[Michael Chiarcos]

Rick,

The concept is interesting and you have worked the lines and overlaps well. The only comment I have is the gun is too small. This guy is huge. He makes that .44 look like a ‘Noisy Cricket’. I would either choose a larger gun or use the transform page to make it bigger like Hellboy’s Samaritan. Don’t forget to increase the size of the holster as well.

Michael

[Michael Chiarcos]

Rick,

If you want to remove the flames from inside the hood of Death’s Lament, simply put the hood or the flames on a different layer using the transform page. Herr D also mentioned the Alpha levels which I referred to as transparency values. Same thing. Transparency can make a big difference. In the case of my Necros Torpor, it allowed me to make it look like Necros was reaching out from the smoke aura that surrounds him. In the case of my blue Amazon Princess, it allowed me to show details that would normally not be visible such as her hands visible inside the fireballs she is manipulating.

Michael

http://www.heromachine.com/forums/topic/a-few-old-ideas-a-few-new-ideas/

[Michael Chiarcos]

Rick,

I like your style. I myself have very little artistic talent so I don’t feel it fair to criticize or comment on personal choices like colour scheme or poses, items choices etc…

What I do comment on is execution and sometimes (very rarely) message portrayed.

I’ll begin from the bottom up…

I like Death’s Lament. One question. Is the orange smoke intended to be coming up inside the cowl?

Pteradon is interesting. I need to know, did you intend to have the boots have different outline tones? Is he standing in shadow? The upper body and lower body are using different colour highlights and the left hand is altogether different from the rest. All in all an nice blending of appearance and equipment. It works well for me.

Granite is pretty close to perfect. His belt which I see was intended to give contrast is slightly off center to the right and maybe a touch too big? A simple transform would make a big difference.

Fahrya is a pretty cool concept. An Elven warrior mage of some type. I like the colour scheme and I like her outfit. The face is perfect and the layering is good. I just have a problem with her hands. By using a different outline colour you are drawing attention to her hands as if they are not a part of her at all. They look tacked on instead of being part of her body. It takes away from the overall good image. This last bit is just my opinion but she’s wearing armour, she’s in forest garb with a cape so why is she barefoot? If she is supposed to be a nature mage and tough as nails to boot, give her roughened feet or at least dirty feet.

One thing you can experiment with is transparency. I find it very useful. When you want something to show through just a little bit you can get there with transparency.

If you look at my Amazon Princess and my Necros Torpor you will see what I mean

http://www.heromachine.com/forums/topic/a-few-old-ideas-a-few-new-ideas/

[Michael Chiarcos]

Nolb,

I like your work.  You have some very interesting ideas and you have a good grasp of style but I’m going to assume that you posted your work to get some critique.

There are some minor issues that you can address that will make a vast improvement on your work; little details that will make a huge difference.

Your Amazon’s face looks a little too small with larger than standard eyes.  It’s sort of like looking at an adult with a teenagers face pasted on it.  Transforming the face slighty larger will help.

You have a minor issue with layers.  If you look closely at your Amazon, you will see that her necklace appears to be beneath her tattoo.  The same can be said for her bangs falling beneath her eyebrows.

If you transform the brassiere horrizontally, you won’t have any issue with side-boob escape and her loincloth needs to be centered a small bit.

I don’t know where the lines across the image are coming from but they have to go.

 

Other than the above, a very fine piece of work.

 

Malachi

P.S., I don’t do a great deal of work on HM but I’m a stickler for details like I mentioned.  I may not have much in the way of talent but what I do, I try to do as best as I can so don’t take anything I say personally and of course it’s all my opinion.  Cheers

 

[Michael Chiarcos]

Dionne,

I have a question.  It may have been answered already but I can’t find it in a topic.  Is there a way to save your customized items so that you can use them at a moments notice and not have to recreate them everytime you start a new drawing?  That would be a great new collection to include in the next generation of HM.  A place where you can store a limited number of your own created items.

[Michael Chiarcos]

Thank you.  That one was weird.  Because I basically repurposed those ribs to be eyestalks and they weren’t in the orientation I wanted, I had to rotate and flip them a lot.  When I saved the image and then attempted to reload it, for some reason it kept centering on one of the eyestalks and moving the whole image up and to the right so that all that was visible was his right foot.  I tried everything to recenter the image, move him down and to the left but he kept reappearing in that position.  I finally moved him piece by piece down to where I could view him and exported it as fast as I could.  I’m not really sure how a scaling background works.  I know I wanted him to be shorter than normal but beefy so I scrunched him down using the transform page.  As I said, I’ve only just gotten back into working with this program and all the new features had me overwhelmed.

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