Acyl Art (Update: C.Flame, Space/Marcus)

[Rev Dark]

Well, that is one fox hunt I whole heartedly support (and one than could no doubt benefity from jodhpurs and a riding crop)

Great work Acyl!

[Foxboy]

*glee*

Excellent work, Acyl. Definitely.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Foxboy]

Exceeeept... Six fingers on Nogi's right hand? I don't recall Nogi ever killing a Spanish Swordsman's father...

"Ara! Did you not say six fingers on the LEFT hand, Montoya-san?"
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Acyl]

Fersluggin'...that's what I get for inking past midnight.

Fixing it, re-upload shortly.

EDIT: edited versions of both res versions uploaded. However, the new fingers...don't look right to me. Argh. I think I may need to entirely redraw that
hand in a day or two...grr. x_x

I hate mistakes like that. Small things I'm willing to overlook, but something like that I can't ignore.
Photobucket is also being a cast iron bitch with uploading right now, so I'll leave this for the moment. But
I'll take another stab at the hand later.
-- Acyl

[Acyl]

Yeah, I am still working on stuff. I'm just slow because I'm lazy...er, I mean a bum...I mean...
No finished colour images at the moment, but here's what I'm working on currently:-

Purrfect Archer (aka the artiste formerly known as Just Another Archer, requested by MatrixDragon/Matrix Dragon)

Inked lineart. I'm not entirely satisfied with the left arm - bicep probably needs some tweaking. Took me a couple of tries to nail the overall pose as well - it ain't perfect either, but good enough. Er. Pun unintended. But I figured if I was gonna draw an archer, it damn well needs to be a classic archer pose. I might post the rough sketches I did when planning this out; they're not bad pieces in and of themselves, they just didn't scream ARCHER. This will be coloured at some point. I'm not sure yet how I'll handle the glow around her eyes; chances are I'll make it more subtle than how it appears in-game so as to not obscure too much detail.
Righteous Jade (requested by Zandock)

Zan isn't a Legendary member, but I do have a couple things in my queue that aren't Legendary-related. =P ... I'm not really happy with the ink job on this one. I tried to be clever speeding up the process with vectoring and playing with curves and such...in the end it wasn't that great a time-saver, and the results aren't really good. I could probably fix it with another close in pass at higher magnification and the brush tool, but...eh, I dunno. Unsure. This will also be coloured sometime, and I already want to throw a green light filter over most of it - the character is an Empath...and if I do THAT then the inking might not be so important.
Jelidan (requested by MicroShade/MicroHue)

If this looks rough, well, it is - this is basically representative of base pencils before I ink over 'em. The details are there, but not as well defined. I'm not entirely satisfied with the katana. It's long and wide as is, but the Legacy Katana on an average female model is ridiculously huge for a katana, proportionately speaking. I dunno. I might extend the blade before I ink and colour it. Might not. Depends on how I think it looks...
Misao (requested by
ECSNorway)

This one is sorta different. This isn't tablet work at all - it's a scan from the sketchbook I carry around. Unfortunately the family scanner really sucks for picking up subtle pencil shading...and it's really too troublesome to hook up my flatbed right now. I might try to get a cleaner scan at some future date. Suffice to say this looks a lot better on paper.
But...I'm not sure what to make of this. It really isn't accurate to the description ECSNorway gave of the character - I deviated in quite a few details. But that's largely because I drew this while I was out and didn't have the description to reference. Which also explains why the pose is rather boring, really. And yet I sorta like how it turned out. Actually, well, I just like how the head turned out, but that kinda carries the rest of it.
Given the fact it's already a shaded pencil work, it's unlikely that I'll ink and colour this. So it is essentially finished, I just need a better scan.
That said, I might do another Misao (closer to ECSNorway's desc, and coloured). Or not. I'll see what the muse says.
I also have rough pencils of Corrupted Flame, but I'm getting increasingly dissatisfied with how they look and may redraw them entirely.
-- Acyl

[CrimsonKMR]

Acyl wrote:


I also have rough pencils of Corrupted Flame, but I'm getting increasingly dissatisfied with how they look and may redraw them entirely.

Flame's bitchiness/smarmyness/whatever is hard to capture No worries Acyl, take your time
There is no coincidence, only necessity....
- Clow Reed

[Rev Dark]

Acy, those all rock hard. They look great.

[Matrix Dragon]

Oh, that's utterly BRILLIANT Acyl. I can't stop giggling at Nekos pose.

Edit: I've also posted the image on another forum I go to a lot. I figure they'd like it.

[Acyl]

Oh, that's utterly BRILLIANT Acyl. I can't stop giggling at Nekos pose.

Edit: I've also posted the image on another forum I go to a lot. I figure they'd like it.

Mind telling me where? I'm always curious to see what works for people and what doesn't. Helps me gauge the experimental results. =P
That said - here's phase two:-
Purrfect Archer (Coloured)


High Resolution version also available (367 kb, 1181x1337 px)
I didn't originally plan on adding the...er...special effect, but the flat colours looked a little bland so it needed something...and then I sorta got carried away. I tried adding a more prominent eye-glow, but while it did work, it also looked a bit goofy with the other more prominent light source in the picture, so I dropped the eye colour to almost nil.

The squinty-eye expressions probably ain't as good as they could be, and I got lazy ...used simpler shading in the picture. But as a whole I think it works.
-- Acyl

[Matrix Dragon]

I tried adding a more prominent eye-glow, but while it did work, it also looked a bit goofy with the other more
prominent light source in the picture, so I dropped the eye colour to almost nil.

