Tauren Warrior (World of Warcraft)

[stoph]

ive come to the conclusion that this is as finished as this painting is gonna get. im well aware that its riddled with faults >:{ but its the best i can do at my current skill level :nohope: hope you guys enjoy nonetheless :yayca:

http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/2289/tauren5di.jpg

[Azeira]

very nice. love the detail and texture of the hide. good work here.

Woodruff

[Tully]

Nice image! Love the expression on the face.

A couple crits: The legs are the only thing that gives a sense of forward movement. I didn't get the idea that he was running until I scrolled down, and even then it's still sort of weak. If you made him look as though he was leaning into the stride more by bringing the upper body forward somewhat, it might help that.

On that same note, the bits of him that would be affected by the wind (like his loin cloth and mane) seem to just be sitting there, or just not being blown in the right direction. Fixing that could also give a better sense of movement. Also he's very uniformly detailed... wouldn't his legs have a bit of a motion blur around them if he were running that fast? I don't mean use the filter, but maybe fuzzy up the lines a tad.

Good stuff though. Keep 'em coming!

[LucidSaint]

Edit: Forgot to say that that thang is teh pwnzors...so to speak.
I would have loved to see the sword hilt, and maybe the same detail put into the hair of the "mane" and tail as the body hair. That's just my opinion though since that's one of those artist's choices and not a direct reflection of reality. In case you missed my question in the other thread: Is the axe made of stone, dull weathered metal, or....something magical from the World of Warcraft? Because I am having a rough time rendering metal and hair, and am looking for all the info I can get.

[stoph]

Azeira: thanks mate, appreciate it :)

Tully: all duly noted, thanks for the crits. if you view my WIP thread youll see that the piece was originally intended to be of the tauren in a stationary pose, but then i was prompted to make him run, hence the legs being somewhat disjointed from the movement (or lack-thereof) of his upper half. so yeah, thanks, ill keep that all in mind next time i do something of this sort :)

LucidSaint: pwnzors indeed :P yeahhh the hilt cluttered the negative space around the axe handle and made the image too heavy on the left hand side of screen, so i ditched the idea. i wanted to keep the mane and tale uniform in themselves, and seperate from the body hair, figuring since its thicker in those places (and this guy would be quite stinky and unwashed) that the hair would clump together in time. sorry i missed your question earlier, so ill say it here that the axe is metal. to make it appear as such, i utilised sharp edges and texture, two things your WIP could use :)

*sigh* guess thats my 15 minutes of fame finished :xpld: thanks guys.

[Mr. Visions]

Hey 'stoph man. I really like alot of the things you have goin' on in this pick. I think the textures in the skin, especially in the arms are rather nice, along with that bleedding cut. Also the characterization in the face is very sweet. One thing that seems you were pushing but didn't quite get there was the dynamics of this character. It seems you wanted the audience to believe this thing was charging at us but it also seems that you didn't take that idea all the way, which you gotta do. I think all it needs is to have him lean forward more and have the battle axe in more outward motion, as if to swing. I don't want to sound repetitive, but that my two cents. On your value, I would take some of those lovely dark you have in the face and shoulders and put that in some other areas, or everything else will look unfinished. I can see alot of your focus went into the characterization, time and effort went into this section, and it seems you lost a little of that intensity throughout the rest of the piece. I would give laa the other areas some of that love and I feel this piece will be more finished.
I know you've been working on this for a long while and all you wanna hear is that this is nice. I fell it is a nioce piece, but if you put it back in the oven just for a little bit longer, we're looking at something delicious.

Take care bro, and keep postin'.

- Visions

[Form]

yo stoppppph!

like your work man, just thought id offer an anatomical/character critique for ya.


Id suggest that his stomach is way too long and droopy. Firstly, from an anatomical standpoint, it needs correction. You have the navel down around the pelvis which is far too low, and the twist of the torso doesnt seem to fit with the position of his legs.

More importantly, in my opinion, the stomach doesnt work in terms of the expression of the character. From my experience, these type of tauren/bipedal tank kind of creatures benefit from an exaggerated uper torso, and large legs, with the stomach area being smaller in proportion than normal. This gives a feeling of weight to the extremeties that befits the swinging of axes and so on.

