Pick's Last Pic of the Thread (p10)

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-30 01:36am

Pick wrote:.... Also, I'm kind of sad that my art spoils so much. It might be more fun otherwise .

Eh? What do you mean by that?

Post by **Kuja** » 2005-10-30 01:47am

...and done.

Vunderbar. Somehow, Edge is exactly what I thought he'd be like. And you weren't kidding about Alder being a wuss.

You've set up a (so far) fascinating world, Pick. I can't wait to see more of it, and the characters.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-30 01:51am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Pick wrote:.... Also, I'm kind of sad that my art spoils so much. It might be more fun otherwise .
Eh? What do you mean by that?

Well, people reading this story have probably already read the captions and stuff around my other art, which tells you some things, such as the fact that Edge, Verdigris, and Umber are all councilors of Syvoria.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-10-30 01:54am

Well, I personally don't even remember any of that stuff, as I was looking at the images themselves at the time.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-30 01:42am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Well, I personally don't even remember any of that stuff, as I was looking at the images themselves at the time.

Well then you'd still know the knobs on Edge's face are actually eyes, and his horns aren't silver.

But I see what you mean.

Kuja wrote:...and done.

Vunderbar. Somehow, Edge is exactly what I thought he'd be like. And you weren't kidding about Alder being a wuss.

You've set up a (so far) fascinating world, Pick. I can't wait to see more of it, and the characters.

Ah, that was fast!

I'm really glad you liked it

:luv:. I've worked pretty hard on it thus far, but it's still early stages at something I'm not experienced in. As for Edge well...

. Edge is cool. He'll get even more fun to write once we actually hit some of the other settings and suchlike. Plus you'll get to see some of the things he can do which I don't think I've particularly revealed yet.

As for Alder, ahhh, give the poor little guy some slack

. He's just a kid in a family of well-established pencil-pushers. It's like a recipe for being kind of pathetic. Shader and Alder are a bit alike at first, though some of the differences will hopefully become clear pretty soon.

Anyway, thank you again! The setup... there's still so much left to do on it

. I've really barely scratched the surface of the world, especially since there's a lot of basic things about both sides that are really pretty damn weird by most standards. For instance, there's a reason that Caia's a bit... uhm, suggestive --and how Edge can not eat for nine days and just be hungry instead of off his ass insane from hunger. But it isn't supposed to completely make sense yet. And then there's the Counselor setup in Syvoria... all those characters... the four Basal Keys in Llanlleia... oof! Oh, and we can't forget the time skip. Ye gods.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2005-10-30 09:22am

Really, that isn't spoiling, for a story with an entire created universe, you basically need to close-to introduce the characters with their positions and so on when you start the novel. Though do it fluidly--only Russian novelists have the right to begin their books with fifty pages of "And Count Fyodor Kavinsky, the Count of Kovno, was begat by the elder Count of Kovno, also named Fyodor, and called Fyodor the lazy, and by his wife the Baroness Wilhelmina, of Courland. Fyodor the lazy was begat in turn by Count Alexander of Kovno, who had pledged loyalty to the Tsar after the second Polish Partition... Fyodor Kavinsky held the rank of Colonel of the Grenadiers, and served as commander of the 11th HIS IMPERIAL HIGHNESS GRAND DUKE DMITRII PAVLOVICH'S Phanagoria Grenadier Regiment, which was attached to the 3rd Grenadier Division and formed part of the Transcaucasian Grenadier Corps."

*grins*

P.S. I'll read it tonight.

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2005-10-30 02:31pm

Pick wrote:Edit- ooooh, now I remember why I was fucking around with other versions of messing with that table in the first place- the black bars that show up in IE that I can't think of how to get rid of considering that when it comes to webspages I'm a moron! Wow, that's humiliation comparable to leaving the house having forgotten your clothes.

Oh not at all. Even experienced web designers can become quite bewildered by the way IE fucks up their layouts that. It's not you, it's IE

If anyone knows how to fix that, please let me know

Yeah, I can fix that. Apparently, IE creates a default 3 pixel bottom margin on all your images. I'm not quite sure why, but that's IE for you. I'll PM you a version that should work for all browsers.

I love the menu, BTW. It's really great!

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-10-30 03:16pm

Very, very good Pick. I was quite enthrawled while reading that. I really like how you're establishing the characters (Edge especially) and the humor you encorporated worked very well. Yet another talent to add to the list...
I hope for more, soon.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-30 10:36pm

Thanks so far to everyone who has given it a shot! I really appreciate your encouragement --and thanks a ton, Dooey Jo, for your help with the site!

