UIR still in the bathroom??? C'mon! 12/6/04

[Junkyard]

X-men Children: Ritz by Majik1387- Interesting concept. Don't think we needed his life story to know that that kid has some problems. Guys wearing makeup I'm open minded about. Guys using makeup to look like their mothers: that's one heebie too jeebie.

The Future Is Now by NightScroller- Good in the costume alteration, but I'd have worked a tad longer on getting the mask and body to match.

Original Concept: Oracle by MaidenRaine1300- More on the twisted lives of x-folk. Keep up the good work.

Alana De La Garza As Wonder Woman by KLA 1- Not bad. One tip: don't make a solid black outline around the star. It takes away from both the star and the metal.


Earth 2 Robin by bearbot- Love seeing charicters dug out of continuity. Great job, too.

Green Goblin by ali786- Interesting and resourcful use of methods and sources.

Coming Soon To Theatres Everywhere... by thenuclearman- No real complaints on this one. Subtle. Though honestly I'm not sure how they could pull off a Silver Surfer movie.

Supergirl by Force95B- I would have chosen a better base picture, but otherwise it's fine.


Superman Returns by dan_el- Quite good for the most part, but there are places here and there that look a bit smudgy or abrupt.

Lana Lang: Insect Queen by Junkyard- My two major mistakes, looking at it now: The mask looks fuzzy (probably a result of my getting lazy with the cut'n'paste) and I FORGOT TO ADD WRINKLES! BLAST IT! THAT'S what makes these airbrush things look like actual CLOTH. Any other suggestions are welcomed, as long as you put it in simple, Junkyard safe terms.

Katia Corriveau As Kenetic by Thayne_LuC- Nice. A little blurry about the neck.

Popbatman by k-man- Nice. I like this style as well.

Well, if it's not a partial update tonight, I'll probably fil in the other 4 later.

[B]

UIR

X-men Children: Ritz by Majik1387
Interesting character and backstory, cool design, fair manip. It's no better or worse than your other work, to be honest. The costuming's really blurry, as usual. I'd really suggest taking that little bit longer on your next pic to figure out how to deal with that, it's a regular problem with your work. Even the standard sharpen feature in most programs might well be able to help, or unsharp mask if you have that.

The Future Is Now by NightScroller
Quite good. The mask's just a touch blurry, but it looks good. If there's a problem with it, it's that the colour is just a touch off of the rest of the costume. Nice work on the symbol too. The background's okay, though I'm not sure it really has that much to do with Batman Beyond... I'd have gone for a futuristic cityscape or something like that.

Original Concept: Oracle by MaidenRaine1300
Cool character, nice design, good paint work. I quite like the hair. There's not really much else to say about this that someone or other hasn't said already about your other pics.

Alana De La Garza As Wonder Woman by KLA 1
This is cool, it's good to see something outside the usual style of manip. Nice work on the tiara and earrings, and on the toga. The hair seems really dark for some reason, you could maybe add a few highlights. And the background's a bit too busy in my opinion, I think something simpler would work better. As it is, it distracts a bit from the character herself.

Earth 2 Robin by bearbot
Good, but not your best. Nice costuming for the most part, though the cape collar looks a bit flat. In fact, the entire cape's a bit flat, maybe because it's overly bright. Not sure exactly, but it looks a bit off. There's also a nasty orange outline around some of his limbs. Definitely cool to see a pic of this sort of continuity-lost character, BTW.

Green Goblin by ali786
Very cool. Good work, as always. The armour texture is cool looking, if kind of... flat. It doesn't look to have any depth, like it's just pained on... probably because most of the patterns seem to just be added highlights with no added shadows to set them off and give the illusion of depth. And the purple capelet thingy is really flat as well, far too uniform in colour. But set against that, the overall design is cool, the mask looks great (I prefer it when it covers the whole face, but that's a design choice), and the background, pumpkin bomb and glider are sweet.

Coming Soon To Theatres Everywhere... by thenuclearman
Very cool. Less is most definitely more. Nice Poser work, nice effect, nice credits at the bottom, I like the way they're lit. I'm not too sure about the tagline/logo font, which is a bit hard to make out. Something more, well... silver, would be nice.

