Android Blues - character

#52

No, sorry… so nice of you to ask, I feel like a jerk for not being able to send you one. But there’s only this one low-res version for now. Maybe later I might up-res it if I have time… :slight_smile:

#53

Awesome concept Steven. However the right foot looks “odd” to me in both versions… in the original version it looks like she has thick ankles, while in the second her foot looks flat… like it is missing some volume or the perspective is wrong. I think the latter is the case.

Love the peek at her face in the second version though. That being said, this is overall a terrific piece, I get a feeling of hopelessness when I look at it… like she has just given up.

Bil

#54

Psychologically speeking, emotions are stored in the body. We all recognize this unconsciously far better than we do consciously. That said, a viewer understands what a slouched posture means emotionaly.

I don’t think you need to show the face to convey the emotions you want. (in fact I think they communicate pretty well as is) I think the main problem you’re having is that you don’t have a shoulder to accentuate the slouch (give it that final little tweek of meaning). But the further you’ve been ‘pushing the posture’ on the rest of the body, the clearer it becomes what she’s feeling.

personally, I think it’s pretty clear. I feel bad for her. it’s like she’s getting rained on too!

#55

Sadness from the hanging head. Confusion from the absence of the arm yet presence of a screwdriver.

#56

this reply should be in the focused crit… but…
DAMN YOUR SKIN SHADING!!!
never better.

#57

stephen,

its a great composition,
in my opinion, the nudity distracts from intented emotion of the piece… her clothes etc indicate her intelligence (and her capacity for experiencing melancholy)… theres a certain schoolgirl look about her which doesn’t make me really empathise with her (hey maybe there are alot of schoolgirls who might disagree) but to me it suggests shes more “sad” than melancholic… it puts a visible limit on the depth and maturity of her emotion and makes me feel uncomfortable with empathising with her… I’d personally go for either more clothes, or stylising it a bit (a leg band perhaps… a symbolic tattoo…) to indicate to the viewer that they shouldn’t be placing any preconceptions as to her scenario (prostitute?) because she obviously is from another time/place…

you’re right about showing the face, however using the hairband is imho a bad device for achieving this… i doubt she would have the drive to pin her hair back like that if she is melancholic… Assuming she has recently lost her arm, there would probably have been some kind of struggle which would have loosened her hair from its tie, and I doubt she would have pinned it up after losing her arm (generally speaking, tying my hair up is the last thing i’m thinking about when i lose my arm… especially when its on a side of my head which is awkward to pin back using my one good arm…) I’ve put on half/half so you can see the face subtly enough to just get an idea of what she looks like, but no so much that it seems forced…

this is totally subjective here, but i’d like to see her focus her blues on something visible (so I can see what she is thinking about). As it stands, her blues are hidden in her mind… her staring at something in her hand gives me the feeling that there is another action about to take place… its not empty despair, but despair which will lead to some further action… (personally i think she’s thinking about wedging that screwdriver into her CPU and ending it all… but thats just me. :slight_smile: ) This might ruin your beautifully painted hand, so i didn’t really want to suggest it… but there… i said it! :)… I’d think a little about the scenario too… has she been banished? where is she? an alley? a basement? what is she holding in her hand and why? who did this… what is she thinking? what is she feeling? (eg. ‘I hate myself for the decisions that led to me being in this situation’ or ‘I resign myself to having no arm and must now consider if it is worth living or dying?’ or ‘Boy i think i really like vanilla?’)

The stump of the arm looks a little strange in my opinion also, as I don’t believe a clean break of an arm (robotic or otherwise) would occur that close to the neck… i’ve stretched it out a little in my modified version here to try and fix this, while at the same time getting rid of the ‘roundness’ of the hole

the rolls in the stomach aren’t as convincing as the could be (but you probably knew that) the right breast looked a little flat… ie there wasn’t any shading or shadow as there should be (as indicated by the other breast and the shadow on the wall) the bra sits flat against the breast, which it wouldn’t if it was loose like that

i’ve included an image here with some (really messy and rushed) modifications

those are my thoughts… very picky, and very subjective (but thats what you came here for right?) its a really brilliant piece, but could be made even better by further clarifying the context in which it sits…

cheers
lachlan

#58

hm… very emotional picture there mr stahlberg, the darks surroundings give a dark impression and emotion of the the android…

     her torn clothing, broken mechanical arm with abit of blood stains and stretched legs expressess her sadness there as well as the screw driver..... but  abit of suggestion though, I quite agree with jebwst... the refference image he provided of a child crying wrapping her arms around her kness invoked plenty of sadness, depression and the distress feeling, well having tears plopping on the surface in front of the android would show just how sad she is being unable to repair her other arm with her left...... just a suggestion... 

     anyway.. really good image you worked on there...........
#59

tehehe “show just how sad she is being unable to repair her other arm with her left…”

maybe instead of a screwdriver she could be holding a pair of nail clippers… now THATS cause for blues! :wink:

ok… i’ll be quiet now :smiley:

lachlan

#60

The first thing I did when I looked at the image, was reach for my shoulder. ;).

I think you’d be able to evoke a little more emotion, if you have her trying to take her crying/depressed/upset face off like a mask. Or have it lying on the ground next to her.

Another thing that I would suggest is to completely remove her clothes, and not giving her any human features (nipples and gentialia). This would communicate a more sincere depression, since she is beyond the point of trying to conceal herself. That ‘cold, naked and lonely feeling’.

