Time to take a break from the weekly challenges and work on a long term project, where I have time to actually go back and change things.



It's a big puppet, suspended in the air. I'm not sure how visible the anatomy will be in the final version, but I figure it'll be a nice exercise to draw the anatomy, even if I end up painting over it. Before I get too far, I'd appreciate any pointers, particularly if I've made some glaring errors already. I'm not concerned about getting a natural pose. In fact, an unnatural pose would underline the puppet-ness. But I do want it to be anatomically correct.


Edited by CELS - 13 September 2011 at 5:43am

Thanks! I see what you're saying, particularly about the head.

I love this forum!! who owns it so I can propose??

Anyways: Cool to see you're just going on and on Cels! Onek you put some good advise there totally dig the loose puppet alot more.  I'm curious how you end up with this one Cels and dont forget those walking animations will arive soon with turning left and right upperbody

Quick tip edit: I just realised the person who's doing the ropes.. she stands in a position where the ropes never can be tight. Flip her horizontally and make the ropes go in the air.. like in a show if they where behind the scenes.. you know what I'm saying? I have a picture in my head where someone is standing up on a balcony doing it, but it needs to be in a different position to make the ropes tight and use the puppet?


Edited by Qemist - 13 September 2011 at 5:11pm

It's helpful to think of the chest and deltoids as one big muscle, as they're closely connected.  The chest striations radiate out from a point near the armpit, instead of horizontally.  The rest is looking good.

compositon is a big thing to me so i cant resist to comment ;D

i think right now everything looks too much cramped together
the space between the different layers isnt noticeable...
a very important technique in, especially, painting is to draw 'air' to make distances perceptible, unlike early religious paintings or egyptian hyroglyphs which look very flat, almost like collages ....
its hard to describe and there are diffrent ways to approach this, like convincing lighting/shadows.. proper perspective/ postions of objects in space, 'verblauung' [german] cant find the english word for this but here an example etc etc...

your perspective for the background is ok...
now it seems like the viewer is standing on a box or something
since the motive has somewhat of a magician on stage feel i would recommend to put the horizon more down, like the viewer is sitting
also the 2 characters should be more further away from the viewer, again to convey space, and to increase the stage like feel...

heres another edit




Edited by onek - 15 September 2011 at 12:40pm

Thanks onek, that's very helpful and it looks a hundred times better. Just give me a few days and I should have a new version ready.

Qemist, I see what you're saying and I was originally going to show the background room from a different angle, to sort of create more depth and mystery of where this is going on. But ultimately, I was inspired by so much Warhammer 40,000 artwork (Google Horus Heresy and you'll see some of it) which indeed has (deliberate) similarities to religious paintings, as onek touched on. Very dramatic and theatrical scenes.

I would make the other person slightly bigger.

if its child, its ok, if teen not ok. If its teenager or plus it should be bigger. Also her hand is weird :D

colours +1
space invaders = fav
finished piece = gonna be amazing

:D keep at it! nice stuff cells!

you should have some easteregg... :D

Its probably less easy to find then you think, but I think its on the right and its a space invader that has the arm in the same position as the statue above it?

Cool you did actually want to put in a easter egg thats less obvious then what you had before (the big invader screen). I really like how you are ending up. Really good colours on that android puppet thing.

Keep up the good work!

Not a whole lot of anything constructive to say; just that the emergence of this piece is fantastic. I love the shading on the puppet's "muscles."

@ Melee: Thanks for the words of encouragement. Just the boost I needed to keep working on this.

@ Frost Butt: Never played it.

@ Qemist:: Thanks! And yeah, it's an upside down space invader :)

@ Cyangmou: Nothing here is final, I'm open for suggestions everywhere. Actually, I sort of wanted to have a human body with texture from the muscles, and then put some sort of machine parts over that. But I quickly realized that combining anatomy with the angular lines of machinery is a complete nightmare for a beginner like me. Perhaps I can do some organic machine parts, I don't know. I haven't found a robot that looks like I want this android to look.

Here's the latest version. I thought the background looked rather flat and uninspired before, so I've tried to create some depth by shading. I'm probably going to spend months getting it right, but oh well.

"Unholy" seems to be the right word. I can't understand how you made that edit, except with some kind of pixel sorcery involving animal sacrifice.

Thanks a million for the edit! I realize that in order to achieve the dramatic lighting and perspective you're suggesting, it'll be quicker if I just start over. But the light rays just look so good, it creates exactly the kind of adventurous and mysterious atmosphere I was going for. I will also change the girl's pose, so it looks more like she's pulling the curtain away in a rapid motion, like a magician, or like she's unraveling a birthday present.

I think it's very interesting that you've flipped the image horizontally. I do think it looks good, but I wonder about the logic. After all, the eyes drift from left to right. The idea was that you'd first see a girl holding a curtain, and then move on to the android. But now, I'm wondering if people will notice the android first, and then go "Oh, and there's a girl in the dark on the bottom right". Which seems backwards.

EDIT: And the colours.... the colours...


Edited by CELS - 05 October 2011 at 6:50pm

well put!

Well, I've barely started version 2 of this piece. Trying to change the perspective and rework the lighting. It's quite difficult getting the colours right, as I'm not working with layers or anything futuristic like that.Still, I imagine it's a good exercise to do things manually, to understand how the colours blend together in such a complex scene with multiple light sources. It might end up taking a few months, but I've got time...

Is this supposed to be an actual anatomy study? Because the muscle groups and flow don't make much sense. Mostly the shoulder/chest - they are not parallel, but rather at a 90 degree angle with eachother. Your trapezius (triangle on the sides of the neck) muscles are also nearly non-existant. And keep in mind that between the serratus anterior (rib muscles) and abdominals there is a smoother flat space, the oblique muscle.


Here's some random reference:


Also (though this might be a stylistic choice) your muscle fibers are far, far too separated and too high in contrast. Real muscles are relatively smooth do not nearly have as many ridges and grooves. You can think of the muscle tissues as wood: there's lines in the form of woodgrain, but overall it's pretty flat.

The following link is not for the faint of heart:
http://www.thedenverclinic.com/services/mangled/images/stories/Arm_crush_Intraop_prep_for_recon.jpg