Encouragement needed

human · Post by **human** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 8:37 pm

Right now I'm still at the stage of concept art, but on the other hand, the ultimate concept art simultaneously involves character design, acting, color and lighting, and set design... as seen here.

In regard to character design, I feel this represents progress over the earlier static models I've shown, and for the first time, I'm showing two characters potentially interacting.

I'm obviously having some problems compositing my flat characters into my 3D scene... for a lot of reasons, including the fact that my brain is generally weak with 3d to begin with! I'm not going to go into detail right now. Also I wonder whether it may be intrinsically tricky to use a camera with such a wide field of view?

In regard to color, at least give me credit for practicing what I keep preaching. I really exerted an iron discipline over colors here.

I'd like to point out that the director has to reconcile two fundamentally opposing principles: (1) The characters need to be brighter, higher contrast, and more saturated than the background. (2) The characters must really look like they are a part of the scene. Does this attempt at balance work? Would you prefer to see other colors?

In conclusion, I'm just generally fishing for some encouragement here. I find this difficult!

All feedback, including criticism, welcome.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 9:26 pm

The characters' colors are too flat.

Look at this image from the book of Vincent Woodcock (How to create crazy cartoon characters), I took with my webcam:

Your characters' color scheme are between the left and middle version, just not enough contrast.

Look at these videos made by user sang820 for what you can do with subtle flesh colors and good contrast in your design if you use Anime Studio Pro like a real pro. Sang is just such a fine artist. I wish he would be revisiting and posting in the forum again. He only uses vectors, but with a lot of shapes on top of each other, each with very similar colors (to create a gradient).

(click on an image to play)

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:21 pm

Personally, I like your style. Since it's not cartoony, I think exaggeration is not really appropriate. As long as you keep the characters more detailed than the background, like your example, I think it should work well.

DK · Post by DK » Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:25 pm

Personally really I like what you've done Human. If anything it's definately is your own style which I would recognise anywhere.

Nice work!
D.K

cribble · Post by **cribble** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:06 am

i think you need to be careful on the shading. One character has extreme shading, like all over. His trouser especially. The other one is just and outline with a fill by the looks of things.

But i seriously love you style though. Hope it works out for you.

human · Post by **human** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:36 am

cribble wrote:i think you need to be careful on the shading. One character has extreme shading, like all over. His trouser especially. The other one is just and outline with a fill by the looks of things.

But i seriously love you style though. Hope it works out for you.

Yes, I am aware of this but I didn't want to prolong my message by getting into it.

As you point out, the correct answer is to simplify him to the level of the other character, even though I would hate to lose the body shadows . . .

I also went back and made all the colors a little deeper / richer (but not necessarily more saturated !) ... so the contrast between the characters and the foreground has improved slightly and the room looks a little darker.

One complication about color we should mention, though, is that every monitor displays a different gamma and color setting . . . There is no absolute [!] No two of us are seeing exactly the same thing [!]

Thanks for all comments so far; still open to any other suggestions.

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:11 am

I like the colour scheme. You do need to make the figures stand out a little more though -- it reads like a frieze. I would try a) using bitmaps for the background and blurring them slightly to simulate depth of field focus, and b) using thicker outlines on the figures and/or thinner (or no) outlines on the backgrounds.

You do have a definite style. I'd be interested to see how these characters move.

JCook · Post by **JCook** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:02 pm

human,

I have enjoyed the various things you've posted for quite some time. As jahnocli said, you have a definite style, and I'd like to see it developed even more. I agree with the comments about the characters needing more contrast, but I do like your color schemes. You could use the same palette but broaden it by adding some tints of the same colors. That might go a little way towards lessening the flat effect. I also agree that the two characters should have a similar style, so that they both agree in appearance. Right now you have one with a lot more body detail, with folds in the clothing, while the other is flat color. I, too, would hate to see the body shading go away, so the solution might be to add more body shading detail to the other figure. This might be difficult to animate, though, if that is your end goal.

One thing that does seem to be lacking, though, is shadow. Not shading, but shadow. The room these two people are in is lit by one single lamp, so the shadows should be stark, but there don't seem to be any. The lighting in the room seems pretty even. You could start by maybe darkening the background with a gradual darkness, but still showing detail, and keep the main light in the foreground, centered around the two men. That might also make the characters stand out a little more. And also add some real shadows cast by the single lamp.

All in all, I really like your work. Keep it up.

Jack

human · Post by **human** » Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:03 pm

I wasn't happy with the concept I posted, above, but I couldn't figure out what I should do.

However, I kept playing around with the "toons" I made from my iClone render of the apartment.

This 3D bed was inspired by a photo of a black wrought-iron bed. (In the model shown here, the bedstead was actually just a flat transparent cutout, as one would do it in AS.)

When I applied a negative filter to the image and colorized it in candlelight tones, I began to realize that I could have a gleaming brass bed instead, if I was willing to extensively massage the image.

Even if I have to paint a lot to get this look, this approach will work-- if I generate fixed views from a very few angles and don't move the camera.

I feel this is a better illustration of the "less is more" approach to color, and it's more atmospheric, don't you think?