Supergirl by Force95B
Welcome to the DCG! I'd have definitely chosen a better base picture, the quality on this one is shot. The actual manipping is quite good. It's all really bright, and thus kinda cartoony and, as you say, you need to learn how to blend colours better, but it's a good first try. If you want to improve next time around, the very best advice I can give you is to check out Strangefish and Marcelo Gomes' start-to-finish tutorials in the art school. They'll describe what you should try far better than I can.

Superman Returns by dan_el
Awesome. Favourite pic of the day. Nice work on the costume, the colours are great. Great blues. I'm not a huge fan of ol' Supes (there, I admit it!), but I must say this makes him look pretty damn cool. Great use of black as well, that's some sweet lighting. My only complaint is that the highlights on his skin seem a bit overdone... really, really bright.

Lana Lang: Insect Queen by Junkyard
Trying new techniques is always good, quite regardless of whether or not you get them to work immediately. This is indeed similar to your early work, in that it really needs some more complex shading. More highlights especially, try to go for that shiny look we all love. The beginnings of that are there, you just need to figure out how much more you can go in that direction before it becomes overdone. You might also want to sharpen the details here a bit... the logo especially is a touch blurry.

Katia Corriveau As Kenetic by Thayne_LuC
Great work, especially for your second submission. I didn't get to comment on your debut, but that was very good as well. Nice textures, also very nice seams -- I love attention to detail! The problems I can see, all very minor, are some slightly messy edges, the lack of any shadow cast by her hand and some slight weirdness of lighting on the (screen) left shoulder... I get the impression there should be more highlights there. Maybe I'm wrong, though. It could also all be sharpened a bit (yeesh, I'm saying that a lot today!), and some of the highlights, especially on the black part of the (screen) left breast, are sort of painty-looking. Okay, I do that to, but I do intentionally, whereas you seem to be going for the classic airbrushed look. But never mind my nitpicks, this is superb for a sophomore effort. Congratulations!

Popbatman by k-man
Nice. Maybe a bit big, but nice. It's good a very simple look to it, which is perfect for pop art. Thumbs up.

[Force95B]

Thanks to Junkyard and B for your comments on my 1st try and debut here at the DCB. I agree with your assessment with regards to the model, and I have done all the tutorials in the school. I will be submitting my second manip, Harley Quinn, today. So hopefully when you see that, you will see some improvement. What about using the same model but this time clean up the picture? I actually don't like using the same model twice, but currently I'm working on this model with Photoshop Elements 2, to see if it looks better. Do you guys know of any blending colors tutorials, besides what is here? I'd like to have my work look like Thayne_Luc's, or some other artists who are quite good. Like yourselves. Like I said I only have PSP8 right now, but I'm hoping to get Photoshop CS, within the month. Thanks again for the input and I would gladly take more. Thanks.

[KLA 1]

Thank you, Junkyard and B. I can’t say why I used that black setting for the star ( other than seeing the inked lines in my old comics perhaps), and from any other direction than head on, I would agree.

B, I personally thought that the Greek garden with the ancient building was a good combo for the background since it was intended to represent her homeland. For me the busy part was the pigeons, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to scare them off.

Thanks again. If I can make time after work, I’ll try to add to the reviews.

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Seeking the black and white of truth, while treading along in a grayscale world.

[B]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Force95B:
Thanks to Junkyard and B for your comments on my 1st try and debut here at the DCB. I agree with your assessment with regards to the model, and I have done all the tutorials in the school. I will be submitting my second manip, Harley Quinn, today. So hopefully when you see that, you will see some improvement. What about using the same model but this time clean up the picture? I actually don't like using the same model twice, but currently I'm working on this model with Photoshop Elements 2, to see if it looks better. Do you guys know of any blending colors tutorials, besides what is here? I'd like to have my work look like Thayne_Luc's, or some other artists who are quite good. Like yourselves. Like I said I only have PSP8 right now, but I'm hoping to get Photoshop CS, within the month. Thanks again for the input and I would gladly take more. Thanks.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There's no problem with using the same model twice. I've done it, so've lots of other people. Just make sure to clean up the pic first!

Tutorials for blending colours? I usually just use the smudge tool. Blurring a bit also works. And dodge and burn a bit to get more realistic shading.