I think he would look a lot more warrior like if he were to have a small, very tight abdominal structure that transitions into a bulky upper torso.

Look at the tauren in WoW and you will see how their abdominal area is a kind of small pivot as opposed to a human proportioned part of the body.

Im hungover so i hope i made sense

Im off to play WoW :)

[Form]

btw, you dont play on Khaz goroth do you? (seeing as we have a grand total of two oceania servers to choose from...)

[stoph]

Mr Visions: mate, i really am pleased that you see potential in the piece, but im afraid the level of work required to have that potential realised is too great at this point, especially so late in the process. to do what you mentioned would require an almost complete overhaul of the upper body. unfortunately i dont have the time nor patience anymore. thank you, really, i appreciate the encouragement, but yeah, im done on this piece. ill remember all this next time for sure, tho ;)

Form: yeahh.. the navel was a bit of a random placement, i wasnt entirely sure where taurens should have the navel.. or if in fact they have one in the first place! like i said, the running legs were an afterthought, and i looked over the rotation of the stomach as it seemed to work at the time (in my mind at least, but thats due to bias that results with being so close to a piece). i wanted his torso to convey power; give a thickness that suggests bulk and brute.. sort of like you see in gorillas. his posture would further this. well, at least that was the intention. guess it didnt quite fit my characterization. oh yeh, i play on Proudmoore (L44 tauren warrior, Mediumrawr). started him on there cause a few mates had chars on there already.

thank you all for stopping by and sharing your wisdom.

[noiion]

Despite the anatomical issues, I still love the details that are in the images. Those cracks, creveces, and little hair folicles really make the piece stand out. You've blended the cartoony style and reallism really nicely. Welldone! Just keep working at it. You can only get better.:^^:

[Form]

l44? damn bro get out n see the sun ;) l19 dwarf warrior on khaz goroth :)

[Cique]

:O World o Warcraft!
Nice picture.

[nardsdesign]

hehe nice concept of a tauren bull e"? keep it up

[nardsdesign]

hehe nice concept of a tauren bull e"? keep it up

[-leo]

I really like it! It takes me a while to figure out your issues and it's ended up with this

http://www.leoarts.ru/pub/cgtalk/tauwow4.jpg

my suggestions are:

- paint more dynamic, put energy into your creatures. Tauren is a hella heavy and big so show it, let us feel it's power.

- body is important as well as facial expression, so twist it, add tension to muscules, find interesting shapes... experiment!

- add depth to image and keep some color variation to avoid monotony.

That's maybe sounds tricky in the beginning but just keep looking at masters' work, there are tons of wonderful examples on this site.

-leo

[theincredibleandy]

that Tauren face is way cooler than any WoW design, though it's a hella more fun game than other mmo's. Love how gestural -leo's version is, wish you would've either gotten more of that in there or just made it a stationary pose.

Did I mention the face is great?

[alti]

good work there stoph , but dam leo thats spot on.
I love the movement.

-alti

[crazybrush]

looking great! they are both funny and well done...
Second one is stronger, as for energy, while the first feels a bit stiff...but it works as an illustration. A lotta improvement in your approach generally...keep it up.

[nonie]

Nice body fur! The part in his mane is a bit weird though - I assume cow hair is similar to horse hair, and horse's manes do not part, they're so stiff they either go on one side or the other. It makes me think he gelled it :P (A minotaur using hair care products, hehehe)

[mornmeril]

Sweeeet lil tauren >3 MOO!

[Chuck,mate.]

it`s preety good actually.
you`re being too modest friend.:dad:

the level of detail is great, and the sense of character is really out there.
the horns are my fav. part.

as for crits - i think the overall color scheme could have been more interesting. the light and shade also.
the over-sized nosetrils kinda flattens the face.
and there is a bit of a problem with the way the figure is in relation to the BG.
(perspective-wise..)

there are a few more things i`d check (anatomy, textures etc.) ,
but that`ll just be nitpicking.
keep creating bro.
:)