It's very nice to help me, since I'm really not good at it thus far

And another picture, since I felt bad about just uploading a story link to a -partial- chapter.

Desunius, Councilor of War. Just another webpage picture (so it'll be smaller when I use it on the site itself.) She is holding something delicious, a fruit of some description.

JPG compression is eeeevil on reds.

Post by **Kuja** » 2005-10-30 10:37pm

*wolf-whistles*

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-10-30 10:38pm

I look forward to reading more.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-31 02:10am

He's actually an obsessively nice person. Basal Key Hoquer, one of the four Good characters who serve the Monarch directly.

I consider myself having gotten my digital art groove back. Finally.

There's some serious foreshortening in there, so it's best to bear that in mind.

There's a sketch of this earlier in this thread somewhere~~~~...

Ford Prefect · Post by **Ford Prefect** » 2005-10-31 02:18am

Sweeeet. Really, sweet. Like, ninja cool, or supernova explosive.

Oh, and your writing, your writing is bloody brilliant. Seriously, your ability to weave language is almost as good as your artwork.

Erik von Nein · Post by **Erik von Nein** » 2005-10-31 03:14am

[img]*snip%20hottie[/img]

Desunius, Councilor of War. Just another webpage picture (so it'll be smaller when I use it on the site itself.) She is holding something delicious, a fruit of some description.[/quote]

Freakin' hawt!

He's actually an obsessively nice person. Basal Key Hoquer, one of the four Good characters who serve the Monarch directly.

Iiiiinteresting. What's he obsessing about in that picture? The Lifestream?

Okay, bad FF7 reference.

I consider myself having gotten my digital art groove back. Finally.

You had to get back into a groove? That means you're fallible! You're not an art god like I thought! Nooooo, now I have to tear down my shrine! :weap:

Lindar · Post by **Lindar** » 2005-10-31 06:36pm

Do you ever plan on making any of those adorable dolls for sale Pick? They're adorable...

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-10-31 09:52pm

Thanks Ford!

I try to write well, but as I've said, it's really not my focus (all the more reason to work on it more, eh?)

Lindar wrote:Do you ever plan on making any of those adorable dolls for sale Pick? They're adorable...

No. Unfortunately, I no longer trust commissions that entail me putting down a significant initial investment. Ever.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-10-31 10:19pm

Those are fantastic, but may I make a bit of criticism, Pick?

There is an element largely missing from all your work. Chiaroscuro. The highlights are fine, but you are being far too timid about putting in deep rich shadows. Remember, you've got characters in dark spaces with a single light source. That mean you've got some serious shadows going on. However, your character are very well light, as though the ambient light of the area is quite strong. It doesn't make a very strong statement at all.

Also, in terms of shadow, the clothing on your characters doesn't seem to be casting any shadows on the character in places. You do clothing folds very well, but the clothing doesn't seem very real, like it drapes funny and doesn't have chiaroscuro or three diminsionality to it.

Furthermore, remember that metal bits and just about anything else is going to be in some way reflective and act as weak secondary light sources, so if a shadow area is right next to a light area, it may be a little lit by reflection.

I'd recommend nailing down a particular light source at a more extreme angle than straight on but a little to the left, then being a bit more aggressive at getting your deep shadows in. Don't be afraid to sacrifice detail for correct lights and darks, the lights and darks are more important anyway, much more as people seem them more.

You might also considering trying a few images where you just completely abandon drawing thick black lines to define your subjects and just do fields of color with strong tints and hues. When you know how to utilize light and shadow, you won't need those lines anymore.

Just some critiquing for you.

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2005-10-31 10:54pm

I agree with Gil, while the pic are far better then anything I could do, they lack three dimensionality, remember sometimes not showing something can more effective then showing (especially as it seems to that your chars have Demonic features).

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-11-01 11:01pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:Those are fantastic, but may I make a bit of criticism, Pick?

There is an element largely missing from all your work. Chiaroscuro. The highlights are fine, but you are being far too timid about putting in deep rich shadows. Remember, you've got characters in dark spaces with a single light source.

Uhm, but that's not true. There is ambient light; I wouldn't underlight if that wasn't true. These characters are on a black background because they're designed to go on my website (as icons and menus) which has a black background. I could only really use the positive space because of their role -- Hoquer didn't run into a big, black box with one flourescent light to start to berserk

.

