carakhan]

I didn't work on it all weekend like I'd hoped, but here's an update:
Put the waist harness on her, and then I found I needed to move her as well for better perspective on the band. trying to make it look more underwater, so added more blue and the bubbles. Rendered a generic scuba diver, but I'm hoping to come up with a better design for him today, as well as the needle gun they are extracting samples from. I'm at a crossroads with how to render her tentacles, I don't know if I want them to be organic or metal or a combination. Please remind me if the picture is getting too busy.. I've been fighting the urge to get some jellyfish in there too. And I have to figure out the colors within her womb still, as the rest of it's being rendered that part keeps standing out to me as looking bad.
Crits appreciated! Please help me make this the best I can!

[MoonChilD]

, but have to agree with LoveCHILD on the chains credibility.

thanks for calling me lovechild, but ,i'm more like a moonchild!:)

[carakhan]

Sorry for the lack of update, went through an extremely busy couple of weeks. But back into high gear, tried to nail down some stuff this weekend. The newborns skin is still bothering me, and I've been avoiding it. I still need to add more texture to the overall image, but I've got a background going now, and its all about the details at this point I think. Any suggestions?

[bladesofpassion]

I like the color scheme and composition. I think it is pretty close to perfect. However, it doesn't look like she is trying to go out. It is the left hand, it would look more powerful if the hand was a fist and the chains appear to start snapping. The chains appear too weak for her so it makes sense that they underestimated her and she is starting to break loose. Yeah, that sounds pretty constructive.

[miycko]

very nice painting, though at first glance you can't tell that their underwater

[carakhan]

Thanks for the info guys, I tried to take everything into account. I played with different arm poses for a while and I just didn't like anything, so I stuck with these and I hope it works. I have so much detail I want to do, this piece just never quits :) I'm looking into making it look more underwater, but I got sidetracked by a million other things. I dont know if you can see them, but I started putting the "failed" newborns into the wall pods. I'm taking the colour theory class right now, and I think it's already helping! The richer darks on the metal make me happy :D I did most of this while listening to the session.
Any suggestions to help me make it look more underwater, or more awesome, are appreciated.

[carakhan]

Ok I've tried to update like 3 times now and firefox keeps crashing. One more time, or I give up.
Focused on the newborn for this update, trying to tone down the colors but get some nice focused light on here. Also trying to bring in some softness now.

[MoonChilD]

i got things to say here:
it doesnt looks like its underwater...
the diver especially...

try to apply a blue photo filter,some bubbles and some color depth..
you could also add some caustic light effects.
it will be all for the better

take a look at this:
http://images.google.fr/images?q=underwater&oe=UTF8&hl=fr&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

[carakhan]

Thanks for the advice moonchild. I want to leave the bubbles out of it because i feel like that should be done last, since they're so detailed, and I felt the same way about the water. But, it seems to be bothering everyone so thats what I'll focus on today. Update in a bit!

[carakhan]

This will probably be my last update before the final image. Getting close! I think pushing the orbs back into the blue and diffusing the lighting helped. I also lightened her hair a bit, a friend noticed it looked a bit heavy. Any last minute crits give em to me now! Coming up next- filling in the rest of the orbs (omg) and last minute bubbles. I've been wanting to take another pass at the tentacles too, theyre missing some pizazz I think :)

Thanks so much everyone for all your comments, this is probably the longest I've worked on an image, ever.

[NIRONERU]

pretty cool concept... I also had the idea of a cilia giving birth, though it is way different than yours... goodluck...

[carakhan]

Updated top with final entry. So tired... good luck again everyone :)