So some of you may know(not really) I'm working on improving this piece I recently made. So the idea for the new piece is a new background and some enemies on the side pointing at him and laughing so that you can tell why he's sad. So far I have sketched the enemies, shaded to of them all I'm missing is shading the Barbarian Boss and making the background( I will make my own background does images are there just for reference).

Just mid of have guessed by now that this thread will be for the progress of that redesign so I will post the updates as I go a long and with your feedback,comments I know I will make this piece the best piece in my gallery so far.

In what style do you think the enemies are in?

Here's what I have so far. Hope you like it. Comments is greatly appreciated.

Sorry about that, I forgot to link to the old piece, here it is.

At 2/22/10 02:15 PM, Mabelma wrote: Here's what I have so far. Hope you like it. Comments is greatly appreciated.

well right off the bat, I notice that the backgound and ground plane are in different perspectives than the characters.

This alone harms the piece probably more than just about anything else.

At 2/22/10 02:31 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:15 PM, Mabelma wrote: Here's what I have so far. Hope you like it. Comments is greatly appreciated.

well right off the bat, I notice that the backgound and ground plane are in different perspectives than the characters.
This alone harms the piece probably more than just about anything else.

Well, speaking of the background, it's just stock taken from the Castle Crashers game, you can even see the Green Knight in the bottom right. I'm guessing you're going to make a background afterwords though?

At 2/22/10 02:39 PM, big-jonny-13 wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:31 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:15 PM, Mabelma wrote: Here's what I have so far. Hope you like it. Comments is greatly appreciated.

well right off the bat, I notice that the backgound and ground plane are in different perspectives than the characters.
This alone harms the piece probably more than just about anything else.

Well, speaking of the background, it's just stock taken from the Castle Crashers game, you can even see the Green Knight in the bottom right. I'm guessing you're going to make a background afterwords though?

this would explain the contrasting perspectives and the variance in style between the background and the characters. I thought it as just a fluke but after hearing that, it makes more sense

I haven't played the castle crashers game for xbox even though I want to

this also explains why there is only a low resolution version...

something else I just noticed, conflicting light sources.....

I agree the background is tough, because it's blur and the figures are not really stranding on it. Maybe consider drawing you own version of the background? There's no focus either, the way the image is formated there's no central figure, that makes for a flat and static image.

The background is there as a reference, I will make my own background that background is just there to show the idea I have for the background.

At 2/22/10 02:49 PM, Kinsei01 wrote: something else I just noticed, conflicting light sources.....

How do you suggest I fix this?

How do I make the image look for focused?

I'll go fix the shading for now.

At 2/22/10 02:57 PM, Mabelma wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:49 PM, Kinsei01 wrote: something else I just noticed, conflicting light sources.....

How do you suggest I fix this?

Well start by getting the shadows on all of your characters to match one another. that alone will show the light coming from one direction. Right now, you have shadows on the left side of the Crasher and on the right side of the enemies

How do I make the image look for focused?

I'll let someone else take this one since it is one of my weak points

At 2/22/10 03:05 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:57 PM, Mabelma wrote:

At 2/22/10 02:49 PM, Kinsei01 wrote: something else I just noticed, conflicting light sources.....

How do you suggest I fix this?

Well start by getting the shadows on all of your characters to match one another. that alone will show the light coming from one direction. Right now, you have shadows on the left side of the Crasher and on the right side of the enemies

Well I added shadow on the side of the thief so the light source is a little more consistent on the side there I also shaded the Barbarian and they are shaded to the right because the light source is currently somewhere on the top right side of the knight's head meaning that since the knight is made out of metal light would reflect of that and direct it self to the right making the shadow of the barbarians be on the right.

A little update, hope you like. Should I start making the background or should I fix something?

Also forgot the HQ version.

At 2/22/10 03:42 PM, Mabelma wrote: A little update, hope you like. Should I start making the background or should I fix something?

well since you have yet to fix the shading, I would say not to fix the background yet.
give me a sec and I'll down load the pic and point it out

Thank you so much. You read my mind, I was going to ask you if you could do that. It is greatly appreciated. Do you think that this picture my be on it's way to win some hearts? I would if someone could point out a few things that could make this piece more shocking, better and things like that. So that the end results ends up looking amazing. Thanks in advance.

here is a quick mark up of the conflicting shadows . the arrows point the direction of the lightsrources, there are a lot more conflicting ones than I thought.
I'm not trying to be mean.... I'm just trying to help you out here

At 2/22/10 03:57 PM, Mabelma wrote: Thank you so much. You read my mind, I was going to ask you if you could do that. It is greatly appreciated. Do you think that this picture my be on it's way to win some hearts? I would if someone could point out a few things that could make this piece more shocking, better and things like that. So that the end results ends up looking amazing. Thanks in advance.

there is such thing as bounce light but it is usually very little (except in come cases of water) and it is usually the color or hue of the object it bounced off of. sadly sand usually has no bounce light and foliage has some, but usually tree tops block the initial light for softer shadows in the first place (except in the case of some clearings.)
I really hope this helps out.

so

Thank you so much, that helps a lot. I will try and fix as much as I can. I know you are not being mean in fact what you are doing is greatly appreciated.

Do you think that this picture might be on it's way to win some hearts? I would if someone could point out a few things that could make this piece more shocking, better and things like that. So that the end results ends up looking amazing. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, you're having the exact same shading issues as you had with the cat detective guy.

