steampunk: missed deadline entry.. wips

[W-I-L]

some progress.. i will need to re do miss muffett as the anatomy is all wrong on shoulder and head

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/486/wip2wa6.jpg
By w_i_l (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/w_i_l) at 2009-01-24

[W-I-L]

got rid of miss muffett as she is not working for me and so i can concentrate on everthing else. WIL PUT HER IN AFTER

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/3213/wip3muffetug2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By W_I_L (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/W_I_L)
SPIDER
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7188/spiderlf0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By W_I_L (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/W_I_L)

[CybrGfx]

The body looks pretty good, but the legs aren't visually believable. They look like wires stuck into plastic, static...

You should also decide at this stage how "bright" you want this to be. In general, the concept behind Steampunk has it somewhat dark and gritty, rather than "plastic bright" in hue and saturation. But perhaps your vision is one of a "cheerful" steampunk effect. I can't say, except to point the distinction out to you, if you were unaware, since this seems a little "Strawberry Shortcake" cheerful...

~C

[W-I-L]

finished background pretty much. got rid of the bridge and zeppelin as it was looking too cluttered, and would have even more when i ad miss muffet back in.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/8218/wip4uk1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[W-I-L]

CybrGfx- yeah i agree about the legs. Have been ignoring the flaws i guess. not very good at tech design.
As for the strawberry shortcake cheerful I dont really know what u mean. Little miss muffett is quite a dark nursery rythm- and my image i woudn't say was cheerful. the girl is perched on the edge of a cliff, while in the backgorund there is a town that (presumably?) she has run away from. it is getting dark as you can see from my image it is around dusk and a menacing mechanical spider has turned up... sent to bring her back perhaps?

so where the bright comes in I don't know?

[W-I-L]

http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/3127/wip5de5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
By W_I_L (http://profile.imageshack.us/user/W_I_L)

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/8362/wip6ob4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Now working on miss Muffett. I think this position makes her look more scared, like she has just fallen off in fright. I am now going more for a serious figure. when i started i drew line art more cartoon like, and wasn't going to go so paintly and detailed but I like how its going now. what do you think of the figure. I have edited it and redrawn so many times and it is a hard position to draw but i think it looks right. I have flipped the image both ways and it looks ok.
Now to start detailing.


ARGGGGGGG! just looked again with fresh eyes and she is way to small. she looks like an elf rather than a human. back to work again

[CybrGfx]

CybrGfx- yeah i agree about the legs. Have been ignoring the flaws i guess. not very good at tech design.
As for the strawberry shortcake cheerful I dont really know what u mean. Little miss muffett is quite a dark nursery rythm- and my image i woudn't say was cheerful. the girl is perched on the edge of a cliff, while in the backgorund there is a town that (presumably?) she has run away from. it is getting dark as you can see from my image it is around dusk and a menacing mechanical spider has turned up... sent to bring her back perhaps?

so where the bright comes in I don't know?Well, first off, you are assuming far too much from your audience and placing far more emphasis on your rendering skills than you possess...
* Edge of a cliff ~ What cliff? I don't see ANYTHING that shows any type of dangerous drop-off, or extreme height. We've all gone out for a hike, and sat there looking at everything off in the distance.
*Town that (presumably?) she has run away from ~ And just HOW, pray tell, is the viewer supposed to surmise any of that from your image? She is not carrying a suitcase, or a rucksack, or anything to indicate that she is journeying. She could be living up there, for all we know...Your image is supposed to tell the story from being looked at. If you have to type explanations of what the viewer should be presuming, you are not rendering things right...That town was originally even less visible because of the dominant fence you painted (which also negated much sense of "cliff" or "heights").
*It's getting dark ~ Um, no. While you have a low sun, the sky is too light, the giant dark shape (smog? clouds?) around the city is FAR more dominant than any percieved sunset. You also do not indicate any of the shadow lengthening that shows a setting sun...
*A menacing mechanical spider has turned up ~ Dude. That spider is about as menacing as a plastic Cootie bug toy from the '60s...http://www.fdlpl.org/graphics/cootie.jpg. Beyond his cheerful "Yellow Taxi" color, your lack of attention to the mechanical details in rendering him minimizes any "threat" he presents. The way most fantasy images run, I thought he was her companion...

I am honestly surprised that you don't see the "brightness" of this image. Regardless your intent, you have rendered a fairly cheerful looking scene, except for the smog behind the town. I don't care if you are illustrating "The Silence of the Lambs," if you use high contrast colors (the yellow of the spider) and too high an overall gamma, punctuated with uber bright highlights on things (what are those rocks made of, porcelain?), your MOOD is going to be bright. As I wrote, Steampunk is a somewhat "gritty and grungy" type of technology image. Muted colors, softer lighting. Do some research if you still don't understand.

