venomai

Interesting colours, it also reminds me of lord of the rings. The pixel font needs to go, and I think the whole design logo thing might look better on the bottom. Otherwise, nice job. Can we see the originals?

Did you draw the horse? That part looks great, but it's out of place and looks skewed.. The rest of the drawing is bland, you need a lot more detail and some of the lines are wobbly. The colours are nice, but I think the sky would work well if it was a cold blue -- that and the warm desert colours would work well together imo. Good start though, hope to see more. :)

:| What's the point in this? His skill in a program he's obviously not used too often wouldn't change how good or bad of an artist he is, let alone give you or anyone else the right to flame him for that reason. A great painter can still be a fantastic artist even if his/her skill in the program Terragen is utter crap. And this artist would have a good idea as to how a piece could be improved artistically, even if (s)he isn't familiar with the said program. EDIT: Oh, I may have misread your post. :| Fiddlesticks...

Flame or no flame, this thread is 5 solid pages of intense discussion and critiques on art and design, not to mention lots of criticism on the actual piece at hand! Definitely not worth a locking... :D Personally, I'm going to have to agree with what GSW and Keiphus are saying. Your stuff often looks cool and realistic, but nearly everything you make just looks like a poor quality photograph from a tourist's point of view -- not an artist's. This new piece is a bit of a jump forward, more outgoing colours and forms, but like GSW was saying, it lacks the basic principles of design and doesn't look much like art. As for the whole 3D/2D thing, why don't we just say that Terragen is a *very* basic 3D Application, but not a 3D Modeling program. Modeling abilities are so non-existant in this program that it would be inane to place it next to those programs like 3dsmax, Maya, even Bryce. But the terrain itself is still constructed on x, y, and z planes (unless I'm mistaken?), can be interactively rotated and positioned, and therefore could be considered somewhat of a 3-Dimensional Application. No?

7 and 8 are great. They all have some very original concepts, and are well executed. Keep 'em coming. :) The longest word in the English dictionary is Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Like.. Duh. :roll: I'm not kidding

Ouch. I'd hate my girlfriend to love a picture more than me. o-o Maybe he meant "she loved it more than I did", instead of "she loves it more than she loves me?". :| Nice pixel. Good highlights and cool simplistic shading style. On the left character, the hair seems to wrap around the eyeballs a tad too much, and the sig itself is a little too dark for my tastes, but the drawing itself is cute. :)

Cool start, I like the detail. But where is the light source? The lighting on the pillars seems off. The shading is great, not pillow at all. Looks like stone and has a classic sprite art feel to it. Keep it up.

Here's my opinion. It's biased, as I'm most experienced in Max, and can't personally stand using any other programs next to 3dsmax. 3dsmax Great modeling abilities, much more beginner-friendly than most other programs, yields clean models, awesome UV tools, great particle systems, and a lot of available plug-ins to improve just about any feature you want. The default r/s is great and pretty quick. Best of all, using your mouse roller can give you complete control over your view/camera positions and it makes everything MUCH easier. On the downside, it's very expensive. Maya A lot like 3dsmax. NURB modeling and rigging is easier (and better, i believe) in this. A little more advanced, less beginner-friendly IMO. Probably the best choice for pro's, not so much as a hobby. More expensive than max at my last check. Cinema 4D + Blender 3D Modeling abilities are poor imo: much more difficult to use, not as clean, and not nearly as dynamic. Skinning, rendering, lighting, camera positioning, and plugin-availability is much worse than in the two programs mentioned above. The good thing is that they are much cheaper (blender is free). And once you fully learn how the program works (which may take a while) your models may look somewhat cool. The best choices if all you want to do is basic abstracts. Tablet: Not too useful strictly for modeling, best to save your money for the programs themselves (assuming you'll be buying them?). If you plan on getting into digital painting/drawing (ie: skinning your models with realisticly drawn maps) this is definitely a great choice. These are costly though, so if you don't plan on getting into drawing/painting they aren't worth it. :) Hope it helps, sorry if everything's a little biased, but after trying all of the programs mentioned above, I strongly believe that 3dsmax or Maya are the best choices.

Though I can't deny that there was virtually no effort put into the second thread, there was still a small (but helpful) critique given.. So the thread itself can be considered useful, even if the original post was pointless. It doesn't matter too much though, all the almost useless WIP threads die quickly. Ironically, most of the replies in them will just be complaints about not having enough progress in the "W.I.P." hah.. i can't say i fully agree with you, but thanks! :lol: :oops: PS: LOL I love the "do not rip" watermark placed on that first thread blazer showed us... :lol: :lol:

Maybe you could show us all these WIP threads you think are so terrible that they do not deserve to be in the media board? Because so far, this has got to be the only WIP thread which I've ever seen as completely useless. If you are finding that WIP threads are cluttering up the board too much, you can send in a private request to an admin to install a new board called something like "Media WIPs".