Update, Hope I'm getting there.

Do you think that this picture might be on it's way to win some hearts? I would if someone could point out a few things that could make this piece more shocking, better and things like that. So that the end results ends up looking amazing. Thanks in advance.

At 2/22/10 04:16 PM, Mabelma wrote: Update, Hope I'm getting there.

I see you getting there but still got a bit farther to go

Yeah Big Johny I'm not good with shading, I'm still learning that but like the cat I know that with the help of all of you I will make the shading better and I get what I did wrong on the shading so I will try not to do that again.

At 2/22/10 04:18 PM, Mabelma wrote: I get what I did wrong on the shading so I will try not to do that again.

I think the biggest thing you did wrong is lack of pre-planning.
the Castle Crasher in the middle was meant to be a stand alone piece originally.

am I right?

but then you decided to take it a couple of steps further and thus decided to do more characters.

Since you added the second characters after the original, it's easy to see how this happened, and it is a common mistake. so don't feel too bad about it. Next time just have better planning.

Here is a common process chart
1. Come up with concept.
2. Research.
3. Thumbnail and Brainstorm. (this is where you pose place and chose your light source)
4. Rough sketch.
5. Refine sketch. (some preliminary shadows can be done here)
6. Ink sketch.
7. Base Color.
8. Add lighting.
9. Texture if any. Highlights and more shadows if any.

and thats about it.

At 2/22/10 04:28 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 04:18 PM, Mabelma wrote: I get what I did wrong on the shading so I will try not to do that again.

I think the biggest thing you did wrong is lack of pre-planning.
the Castle Crasher in the middle was meant to be a stand alone piece originally.

am I right?

but then you decided to take it a couple of steps further and thus decided to do more characters.

Since you added the second characters after the original, it's easy to see how this happened, and it is a common mistake. so don't feel too bad about it. Next time just have better planning.

Here is a common process chart
1. Come up with concept.
2. Research.
3. Thumbnail and Brainstorm. (this is where you pose place and chose your light source)
4. Rough sketch.
5. Refine sketch. (some preliminary shadows can be done here)
6. Ink sketch.
7. Base Color.
8. Add lighting.
9. Texture if any. Highlights and more shadows if any.

and thats about it.

Yeah it was meant to be that but as you said an artist needs to take his art further so I had to do something, Thanks for the little process I will use it for future pieces.

At 2/22/10 04:18 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 04:16 PM, Mabelma wrote: Update, Hope I'm getting there.

I see you getting there but still got a bit farther to go

I though I fixed every issue you told me about but I guess not. Another picture would help a lot, do you think you have the time to do it?

Do you think that this picture might be on it's way to win some hearts? I would if someone could point out a few things that could make this piece more shocking, better and things like that. So that the end results ends up looking amazing. Thanks in advance.

At 2/22/10 04:33 PM, Mabelma wrote:

I though I fixed every issue you told me about but I guess not. Another picture would help a lot, do you think you have the time to do it?

Sure I'll do another, but as a quicky, the thing your missing is the shadows on the helmet and body.....

basically the barbarians need their shadow swapping from the right to the left, that fixes the conflicting light source problem, of course you could have made it a lot easier and left the picture as it was and make the lightsource correct on the background when you draw it yourself

At 2/22/10 04:45 PM, ashman112 wrote: basically the barbarians need their shadow swapping from the right to the left, that fixes the conflicting light source problem, of course you could have made it a lot easier and left the picture as it was and make the lightsource correct on the background when you draw it yourself

well close ashy, since the barbarian and the thief both have the same light source for the most part it's easier to switch the light source on the crasher

I hope this Illustrates a bit better

bit bigger

Sure I'll do another, but as a quicky, the thing your missing is the shadows on the helmet and body.....

On what character is that wrong?

basically the barbarians need their shadow swapping from the right to the left, that fixes the conflicting light source problem

I really don't get what you are saying and I don't think I get what you are saying about the background really.

At 2/22/10 04:47 PM, Kinsei01 wrote:

At 2/22/10 04:45 PM, ashman112 wrote: basically the barbarians need their shadow swapping from the right to the left, that fixes the conflicting light source problem, of course you could have made it a lot easier and left the picture as it was and make the lightsource correct on the background when you draw it yourself

well close ashy, since the barbarian and the thief both have the same light source for the most part it's easier to switch the light source on the crasher

I hope this Illustrates a bit better

That helps so much, I shall go fix it. Thanks. I was originally thinking the lightsource would be somewhere on the top right of the crashers head but I see that in what you posted the lightsource makes everything make sense. Thanks.

ok i was confused on where the light was coming from, but kinseis enlightened me, basically you dont want to have shadows on the side where the light is coming from , its usually on the opposite side of than the light source hence shadows, i may just do an overlay sketch in black of where the shadows should be, would this help

Woo finally got around of the post limit!!!

At 2/22/10 04:51 PM, Mabelma wrote:

That helps so much, I shall go fix it. Thanks. I was originally thinking the lightsource would be somewhere on the top right of the crashers head but I see that in what you posted the lightsource makes everything make sense. Thanks.

well yes for the crasher the light source would have been the upper right, but for the baddies it was the upper left. I only propose moving the lightsource to the upper left because you'd only have to change the shadows on one character instead of 3