Also, in terms of shadow, the clothing on your characters doesn't seem to be casting any shadows on the character in places. You do clothing folds very well, but the clothing doesn't seem very real, like it drapes funny and doesn't have chiaroscuro or three diminsionality to it.

Yes, I should go back and fix the shading on the clothing. I actually really didn't do the folds correctly, or they'd have lent themselves to more accurate lighting.

As it was, I didn't develop the sketch enough before I inked it. As for metal, I really should be much more careful there as well --I often forget to go back and give it real depth instead of just being 'shiny gray'. Desunius is especially obviously incorrectly done there.

I'd recommend nailing down a particular light source at a more extreme angle than straight on but a little to the left, then being a bit more aggressive at getting your deep shadows in. Don't be afraid to sacrifice detail for correct lights and darks, the lights and darks are more important anyway, much more as people seem them more.

Uhm, but I'm a shoujo artist

. It really isn't the norm in that art style to use heavy darks for shadow, especially on flesh (see for instance much of Higuri Yuu's work.) I actually use much greater value scales than most shoujo artists

. Using stark black and white values is really much more of an American comic kind of thing. Frank Miller for instance has fabulous black and white work, but you almost never find manga done that way.

You might also considering trying a few images where you just completely abandon drawing thick black lines to define your subjects and just do fields of color with strong tints and hues. When you know how to utilize light and shadow, you won't need those lines anymore.

...? I do pictures without harsh lines all the time, but that's in class. This is my hobby --anime art. I like doing meticulous and extremely carefully crafted line work; it's practically my speciality. I am more than able to do pieces without outlines, and do so (as well as landscapes, watercolors, all that crap) at school or by commission. When I'm doing it just for fun and not being paid, I'll do it however I find it fun. Since I visualize Dark Councilors as an anime of sorts, I find it only reasonable to draw it as such. I could easily never use outlines again, but I like them --it's part of why I enjoy the anime art genre

.

------------

Sketch from class of Selia, when she was a Basal Key.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-11-01 11:45pm

Pick wrote:Uhm, but that's not true. There is ambient light; I wouldn't underlight if that wasn't true. These characters are on a black background because they're designed to go on my website (as icons and menus) which has a black background. I could only really use the positive space because of their role -- Hoquer didn't run into a big, black box with one flourescent light to start to berserk .

Be that as it may, the ambient light on the character is heavily anomalous on the black background. It looks odd, because one expects heavy shadow in what appears to be a very dark scene. If your beastie boy didn't run into a big, black box with a lightbulb on a wire hanging from the ceiling, it shouldn't look like he did. The way out of that is to put a frame or backsplash of something around him; something that matches the ambient light of the character. You can still arrange it to work with the format of your website, no doubt, as long as it's got a black frame around it.

Uhm, but I'm a shoujo artist . It really isn't the norm in that art style to use heavy darks for shadow, especially on flesh (see for instance much of Higuri Yuu's work.) I actually use much greater value scales than most shoujo artists . Using stark black and white values is really much more of an American comic kind of thing. Frank Miller for instance has fabulous black and white work, but you almost never find manga done that way.

You don't have to have the awesome Frank Miller-esque super extreme constrast (which I love, by the way). Even shoujo artists use shadows on subjects where appropriate, even if the artist utilizes exactly five values for any one color. You have alot more value scales than alot of manga-ka out there, true, but what I've seen is still kind of needs more dark values.

...? I do pictures without harsh lines all the time, but that's in class. This is my hobby --anime art. I like doing meticulous and extremely carefully crafted line work; it's practically my speciality. I am more than able to do pieces without outlines, and do so (as well as landscapes, watercolors, all that crap) at school or by commission. When I'm doing it just for fun and not being paid, I'll do it however I find it fun. Since I visualize Dark Councilors as an anime of sorts, I find it only reasonable to draw it as such. I could easily never use outlines again, but I like them --it's part of why I enjoy the anime art genre .

That's your choice, of course. I'm just giving my opinions and criticism, not trying to bust your balls. Thick black lines can be nice and yours are, but to be honest they seem odd with how you shaded the characters, not to mention confining. I kind of think your characters would look even more stunning than they are without them or used a bit more conservatively.

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2005-11-02 12:12am

On the other hand, Hoquer appears to be glowing, which isn't particularly bad looking for a spellcasting pose.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2005-11-03 09:20pm

When you call the defensive houses the Nonpareil do you mean "without fear", essentially? if so, the correct form would be Sans Pareil, as in the name of the warship.