[B]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by KLA 1:
<B>B, I personally thought that the Greek garden with the ancient building was a good combo for the background since it was intended to represent her homeland. For me the busy part was the pigeons, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to scare them off.
</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I just meant that to me, all the small details and things in the background draw the eye away from the actual character. Something simpler would, in my opinion, compliment her better. That's my opinion, though, if you disagree, that's cool. It's your manip after all!

[Force95B]

I was reading through some posts and some questions have arisen. I can see that alot of you are close and know each other well, good to have that social aspect to life. I don't know if it is ok to post a comment on something like this question, what is poser? I know what A poser is, but I wasn't sure if poser is some program or what. I didn't want to start a new topic with a newbie question. Considering I'm over 30, I don't feel like a total newb. Anyway, I guess my point is that since I'm new to Photomanips, and using paint programs in general, I may have tons of questions. Is it okay to start a topic with a question or look around to see if I can attach it to another thread? One other quick question, I tried uploading my next entry and in order to get it under 90K I had to compress the heck out of it, and it doesn't look good, any thoughts? Should I compress the base photo first, making it .jpg and then draw?

Thanks, Force95B

[dperceful]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Force95B:
<B>I was reading through some posts and some questions have arisen. I can see that alot of you are close and know each other well, good to have that social aspect to life. I don't know if it is ok to post a comment on something like this question, what is poser? I know what A poser is, but I wasn't sure if poser is some program or what. I didn't want to start a new topic with a newbie question. Considering I'm over 30, I don't feel like a total newb. Anyway, I guess my point is that since I'm new to Photomanips, and using paint programs in general, I may have tons of questions. Is it okay to start a topic with a question or look around to see if I can attach it to another thread? One other quick question, I tried uploading my next entry and in order to get it under 90K I had to compress the heck out of it, and it doesn't look good, any thoughts? Should I compress the base photo first, making it .jpg and then draw?

Thanks, Force95B</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Poser (http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/1156/1/281?sbss=281) is a 3d modelling software package that mainly deals with human characters. Manip artists will use it to create base images....some of us cannot draw and it's useful in creating a pose from scratch. Check out the link (http://www.curiouslabs.com/article/articleview/1156/1/281?sbss=281) for more info.

As far as compression goes, here is the best way, at least that works for me. Flatten the image and save as jpg, use the slider to get under the 90k limit.

If you have more questions a new thread would be advised.....just create one, no one will mind. Just list all of your questions and one of use will answer.

Welcome to the DCG.

dan

[QuantumFX]

Katia Corriveau as Kenetic by Thayne_LuC: Thayne, your aiming at creating high quality images early. Keep that mindset!! You're doing a good job at implementing the ideas from the Start2Finish tutorial. I have 3 suggestions for you though. First, you need to avoid blurring legitimate sharp areas. (i.e the left bicep in the blue area.) You have these really strong edges between the black and the blue but it's not following through the rest of the image. Second, work on how smooth your lines are. It looks like you freehanded the erasing on the black parts of the costume. dpeirceful posted a great link to a tutorial on the pen tool you should read. Also you can make straight lines between 2 points by holding down the "shift" key between clicks. Using multiple clicks can make a nice, curved line. Lastly, You'll want to get more involved with costume textures. Grab a photo of a spandex catsuit from the internet and look at the material. A very slight noise filter can be used to mimic this effect.

Force95b: I have some ideas for you. Unfortunately, my time is short right now so I have to post them tomorrow morning PST.

[Thayne_LuC]

Let me say first, WOW! I seriously wasn't expecting such praise from idols such as all of you. Someone should tell my mentor Zac.

Yes this is my 2nd manip. Also, I wanted to say to Force, check out heromorph for the start2finish tutorial. That's what I used for both my first and 2nd manip. The advantage the 2nd manip had was Halo 2 took over and gave me time to leave, so that when I came back I had fresh eyes to deal with. Also, I've been working on my edges, but at present I'm working with a mouse. After Christmas this should change according to a close friend. Once again, thanks alot!

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Im alive.......sorta

[ali786]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Thayne_LuC:
<B>Let me say first, WOW! I seriously wasn't expecting such praise from idols such as all of you.

</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

throw me the idols and I'll throw you the whip!