The last thing I’d suggest is to use much colder colours for the skin, they feel a bit to warm.

The tear drops on the floor are a nice touch, and it works really well compositionally!

#61

I think it looked better without the black top.

Reminds me of the original Guns n’ Roses - Appetite for Destruction cover btw…

#62

It’s great to see so much active and quality feedback. I have been so busy that I have been neglecting this forum that I started – sorry.

Personally – I liked the first version of this image. I would suggest a lower angle on the shadow on the rear wall so that the shadow dissapears of the left of the image. THis does not mean that you have to make the main light that low – thats the beauty of doing things in 3D. You can cheat on the lighting to heighten the mood.

I would also dirty up the scene – small amounts of rubish on the floor and dirtier wall. At the same time clean up the detail in the arm socket. Both these things together would heighten the contrast between the shiny robotic interior and the desolution of the overall scene.

I did like the idea of the strips of blue light entering from the top – although I would have tried making the strips wider and weaker and washing the entire scene with them… sort of a subconcious hint of light through prison bars reinforcing the desperation of the girl and her feeling of entrapment.

#63

Thanks guys, the helpful ideas just keep coming. :slight_smile:
That top could be okay, but maybe not black, but dark grey. Bluer skintone is probably right. Cropping more of the legs looks better too. Focusing more on the screwdriver by putting it in her hand is good, but I had in mind that she just went limp as she gave up, and the tool fell to the ground. I don’t know, maybe the tool just needs to be a bit bigger and better defined.
Cheating the shadow, possible, but first I’d try to move the light and see what happens.
Yeah, if I didn’t have to worry about public opinion I might have made her nude, but we’re showing this to investors, business people in Malaysia and other places, so that’s out. :slight_smile:
I won’t work on this anymore right now, too busy… but I’ll come back to this thread and take careful notes, at some future date when I want to ‘fix it up’.

#64

The one with the black cloths on kind of gives me the impression of a failed escape from a kind of facility its really sadning actually :sad:

I like it :smiley:

#65

Hi Steven,

I don’t know if it was already mentioned, but I would think it might help to put her hand in the face. Like she is crying and holding her face not to show us her tears because she has just discovered that she is actually not human…

#66

Hey, Steve

Violated, victumized, junkie and prostitution has been mentioned over and over and that was my first impression as well. The thing that striked me was that the rest of her body is too clean! There is no dirt, scrapes, missing hair, broken skin with metal showing through or rips/dirt on the skirt.

The enviroment looks concrete.Think about what it would take to rip a andriods arm off or a humans arm for that matter!! Unless she was switch off or comanded to stay still, I think there would be a survival instinct that would cause the her to struggle. Did she fall in the struggle? How was the arm pulled off? Was she grabbed by the wrist and a force applied somewhere under the side of the ribbcage? Was she swung around by the wrist? Bouncing off the walls and when the arm came off did she fly in to the wall or skid along the floor in a out of control tumble?

Somebody mentioned the animatrix scene which is a good case in point!

I like the overall look to your original picture, with out the black top. I think the title distracts from the main focus- the girl. I also liked the little chrome disc part that was between her legs.

Anyway this is my logic!

Steve, you do awesome work, as always, keep it up!!

POP

#67

She doesn’t look sad… more like tired and exhasperated. She has some tools on the floor. If she had a little sweat droplet on her hair I could say “Maybe she ran out of spare parts” but that would turn the whole thing comic :slight_smile:

Mayhaps tears on the floor, even if you don’t see the crying eyes. Like someone mentioned, her hand in her forehead, her legs not so spread apart.

Seeing it with the current illustration I’d say she may not even be active. Her body is limp, no limbs express emotion. Maybe she just realized that she is nothing more than an expensive, thinking toy, some rich boy’s present for his birthday. He played and played, she always smiling and happy to obliged until the toy broke and she was tossed in back alley, near the dumpsters. She now tries to repair herself, trying to please her owner once again, but the little LED in her eye flases, battery is low and no matter her efforts, the screens go black and her “self” is spent in a final, unnexistant tear.

#68

really well thoughtout image.

here are my thoughts
reminds me a bit of Bladerunner, AI, animatrix, anti heroin adverts
I like the decrepidness of the location but I think it should be worse, maybe some industrial air vents or something might make it look like shes had to seek refuge in a really crappy place. puddles, rotting cement, rain damage

and rough her up a bit like shes been through hell (twigs/leaves in her hair?)

if she had cobwebs attached to say her feet it’d look like she died ages ago and her absence is still unoticed
…crikey
:sad:

#69

You aren’t alone. My first impression was the same down to the last detail.

t3logy

#70

Pretty much evocative , but my eyes gets confused where to look, should I be intrigued whit the screwdriver, or the hole of her ripped arm, or maybe the cracks in the wall ,the bluish light strips?What i mean is that you should consider where is the center of avtivity, attraction, attention in your image.The focal point is a component every masterpiese should have. Without a focal point, a spectator will lose interest quickly because he does not know where to look and what part is the most interesting.There are three things that can draw the spectator eyes where should, these are color, contrast, and structure! Complimentary colors should do the work! “Why , Martin, why?” - simply , because the human eyes are attracted to complimentary colors.

#71

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