Yes, couldn't help the link.

Anyway, the following is for the criticism of the story:

The first part is very rough, lots of exposition and outside commentary. Only brilliant genius god-writers of Russian bohemian novelist category get away with that stuff in published novels, and they're better at it.

By the time of the training hall scene, when it begins, and everything after that, however, your style, the consistancy of your composition, etc, have all firmed up and are of excellent quality. I would recommend re-writing what comes before that with a mind to maintain a consistantcy of perspective and to reduce the interjections; after that it, as it stands, of good quality, though in some cases the use of italics to indicate thoughts is inconsistant.

It is a good beginning, and the fact that you improve so noticeably over the course of the first chapter speaks well of your prospects via continued effort.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-11-03 10:55pm

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:When you call the defensive houses the Nonpareil do you mean "without fear", essentially? if so, the correct form would be Sans Pareil, as in the name of the warship.

Yes, couldn't help the link.

"Nonpareil" means "without equal" from what I learned, so that's why I called them that. As far as the warriors and people of Good go, they are those that are without equal in their purity and dedication

.

Anyway, the following is for the criticism of the story:

The first part is very rough, lots of exposition and outside commentary. Only brilliant genius god-writers of Russian bohemian novelist category get away with that stuff in published novels, and they're better at it.

Yes, definitely. I can feel the roughness in it even now, but the problem is this story is unbelieveably expansive, and I wasn't even sure where in the timeline to start. To be completely fair, I was almost tempted to start it when the war began (which I could do), or an event that happened several centuries before this one (my original plan), or even about three years after this introduction, which is when the bulk of the characters will find their real definition. So all in all, as it stands, it's rather clunky there for a while when I was finding my footing, but I do plan to go back and fix it once I get a feeling for what I need to say, how, and when. The original draft of this story (VERY different --there were four Councilors, two of whom don't have equivalents in this story any more (the remaining two who had their personality aspects split to make two characters of each), a highly important character who was attempting high treason (also gone completely), etc.) I simply trust the reader directly into some very important action, but I realized in retrospect it didn't work well.

...though in some cases the use of italics to indicate thoughts is inconsistant.

That's probably me formatting it for the website and missing a few bits

.

It is a good beginning, and the fact that you improve so noticeably over the course of the first chapter speaks well of your prospects via continued effort.

Thank you kindly! It gets much better, of course, but some things have to be taken care of first *sigh!*

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2005-11-03 11:05pm

Pick wrote:
"Nonpareil" means "without equal" from what I learned, so that's why I called them that. As far as the warriors and people of Good go, they are those that are without equal in their purity and dedication :).

Heh, you're right about the meaning but I'm right about the word--in the French, at least, "Sans" would be used, not "non".

Yes, definitely. I can feel the roughness in it even now, but the problem is this story is unbelieveably expansive, and I wasn't even sure where in the timeline to start. To be completely fair, I was almost tempted to start it when the war began (which I could do), or an event that happened several centuries before this one (my original plan), or even about three years after this introduction, which is when the bulk of the characters will find their real definition. So all in all, as it stands, it's rather clunky there for a while when I was finding my footing, but I do plan to go back and fix it once I get a feeling for what I need to say, how, and when. The original draft of this story (VERY different --there were four Councilors, two of whom don't have equivalents in this story any more (the remaining two who had their personality aspects split to make two characters of each), a highly important character who was attempting high treason (also gone completely), etc.) I simply trust the reader directly into some very important action, but I realized in retrospect it didn't work well.

Well, I understand that very much. Such a process of revision is standard.

That's probably me formatting it for the website and missing a few bits :oops:.

No problem.

Thank you kindly! It gets much better, of course, but some things have to be taken care of first *sigh!*

Naturlich.

At any rate, the Kingdom of Good and your use of the language of good--and the sly hints interwoven into the story--suggest that this is functionally an Orwellian conflict set in a fantasy realm.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2005-11-04 08:49am

Be careful taking cues from Marina and Russian lit, Pick. You could find yourself writing a scene that takes 40 pages of real estate which basically could be summed up by the description "Two high ranking officers are getting plastered on vodka at the front lines and talking... endlessly... about some hereto unmentioned guy named Vladmir Josef Mikalovich III, Most Excellent Something of Something Else of Some Obscure Russian Province in the Ural Mountains."