AND, one last point. You expect the viewer to see this dark tale of Miss Muffet in this somewhat blah scenario, fully understanding and being able to interpret your adjustive interpretation of a very classic poem...
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a TUFFET
EATING her curds and whey (Cottage cheese)
When along came a spider,
Who SAT DOWN BESIDE HER
and frightened Miss Muffet AWAY

No tuffet, no cottage cheese, no eating untensils (although a bowl is a start), no sitting beside, and certainly no "away."
So don't get defensive and rightous about your concept, when your concept has veered enough from the source to NOT be easily recognizable, and your rendering does not fill in the gaps for the viewer to be cognizant of the original intent...

Here is a simple adjustment to make the MOOD a bit darker...
http://s4b.directupload.net/images/090202/j8agrjmt.jpg
Hopefully you better understand now, what I meant by "bright..."

~C

[CybrGfx]

W.I.L., this piece is a prime example of "going off, half-cocked."

You did not think this image through very well before you started, you did not make sufficient (if any) thumbnail comps to figure out your composition, you did not have a clear goal in mind, nor a clear plan on how to get there. If you did, you lost it somewhere after the first update...

You've now essentially changed EVERYTHING that made this image cute and visually catchy, and the only thing you've left is the goofy looking toy spider thing...And quite honestly, it ain't that great to have kept.
The girl looks wierd, the really interesting zeppelin is gone, the interesting place she was sitting has become some odd solid lump, and quite honestly, it's starting to slog and bog down more with each update...(and that road you painted looks like she has been shot in the head, with the smoke rising up from her head, explaining her wierd positioning.

Truthfully, I suggest you back this puppy up to your first revision, get rid of the stupid fence, get rid of the stupid spider, and get rid of the nursury rhyme concept. It's just not working, and you are not easily going to beat it into submission.

Go back to that second image, and just have that really, REALLY cute little gal sitting there, looking at the zeppelin drifting across the sky in all its Steampunk glory. Get rid of the bright yellows, crop off the boring bottom and the (now spiderless) right edge, and tighten up the composition, getting back to your original envisioning of this. It's truly cute, and MUCH better than anything you've posted since for this image. ESPECIALLY that cute Miss M.

~C

[CybrGfx]

And, the more I look at it, the more "NSFW" that pose looks...Steampunk kinky...http://smiley.onegreatguy.net/wha.gifhttp://smiley.onegreatguy.net/yay2.gif

~C

[W-I-L]

CybrGfx- I find your lengthy and somewhat spiteful reply a bit hard to digest, seeing as I only disagreed (heaven forbid!) with a portion of your comment that the mood was bright. (I even agreed about the spiders legs and have taken that on board, so why you feel the need to put the spider down several times, too the point of googleing an image of a toy bug, is beyond me.), I was not talking about the brightness off the image in terms of hue or colour but the mood. I am not saying this is requiem for a dream dark or even that dark in subject but nor is it strawberry shortcake or disney-esque in my opinion.
I know full well the tones are not all there right now, but the darker shades will come through as well as more details as I progress. That is why it is in the wip forum. It means a work in progress, in case you don't understand.

Anyway, cliffs or drop off. I will give you the benefit of the doubt on this one and assume you really cannot see it, but too make it a bit clearer, here
http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/3861/cliffhy1.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

And as for your comment on typing the explanations for the viewer that is not my intention. What I was trying to illustrate to you was that sometimes there should be more to an image than just your original subject matter, other things that the viewer can look at and make there own mind up about. If you see this girl on a cliff alone and then notice the small town on the horizon naturally one would assume she has some link to that town, so that its not just some random blob of paint to fill in the canvas. Maybe she has run away. Maybe she is travelling there and stopped to eat. Who knows, that is up to the viewer who hopefully has a little imagination. Having no rucksack or travelling equipment could also raise questions, and one might assume she didn't have time indicating a chase or danger.

As for being for away from my subject matter I disagree.
Little Miss Muffet
Sat on a TUFFET
EATING her curds and whey (Cottage cheese)
When along came a spider,
Who SAT DOWN BESIDE HER
and frightened Miss Muffet AWAY

As you can see from my original drawing she was indeed on a tuffett and had dropped her bowl and had a spoon in her hand (eating utensils.) since I have erased her and repainted her I have been concentrating on her figure, creating a more frightened pose, like she has jumped and fallen AWAY. The bowl and tuffett are rather crude black blobs right now if you look but they have also fallen off the rock she was sitting on. As for her new pose seeming risque perhaps I should explain what i mean when i say that the poem is dark. An interpretation of it is virginal innocece lost, A young girl being lusted after with the dark intentions of the male labido. And as for keeping literally to the poem I do believe there is such a thing as artistic licence (many classic pics do not show the spider sitting beside her but rather dangling)... and more than that common sense. You cannot show miss muffett at once sitting on a tuffett and being frightened away in a still picture at the same time. THINK!

As for taking my image without permission or request and adjusting it I find extremely rude. Congratulations on showing me the error of my ways with your simplistic interpretation that dark mood needs dark (well its more dull by your revised offering) tones.

