Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Yes&Artist=ju8nkm9l

It is my intention to improve my artistic skillset until I AM good enough to be paid for making art for commercial products. I'd hate to churn out image after image, just never to reach professional quality.

I try to improve my art kills by: (1)comparing my artwork with the best out there, and (2)critiquing others' art, noting mistakes they made and borrowing techniques I can utilize.

Unfortunately, after a while it becomes difficult for one to objectively judge one's own artwork. So let me know what you think. Be HONEST yet constuctive please :-)

I took a peek... but won't comment on the individual images, since what I will say affects all of them. You have some nice ideas to grab the viewers' emotions. This is something lacking in most games (and many images). Some of these are a bit cliched (student in trouble, baby with dead mother) but still effective. We humans will anthropomorphize a rock if it is in the right setting! Your images seem to lack focus, though, in that the eye doesn't know where to go first. The eye will naturally go to the area with greatest contrast, whether by color or light or sharpness, and then move out on lines we determine. With the baby sea dragon, for example, the blues and greys blend and the bright spots of color are the baby's ears and the mother's tongue... is this where you want the viewer to look first? The brightest area is the mother's lower jaw... again, is this what you want the viewer to notice? The area with most contrast in lighting is the mother's teeth. If you added a bump map to the kid and brightened his coloring and lightened him up, it would pull him and his misery into the forefront. Alternatively, you could do this to the mother, so that we see that she is dead, and then notice the child. You'd have to recrop to keep a decent composition, but you'd have the viewer's eye where you want it, and not just where it ends up. (Study Frazetta... he was a master at this.) The wet look and tears works, this is a soggy picture, but it could have more impact. With the student and the test... I have a logical problem. Running isn't going to get her out of danger, nor will it solve anything. The eye jumps back and forth, not sure whether the monsters or the woman is the center of interest... or maybe it is the stripes in the road? Decide which one. Brighten that one. (Even though she is closer, her lighting is muddy and indistinct compared to the rest of the scene.) The other should be second brightest. The stripes and lightpoles aren't important and can be dirtied to make them less noticeable. I'd recommend cracking the roadbed so that it isn't flat and tilting those poles to help bring the viewer's eye where you want it. If it looks like the monster is ripping the road out from under her, the peril becomes more immediate and the connection between them more obvious. This is dangerous business, it ought to be more dynamic! Aiko's bedroom... why is she on tippytoes? (not balls of foot, the toes) Her shadow on the floor and tableskirt doesn't feel right and it looks like she is stepping on a leaf? Matching 3d images into a painted flat backdrop is very hard. Light color and intensity as well as direction have to match. Camera focal length has to match. I had to work with a Maya artist on one project and she was impossible to deal with, my figures were to go into her backgrounds, but she couldn't figure out what the camera focal length was and I went into fits trying to match by eye... among other problems. If you are going to work in the games industry, you have to be part of a team, and that means knowing what you are doing and how to communicate it. If you can fit your own figures onto your own backgrounds and scenes, you'll have an easier time fitting them into other people's scenes. I'd recommend upping the shadow map size on the main light source and changing your ambient color on the character's skin to something non-black. I use a dark purplish brown to make my people look alive. I like the overall colors in this scene... elegant. Not in my kitchen... her fist is at the same line as a cupboard: I'd raise her knuckles. Again, the focus is on the contrasted area (her skinsuit), but wouldn't you rather the viewer saw her face? Smile? Whatever she's holding? Look at the plants on the counters... if she was holding up an apologetic gopher (perhaps with dirty feet), you'd have a storyline going, and something to grab the viewer by the eyestalks. This could just as easily be a dust bunny, an alien, a kid's toy, just something to use as a hook. Again, change her skin's ambient so that she is a bit more alive and that will pull her colors together. View from a bedroom mirror. I rather like this. Different. Maybe you can replace the crayon with a mascara wand (we ladies do open our mouths when applying eye makeup), and given her lashes, that would make sense. However, with her teeth and lipstick being so bright, a lipstick tube might be better. IIRC, Jim Burton did a makeup kit, and the individual parts can be found in various freestuffs. We often use a small brush to outline the lips and then a tube of color to fill. I hope this helps, or at least gives you something to think about. Carolly

Carolly-A well thought out presentation, lots of information and lots to think about. Really nice work.

ju8nkm9l-one thing you might consider about photo backgrounds, you might consider something in the foregroung, ( in front of the figure(s) ), to give the image depth and put the figure(s) into environment more. You might try lighting the figure(s) a little more. As Carolly said 'feature' the main element.

Message edited on: 02/27/2005 23:10

As long as you have to ask and need someone else's opinion: definately no.

Unfortantly as a commerical artist every assignment you're asking your client for a judgment on what you created. Someone else's opinion is always requied. If you're painting for yourself no judgement is required from anyone else, just hang them on the wall for you, yourself to look at. If you're painting to sell, then selling requires someone elses judgement as well. The difference between a fine art and an commerical art is Fine artist paints a picture and tries to sell it. A commerical artist sells the picture then paints it.

As you asked for it, I give you my personal feeling: no. On the other hand the question is not precise enough. If you intend to work on as modeller or graphist for game industies you'll have to deal with high end softwares such as XSI, Maya, 3DSMax, Lightwave or ZBrush. Certainly not with Poser. If you want to work as a professional illustrator, here, you'll need to master 2D softwares, such as Photoshop or Illustrator. Poser alone will never be enough to create a professional work. More precisely about your work, I would say (but it's just my personnal feeling)that you're quite far from my idea of a professional. You compared your pieces with other ones here, Ok, but maybe should you look at other sites that show real professional illustrations... But without going anywhere, you already have elements of comparison: Vallejo, Serpieri, Manara, Royo, Rodney Matthews, Julia Bell, Sorayama are professionals. They live with their work. Do you get the same quality in your pics?

Thanks for the helpful (and honest) responses! It is very hard to improve one's craft without honest, constructive & insightful criticism: there's so much one cannot learn unless others point it out! For example, hauksdottir brought up issues about focus that I didn't even realize existed.

It's one thing to realize that a certain picture isn't good enough, but another altogether to figure out exactly WHAT makes the picture not so good! And without the latter, no improvement can be made!

I appreciate the helpful advice and shall continue to work on improving my skillset.

Olivier-It is not my intention to become a professional modeller, but rather to create professional quality illustrations.

Any other critiques? The more the merrier!

Then if you wish to go to illustration style I highly recommend you Corel Painter and a Wacom graphic tablet. You can have both for the same price, usually Painter Classic is included with tablet. Try a A4 or better a A4+ tablet. That's for the tools. Now for the work, the best advice I could give you is to learn from masters. Not by questionning but by watching at their work, paying attention to the light they used, the shadows they put, the several materials effects, the general composition of their scenes and so on. By "masters", I am NOT refering to anyone posting here but to true master painters such as Ingres, Der, El Greco, Dali (that's for the classical ones) or Valejo, Serpieri, Royo, Sorayama, Shirow, Bell, Matthews (for the recent ones). What you need to do is looking at carefully and analyse what you see. Try to find the errors in their work, there are always a few ones then go back to your own pics and do the same. The main purpose of this exercise is to train your eyes to be critical and will allow you to make a bunch of progress. I hope it will help you as much as it did for me. :) Oh! One last word! Do not ever try to apply this method to other people's work in here, you gonna get much troubles...