WARpaint

[Azrael]

This is a personal project I am working on (not that I have any commissioned ones). This is an idea that I have been tossing around for a while and when I came across a sweet underpainting tutorial, I decided to give it a go. The idea is a literal satire on the modern battlefield that we currently wage our wars on; the office. To start I have worked on developing a character with the right position and camera angle as you see below. Being that I am the only artist that I personally know, it is difficult to get any constructive feedback other than the usuall pat on the rear from the family, so I am fishing for some good solid crits. Please let me know you thoughts as I stumble through this one.

Below is the first phase where I am underpainting the values and giving the character some definition.

[Snowball]

Hi, I really see you have some nice detail coming through on the hands, keep that up and you will have a very nicely defined piece..but I am sensing something odd with the head...not sure if its too big for the whole body, or if the actual torso of the character is too small..somethings a little off for sure.
Just curious, did this piece start off as a simple sketch, or did you begin with those blocked in shapes of color? Thats all I have for tonight, catch ya later.

[Azrael]

Thanks Snowball. I have the same feeling about the head too. I'm hoping that I can play around with it a bit untill it looks right. To answer your question, I frist sketched out the idea of the pose, then took a picture for a ref and sketched it from the ref to get the demensions right. below are the two sketches:

[Azrael]

Today's update:

[nakirush]

Wow, it's coming together pretty good! The only thing that bugs me in the last update is his last arm. It almost looks like it's dislocated.. it's either where the bulge in the arm is or where the seam on the shoulder is. Keep it up!

[Azrael]

Here's today's update.

[Peter Stapleton]

I really like this pic so far!
His left arm bothers me just a bit though. The lower forearm and wrist looks a bit thick to me. I also agree with nakirush, in that his shoulder looks a bit off. Could be to do with the folds in his shirt.They are not as well rendered as the rest of the shirt.

[Synthesiz3D]

Great piece so far. I love the concept!

One thing, the warpaint on the characters right side looks a little funny? I think maybe it is spaced a little too far apart? in comparsion to the warpaint being applied on the left.

[Azrael]

Finally managed to fandangle a background. It is still in a rough state, but the forms are blocked in.

[Hendric VII]

I am enjoying the work progress. This could be a tutorial if you wanted it to be. I like the office warrior concept. I'm looking forward to seeing you complete it.

[Lotet]

realy cool, love the concept, and the smiley tie is awsome

[Azrael]

alright, so I had some time today to work on ths piece. I sat down and spent about an hour working on a sky for the window in the background that I ended up scraping because it was taking away from the main point of the pic. Time, is very valuable in my life right now, so I that kinda sucked. The good thing is the real fun has begun. The building of the scene. I have been adding elements, playing with them here and there, detailing the characters a bit more and adding some color overlays to get a a feel for the palette. There are still many elements to add, but here is where I am at at this point.

[eboy]

Heya, really like the progression through evolved stages. What I have noticed is the ground where his forward foot is placed, I feel is a bit light. Gives it the appearance that its floating. I think some more shadowing and maybe even some bounce light would give it a more solid feel to the ground. Same goes with his right knee, unless ofcourse it is raised from the ground. I think also give his left lower arm the same shading as you gave the other. It appears flatter. Other then that its a cool concept. Especially like the rendering of the shirt and the added touch of the smilie on his tie ;)

eBoy

[Azrael]

Thanks for the focused eye eboy! You pointed out some great elements that I wouldn't have noticed myself. I plan on adding quite a bit more "touches" to amuse the eyes as I build the image.

Here is a detail of the calender. I plan on roughing it up a bit with some more contrast as I define the lighting of the image.

[Pound]

When I saw your sketch, I was concerned as it looked so stiff, but now with all the details, i can see it's really quite realistic. It's a beaty BTW, and I couldn't do anything like it, but I can tell the ink pot needs to be more rounded at the bottom, so as to agree with current perspective. I mgiht psot my idea in a minute.

[Pound]

here we go:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/7579/facebeforeafter2copymq8.gif

Full Image

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8648/poses00164554improvedrj9.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=poses00164554improvedrj9.jpg)

I bettered the perspective of the ink pot, and made some more skin tones, and added highlights and shading. Also chnaged the head slightly to show form better. But it's only a bit, cus I didn't wnt to do it for you.

[Azrael]

Hey Pound, thanks for taking the time for the paintover. I really like the directions you took. Something was off on the face that I couldn't quite place. the curvature of the forhead and the slight of the brow makes a much bigger impact. I will take the same direction when I adjust. Kudos!

[llothcat]

Looks better now that you've fixed the skin tones a bit. Look forward to seeing the changes that Pound suggested.

I also suggest doing the same to the rest of the skin, to make it look more lifelike.

[Pound]

Yes, I would do it to the rest of the skin, i only did a bit in the red circle, very quickly. Also I hope you don't mind I did it Azreal, infact if it's any consolation, I quite enjoyed doing it :D

Anyway can't wait to see teh imporvements.

[Azrael]

Good suggestions. I planned on introducing more levels of color and variation as I move on with the image. I have only started blocking in color at this point, I plan on making highlights the last step. Much appreciated. :)

[Azrael]

Not a huge update today, dispite the hours I put in on it. I added some detail to the face, worked some skin variations and tweeked the levels of the background. Still undecided whether I want to color the background.

[Azrael]

I'm stickin a fork in it. I tweaked the arms, colors, values, filled in some details of the background and face and added some elements to the background. Thanks to everybody for your helpful crits on this. This is the first piece that I have devoted more than eight hours to and I'm pretty happy with the results.

[BranDoom]

this is realy cool. I like it.

[Lotet]

woho, bumpage of old posts, love this pic^^