Classic example of going off half cocked huh? That’s just plain rude and inaccurate. I did many different thumbnails of the compositions and miss muffetts design before I settled on this one. You state as fact I didn't think this through. How the hell do you know?
When it came to painting I no longer liked miss muffetts pose, the anatomy was wrong as I said and I do believe I am allowed to change anything I want even if it was not in my original idea, maybe not so if it was a approved commissioned piece from rough stage but as a personal piece yes I can, and in fact love experimenting on the canvas.
Btw what fence? There as never a fence in my image. A bridge way off in the distance below in style of the ones made for old steam trains to cross over valleys- yes, but no fence. I even mentioned it as a bridge which leads me to assume your not even reading or spending much time looking at the image you crit.
I have read some of your other comments on other peoples wips and I am getting the form that you are a bit of an art Nazi, this is the one way you should do it and that’s it. Plan out everything and don’t deviate. There is such a thing as just going with the flow, with alot of thought and imagination behind it, as you go. All you have to do is look at Daryl Mandrakes (Blackarts) work on the grand space opera challenge and you will see he just mucked in and experimented, erased elements, re-did things, painted over and adjusted along the way and he created a lovely piece and won.

And just as a final note. We can all extensively read art theory and study all the tutorials on creating digital or non digital artwork across the whole of the internet and then think we are qualified to then, in a very holier than thou fashion, tell others how it should be done. But knowing art theory and putting it into practice are two very different things. To be frank I find it very suspect that you have no work to view whatsoever.

A case of those who can't do, crit?

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you can paint over the Sistine chapel and do a better job of it than Michelangelo. But quite frankly it wouldn't matter, because the manner in which you deliver you very unconstructive critsism is condescending and ugly and leaves it worthless.

[CybrGfx]

Oh, poor baby.

You ask for a critique, and then, if it isn't delivered to you liking, you cry and then get defensive and rude...
Cry me a river.

I answered your confusion regarding the concept of your image being too "Bright" to be "Steampunk." Who are YOU to then tell me my explanation is worthless, because you didn't like the delivery? Why'd you ask, then?

You (among others) seem to have a comprehension issue, in that you cannot seem to understand that when you ask people for their opinions, you get them. You are never under any obligation to adhere to them, but neither are you entitled to whine about the comments you receive. I have not insulted you when I insult your pseudo-porn posing of a badly rendered figure. Get over yourself.

By getting snarky with me, or cussing me out, or any other sad, immature, reaction you may feel compelled to act out on these forums, you do absolutely nothing to harm me, but you do yourself harm as an artist, and as a human being.

As an artist, you deprive yourself of the ability to improve, because you cannot behave in a professional manner. You cut yourself off from the message, because you don't like the messenger...Hey, no skin off mine (or anyone else's) nose.

As a Human, you deprive yourself of the ability to function on a public Internet forum, without coming across as some 14 year old who has never been told that they are anything less than wonderful, and to never believe anyone who says otherwise...Not real encouraging for honest feedback, which takes you back to improving as an artist...ESPECIALLY when you consider that you are complaining about a critique, in a forum SPECIFICALLY designated for "critiques..."

Your original image showed promise. Your succeeding images have shown less and less. The last one was just bad...I don't have to "prove" anything to anyone, anywhere, in order to be able to look at bad art and say I think it's bad. You (ungrateful as you are) are actually lucky that I am able to clearly and succinctly point out to you WHY it looks "bad."
Take your last version to any 5 people you know, and ask THEM if it looks like porn...THEN you can have your rightous attitude...

And no. My opinions, observations, and suggestions are NOT "worthless." Just because YOU can't see the value in them, many other artists reading these forums DO learn, and remember when they are posing prostrate ladies with their thighs spread wide in front of a kinky plastic mecho-spiders....lol!
~C

[thegiffman]

CybrGfx,

You have good things to say - none can deny. People clearly benefit from your input. However, I daresay they benefit in spite of your rude and condescending comments, and not because of them. Frankness is welcome - but your posts often seem to lack common courtesy. As in, if you were to say these things to someone in person, you'd quite possibly get punched in the face (and therefore saying it online has an element of cowardice to it).

If you need me to do a "paintover" of one of your posts, to show you how you can be just as frank and bracing without being a jerk, I'd be happy to oblige.

W-I-L,

You should not consider a "paintover" as an insult or offensive in any way. This is commonly done without permission as a form of communication on these forums, and is generally a very helpful thing for someone to devote the time to do. Most likely you found it insulting because of all the, well, insults accompanying it, but if you find paintovers themselves insulting, then I suggest you either say so in the opening post or not use this medium, because it is standard practice.

[Kirt]

This thread is now closed.

I really do not appreciate that I was put into the position of making this decision, but it's clear from the exchange of words here that artist and critic are not able to conduct themselves in a professional manner on this forum.

Therefore I am suggesting that all involved re-evaluate their attitudes and purposes for visiting the WIP forum. If you can not maintain a more professional attitude and respect for each other then I'm asking you not return to this forum.

That's a warning. You won't get many more if this behavior continues.