It looks fantastic. But imo, the background is far too busy and the facial shading could still use some work. If you're aiming for a more realistic shading technique on the face, you should learn about the planes... Andrew Loomis does a great job of explaining his plane technique with text and drawings... http://saveloomis.org/headhands/32.htm (click the page a couple times if you just want to jump on to the drawings) Nevertheless; far better than I could ever do, that's a given. :)

You don't need to remove it. :) You have to learn from your mistakes to move on... Firstly, it's a tad too clustered, and is smothered in way too many effects. You've got too many boxes, they need their own pages to make the site more user-friendly (and easier to code). Next, the fonts... They all need improvement. Look for simple fonts, and try not to use such a large range of font faces in your designs. The "News" & "Updates" fonts look alright, but the effects, size, and positioning ruins them. Last... the colours. It looks dark and bland, not the professional, sleek look you should be aiming for (or at least learning from). :) Nice though, you could probably sell it to a clan for some decent money if you weren't going to use it. :lol:

I like using my tablet for some pixels, it speeds everything up quite a bit. But buying a tablet just for pixel sigs would be a waste of your money. Do note that a tablet will not increase your pixel art skills, just the speed at which you complete the project (if even that). The only thing it may help at is sketching the concept (not the actual pixeling itself). And keep in mind, a tablet takes a lot of practice to get used to... In short - a mouse will do fine for pixels. Now, digital paintings are a different story...

Oh, hehee... sorry about that mix up :lol: They are nice little doodads though.. might look nice if you experimented with similar ones.

Better than 5/10 - don't worry. :) This is a great improvement from your last, to say the least. I think you should really work on sketches and linework before diving into shading and details, though. The shading is good on this, but the figure is a bit of a turn-off, and needs a lot of improvement. It looks like the proportions and perspective of the figure needs the most work. And, IMO, you should try to improve your human figure drawings before moving on to ogres, trolls, and other humanoids. Remember that linework can still be great drawings, even if it doesn't have shading or details. Anatomy, proportions and perspective is just as important in creating a nice drawing. :wink:

Quer has made a great edit, and a few of the things should be easy to fix and will come out with a much better result. Abdomen area fix, part of forearm visible. Yours is too straight. Chest fix, slopes inward and around his "breasts". Cool designs -- simple so it doesn't get too busy, wish you'd have kept em (or something similar). Your muscle needs a bit of work, QS fixed it a lot with the additional line. Past that, I think the middle mountain should be nudged over to the left 2-4 pixels and you should work on your flesh tones and skin shading.

Haha omg this made my day. If anyone catches this guy's RS Name, you should report it to Jagex so they can be banned. It's people like this that give 'sig selling' a reputation as a "scamming, easy-profit operation that requires no skill". This is why Jagex is becoming more and more reluctant to allow sig selling for RS profit, they see one ripper and think it must be happening everywhere... :?

It looks like a good pixel and all, but I honestly can't tell what it is and what's happening to it. The green is a bit of a turn-off... Although I can't say that I know what it is, it's a nice shading technique. :) Good start, if you could make it more obvious it would look a lot better.

Col, I really don't see why you're against references, it's a fine way to start off as a beginner. It helps us understand how light and shadows affect a certain object, and can also be of huge help when starting at a certain type of anatomy, or for learning how perspective & foreshortening works. Many professionals will even use references from time to time. They aren't bad sketches, but the proportions and "linework" need improvement . The sketches themselves do not much resemble the references (same idea, but different positions, angles etc...). You've put in some nice detail though, which is always good. The shading has gotten a lot better, but it's unfortunately not too realistic, you should try to draw your shading more like the shading in your references. PS: Hehe, I used the same zombie pic as a reference for one of my last few sketches :P

It's kinda hazy on the top, and not much post editing. Your landscapes don't seem to have much photoshopping either, you really should try to experiment a lot more with it. :wink: Especially for abstract jumbles, they are very easy to quickly edit once you get the hang of it. I've seen the slice thing look good in a few designs, but I don't think it works at all in this one.

Simply outstanding. :o I'm not much of a fan of that particular grain-like texture, and some of the rounded corners could do with a very slight amount of AA. The green-circle positioning could be better, but maybe that's just me.

Hm, for one it looks like you went too far with shadows, it needs more highlights, and some of the armor should be in different tones. The proportions aren't bad, but from what I can see a bit of the perspective looks off. Cool sketch though. :) Hope to see more from you!

Really? :o But how do stock images work? If they are copyrighted by default, wouldn't you be able to sue somebody for using copyrighted work without direct permission?

HA! That gave me a good laugh... who posted it? Mercifull, I don't think Terley's sig was ever copyrighted in the first place. So it would actually be legal to rip it, and the info you posted wouldn't apply... :? They've cleared it up though, and for next time, use: http://watermarks.deviantart.com/ ;)

I'm glad you changed the anime face, I think it weakened the entire piece. This is awesome so far, hope you keep up the great work! :D