Spud's Art - (Updated August 17th: Caregiver)

[MJB]

Not sure who "Grandmaster" is but that picture sure is purdy.  :wub:

-MJB

[captainspud]

http://www.marvel.com/universe/Grandmaster

Short version: he's almost as old as our universe, and like the rest of the Elders of the Universe, has chosen to perfect a single pursuit in order to maintain his sanity. Grandmaster chose gaming, and travels the universe to learn and master all games and gambles. For wagers, he employs his greatest power: sway over life and death. He can compel someone to simply die, or he can resurrect the recently-dead. He uses this as his betting chip when he makes wagers with other cosmic entities.

His favourite way to gamble is to challenge another being to pick a small group of superhumans to battle against Grandmaster's own choices, which is where the picture above comes from-- he challenged Kang to a contest, picking an alternate evil Squadron Supreme for himself, while Kang chose the Avengers. Kang's team won, which is fortunate, because if Grandmaster won, he was going to destroy the Earth. :)

[style]

Off the bleepin hook! :blink:

[Uncle Yuan]

I really like the Grandmaster piece - excellent composition and he looks just like a chess player contemplating his next move.

The Runner is also very nice, but the anatomy is off - you have his entire upper body (abdomen to shoulders) flat and 90 degrees to his hips.  It's possible to get the shoulders 90 degree to the hips (but it's a very flexed pose and not something that would occur outside of dance or yoga), but not the abdomen.  You get about 5 degrees of rotation from each vertebra, so the umbilicus will never be more than a scoosh from the midline and the rest of the torso will gradually sweep back.

[captainspud]

Believe it or not, I was actually attempting to do that, but the "sweep" got lost in the successive layers and passes. That's one of the big problems I have right now-- I have two painting techniques I use that work fairly well, but each has a maddening downside. For the Runner, I worked directly in the final colours-- drew him in gold, then drew highlights in green, then another layer in a different gold, etc etc etc. With this technique, the colours are much snappier, but the "drawing" really suffers-- editing a part of the body requires modifying half a dozen different layers. I also end up with cases like this one where the first layer (the gold one) has a certain detail (the center line of the torso sweeping toward the hips), but as I add more layers it gets lost in the soup.

My second technique, the one I used for Grandmaster, is the one I've been using more often lately-- I draw the entire picture in shades of grey, and then use overlays afterward to colourize the drawing. The drawing ends up much nicer, as I can make tweaks to the composition all in one layer, but as you can see, the colour is really subdued and bland. I've been working for months to try to figure out a way to liven up the colour (highlight layers, etc), but nothing seems to work.

So, that's the dilemma I'm in right now as an artist-- I can make a good drawing, or have good colour, but never both. I really hate it. I'm shopping around for a new technique, because it's really frustrating to have to sit down for a new picture and ask myself, "Alrighty, which part of this drawing do I want to suck?"

[UnkoMan]

I actually really like the colours in the Grandmaster pic. I really like a lot of things. Grandmaster's hair. The glint on the metals. Hyperion's mouth is great.

I've never gotten the hang of digital painting. I'm quite impressed with people who can do that sort of thing. Granted most probably don't use a mouse, but whatever.

[captainspud]

Champion

[Uncle Yuan]

 :thumbup:

[MJB]

Nooooo! Not the elbow drop!! :shock2:

-MJB

[captainspud]

Caregiver


Never heard of her? Neither had I. :)

[MJB]

Dig the new pics. Keep it up... or else! :angry:

-MJB

[captainspud]

Updated Caregiver-- I had neglected to giver her eyebrows and lashes. I'm surprised you didn't jump on that, Meej. ;)

[MJB]

I didn't know the character was supposed to have either. :P

-MJB

[AfghanAnt]

The Champion is frickin' awesome.