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simonfetscher — Rusty Mech

Published: 2013-12-09 16:52:25 +0000 UTC; Views: 2585; Favourites: 59; Downloads: 121
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Description Made some mech sketches in my sketchbook, and decided to paint one of them. Wanted the background to be fairly loose in some parts. Alien industrial world, thinking the mech is serial produced but the alien dude has made some tweaks on it over the years.

Please crit if you have the time, appreciate it!
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Comments: 5

ObligatoryOnsen [2013-12-10 14:42:06 +0000 UTC]

First of all, the rendering and materials of the whole piece are very well done, really impressive. I especially like how you put a red rim light next to the mech, it adds a lot of depth.
However, I think you could push the depth even more by increasing the atmospheric perspective. I see you've already put more contrast and saturation in and around the the "main focus" object (the mech), which is good, but the values of the foreground (mech and alien) and the midground (buildings) are still a bit too similar in my eyes. Especially the building on the left could use a bit more depth to emphasize its epic scale.
The second thing I notice in this painting is that the perspective doesn't feel completely accurate. To check if it was, I traced over some of the lines of the environment to see where their vanishing point was and to find the position of the horizon line ( dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43… ). Even if I allow the vanishing points to have a certain margin of error to that line - perspective doesn't need to be that strict - I still find (read: guess) two major lines that could be the horizon (yellow and orange). Ideally, this would be only one of course.
With regular landscapes "in nature", you can be relatively lax with things like perspective, but with architecture like this, mistakes are much more noticeable and you'll need to keep it more in mind in the planning and construction phase of the painting. Repairing perspective afterwards is a real PITA. Invaluable rules/tools are that all parallel surfaces should have the same vanishing point and that all objects can be measured relatively to each other.
The latter brings me to my last (minor) point, which is the size of the aliens. Of course since it's an alien world their size could differ, but the difference in height between the "pilot" and some of the aliens in the background in quite large when measured relatively ( dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43… ). Again, this is just something to keep in the back of your mind early in the construction of your painting. If you don't, your eyes quickly "get used to" those mistakes and you simply can't see them anymore (a huge problem for me personally...).

Now, even though the largest part of my critique could be considered "negative" (I don't think going on and on about what's good is particularly useful), I really like this painting and I've seen a lot of professionals do a lot worse.
Great job, and keep going!

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simonfetscher In reply to ObligatoryOnsen [2013-12-10 15:15:30 +0000 UTC]

Dude, thanks for putting down the time for this comment. Really appreciate it

You are absolutely right, I was pretty sloppy with some parts of the perspective.

I think the biggest mistake lies with the bottom line of the building to the far right, under the red door thing. its way too tilted.

That building isn't supposed to have the same angle as the one on the left, not parallel.

I´m thinking the aliens are varying sizes, the one in between the two you marked is a bit taller, although the were thrown in in the end, and not that thought through.

And its easy to be thrown of by the sizes.

I´m definitely gonna be more precise in my next painting, thanks for the crit!!

 

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sonicrules13s [2013-12-10 01:55:07 +0000 UTC]

I looks great! But like always, I got some compliments and some nit picking stuff

Just remember that this is all in my opinion and that the nit picking is just tiny things from an amazing picture

The back foot seems a little too far forward to me. Just from the angle of the body of the mech, it seems like it should be more back (to the left in this case) and look a little further away

The shadows of the mech and the 4 armed creature seem spot on for where the light source seems to originate.

Right now I can't really see much other than the positioning of the leg, the angle of the legs look correct in proportion to the angle of the body.

Idk if your intention was to in fact make the back leg look forward as if it was taking a step.

If that was the case, maybe making the angle of the joint that connects the upper and lower parts of the leg more acute would help to achieve that effect, as from your design, stepping forward would require the body (and the other leg) of the mech to be closer to the ground, hence a more acute angle.

Hope that helps, it really does look good though! Great work on texture. Keep it up! I look forward to seeing more.

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simonfetscher In reply to sonicrules13s [2013-12-10 09:24:08 +0000 UTC]

Thanks dude! Really like your comments, you take your time!

I was thinking the second foot being a bit more forward than the first, and you have a point

 

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sonicrules13s In reply to simonfetscher [2013-12-10 09:47:50 +0000 UTC]

Hey it's no problem! It's well worth my time as I watch you constantly improve

Sorry that I haven't been able to give you feedback on all your works


Yeah, I think the second foot forward looks nice too, just like I said before, it looks a little off if the bend on the joint isn't acute.


Another thing I noticed but forgot to bring up before is the wires (or whatever they are) towards the left of the mech.

It looks nice, and I can see what you were trying to do, but (to me) it seems a little too transparent (mainly around the edges). Maybe making it more solid and adding a subtle shade on the far side of the light source would make it look better? (even maybe a subtle highlight as well?)
I did read what you said about the background so it's not a big deal.
Just an idea for any future projects you do


Looking forward to see more! Now that I've got more free time, I might go back and review some of your other works if you want (If you have specific ones, just give me links through here or a note!)
BUT I will keep reviewing any of the new things you upload. Keep it up!

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