Time traveling robot assassin! [update 10-23]

[Sublimus]

Well, this is something I plan on puting some good time into, so I was hoping to get some crits on it while in process. The light behind him is going to be a the door he travels through time with!

Any crits would be great, since I am new to painting, both digital and traditional. (if that isnt completely obvious)

[madplanet]

You picked a tough one to do for a beginning painter. Since he is metallic there will be a lot of reflections and strong contrasts. The glowing light behind him would make the front of the figure dark. See how you have the left arm? The light area and the dark area would be reversed. I think that you would have to really pay attention to the lighting in this one.

[Sublimus]

Thanks for the advice, I'll try and keep that in mind.

Update.

[Kithras]

Hm, lets see, the only critique I have for this drawing at the moment is the purple circle in the center of the robot, im not sure, but it looks like the purple circle could be possibly glowing a bit, or atleast producing a bit of light, unless the robot is turned off. It would make it look more menacing, and more, well, robotic if it was turned on with the light. Same goes for the one on his head.

[Sublimus]

I have no clue what Im doing at this point. But I have to finish this! I'll have to trudge through it, because I never finish anything.


Please help!

[Rhubix]

wow, you really are shooting yourself in the foot with this image, 3 light sources is not fun lol. I think your image needs more contrast within things. the forground rock-thingys are all dark around the door is all dark, the figure is all dark. you need to fiure out where the light would be hitting and where it wouldn't be to add highlights and shadows to things. with this many light sources you really don't get a pure light/shadow relationship and it can be really hard to show depth.
good luck with a difficult piece and don't be discouraged about not finishing a piece. every time you do something with conviction you are learning something wether it gets finished or not.

[Sublimus]

Haha, yeah. it is a bit like shooting myself in the foot, isnt it? Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind as I go forth.

Aaaaaaand, todays progress. It's still all over the place, but at least I can start to see it shaping up a bit. (Slow and steady, haha):}

[Snuggles]

Just keep going, man. I wanna see what happens with this. The robot looks a little like he's from the 80's, but I love it that way. It's in such a fuzzy state that my only critique is that the composition just seems super squished. Just enough room for him, the door and his lightning rod pals.

BTW. Iron Man travelled time, for the future of mankind. He was turned to steel in a great magnetic field. Some food for thought.

[Chr]

by adding strong ligthsources both behind and on both sides in the front its hard to describe the form. i would suggest removing the two bright rods (?) in the foreground and add just a small light that doesnt kill all form (almost) if they would be rendered correctly...

also your loosing the opportunity to make single objects really brigth by making the picture very bright overall.. brigthness is relative.

the design of the robot is pretty cool

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Yeah, that is a tricky light setup if you want to describe the design.

Basically you have a strong back light, this would render him dark and rather flat, it'd be hard to see any details or colors. There might be... blooming or something around his silhouette. Then you have the front lightsources, which ... I'm not sure how they'd work with that strong back light.


You need to be aware of the range of value and color saturation permitted in certain areas.


I'd prefer A strong primary and a weak secondary, then mini lights on his armour and whatever.

For example, there could be a strong light from the side-right, then a weaker l
light of opposite temperature that comes in and subtly pick out details in his armour that otherwise would be hidden in shadow.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Here's a quick doodle, not necessarily related to your image, I just wanted to show one idea of how to pick out forms or silhouette or whatever by using contrasting fields of color/value. One way to work it to first throw doewn rough regions of color to make sure you have something that's compositionally sound and still enables you to decribe the characters you want in there. It would seem Sparth sometimes works that way. Step 1: make color fields that works compositionally, Step 2: Figure out the details, Step 3: ??? Profit! etc.

If you sternly decide on a light setup first, then you might have to struggle with it if it ends up not being suitable for what you're going to do. Just becuase you decided on it first doesn't mean it's correct or holy. Just because you have labored on something for a certain time period doesn't mean it's correct or holy. The whole thing is made up to begin with so making up something else that happens to work better can be a good idea.

Does anyone rembember that site / tutorial with the 3 planes and 3 values or whatever? Basically it went something like, you have 3 planes (ForeGround, MiddleGround, BackGround) and then you have 3 values (Dark, Mid, Bright). You can assign each value to a plane, resulting in 9... no wait... 6 combos (you can't use the same value in 2 different planes? Or is it adjacent?)... although I think the site said 12 combos... It was ages ago since I saw it and I have difficulties ith enviros aswell.

Anyways, the basic ideas is when drawing a character in an environment you'll need to separate things (value and also color temperature-wise) into planes so it's easier for the brain to differentiate between things.

There are of course many exceptions to that method, but I find it useful to keep in the back of my head.

In this case, if your primary objective is to do a cool armour, then maybe your light setting should allow you to properly describe it? If you want to show a cool mysterious guy you can pick a light setup that obscures the design a bit. Decide what you want to do.

[Seedling]

You are in over your head, Sublimus, I’m afraid – you’ve been fighting this thing for most of the month and making no significant progress. It’s time to quit banging your head against the wall and back to some simpler subjects with fewer lightsources. Still-lives are the best way to learn how to handle lights and materials. There is no shame in doing so and it'll show you how to get past the hurdles that have been tripping you up. (It’s what I’ve been using my own sketchbook for, too.)