Well then, shift the whites of Alices eyes back to normal, and it's explained as she finally worked out how to turn the blasted lights off.
They bug the heck out of her really

And the thread is here.

http://www.runboard.com/bdeinonychusden.f5.t15116

Note that the guy commenting is actually a damn good artist, you can find his work here

http://www.shadowgirlscomic.com/

[Acyl]

Mmkay, I need feedback on this. I'm trying to work faster now, y'see, as I gain more confidence working with these new tools...'s not just the tablet, at that. I've also picked up quite a lot of software techniques since I started this.
Anyway, here's the thing. I've done the shading and highlights - the subtle colour variations for 3D effect, basically - slightly differently here. Faster and with less care, with heavy blurring of the coloured areas. I've been moving in this direction for a while now, but it's more obvious here. Question is, does it work?
The couple folks who saw me workin' on these two images said it actually looks better, softer and more organic. I'm not so sure. What do you think?
Righteous Jade (for Zandock)

As usual, I also have a High Res Version (Righteous Jade - 726 kb - 971x1428)
Jelidan (for MicroShade/MicroHue)

Likewise, High Res Version available (Jelidan - 433 kb - 1181x1649)

  
-- Acyl

[OpMegs]

Hmm, all I can say is I can't really tell the difference without looking for it in the hi-res version. So I'd say great success!
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Shader]

Thank you for the picture of Jelidan, Acyl. 3d shading looks great! The one's who I've shown it to have loved it, and the person I intended it for
absolutely adored it. Thank you so much. Jelidan's basic eye-glow- Check although in game its streaming out of her eyes a little more, her blade - check,
Outfit - Check (that's her hunting outfit), Action pose - Check, Metal jaw - Check. Semi-Transparent.... well no but then you still give the impression
that she's amazingly fast which is why she's partly transparent (too fast for the light to keep up with.)

Overall Excellent Work!

Shader

[Acyl]

MicroHue wrote:

---

Jelidan's basic eye-glow- Check although in game its streaming out of her eyes a little more (...) Semi-Transparent.... well no but then you still give
the impression that she's amazingly fast which is why she's partly transparent (too fast for the light to keep up with.)

Mm, the eye glow being rendered the way it is - that's intentional - my original glow layer for the eyes had significantly more
bleed, but I clipped it back because it was interfering with the hair and sword blade. Didn't look so good. However, the fact the character's meant to
be vaguely translucent is something I completely forgot...

I still could do that. Making the character see-through is just a matter of playing with opacity sliders. I can do that in about five minutes. The inks,
colours, and background are all several separate layers, so it's easy to keep the background solid and just drop everything else.

Trouble is, even if I did that it wouldn't work with the current background. It's pointless to have a transparent character if there's nothing on
the other side; all I have here is a gradient and some motion-lines. I might draw something else to go behind the figure, or adapt a screenshot or somesuch.
I'll think of something. Chances are I'll finish the Glass Lass and Silicon Sabre images I have in progress before I do anything else, but I might
revisit this.

OpMegs: Yeah, y'know, I honestly didn't realise that. You're right, the different technique is only visible up close - no obvious
difference at the smaller web-image size. I spend my time bouncing between the different zoom levels in Photoshop, so I'm more conscious of how it looks
close in. But most people wouldn't be staring that hard. Yeah. That's good to know. I can use this more.
-- Acyl

[Acyl]

Here we go again. Similar in style to the Jelidan and Righteous Jade pictures - and also the Purrfect Archer one, actually. At some point I need to start practicing drawing actual backgrounds instead of these stylised colour approximations...
...though this is kinda halfway there; there's some level of detail to the backdrop, at least, and the floating interface panels count as 'objects' since I had to draw 'em individually anyway.
Silicon Sabre (for OpMegs)

As usual, High Res Version available (965.7kb - 1348x1676)
Some design liberties taken with the costume to make it more 'hardsuit-like'. Hair, skin tone and face based on 2040 Sylia Stingray...largely because the hair colour worked better for the picture. Old-school BGC Sylia has dark hair, which didn't look right with the helmet (I tried that initially). The pose itself is pretty static, but that's because I knew there'd be an ambitious amount of detail here, and wasn't sure if it'd work.
Well, it does work, so if I were doing something like this again, I'd probably try for something more dynamic, perhaps more akin to the classic 'hardsuit jettisoning' Priss image. That's in the future, though.
-- Acyl

[Wiregeek]

dude, I LOVE the 'chalk image' look of the background stuff. This totally feels like an artbook piece detailing the hardsuit, with the background as
incidental.

thumbs up.

(Ps - can't stop staring at Crotch Trilobite- it hypnotizes me)
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sofaspud]

*stares at background*

AAAAH! SYLIA and UNIT 01, together! FLEEE!

(Heh.)

I really like this, Acyl. My only complaint would be the aforementioned 'crotch trilobyte', and mainly that stems from the fact that I can't see
how she could -walk- without causing those plates, positioned as they are, to dig into sensitive bits. That could just be me, I suppose, but that looks very
ouch. (I think it's because they don't appear very 3d, so they seem to be fastened -over- the jointline, rather than following it around, if that
makes sense)

But on the whole? -Awesome-. I especially like the way the background is pushing focus onto the important bits. It's there, but it's not sucking
attention away from the central figure. Very, very nice.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Rev Dark]

Acyl, the new work is fabulous.

Crotch Tribolite? The New Hypno Toad!

Shayne

[Acyl]

Looking at it again, you're correct about the joint line. That really doesn't work, physically. Hmn. I don't really have an answer for that. I wasn't thinking too clearly by the time I got to the lower bit, I guess...

The crotch on Enforcer detail does look like that...though I suspect the plates are smaller relative to the actual pelvis on the CoH model. But in drawing 'em I probably made 'em look larger...and forgot to consider everything else.

I have a couple ideas how to fix it, though there's no quick solution - one way or another I'd have to do a fair bit of re-drawing.
-- Acyl

[Sofaspud]

I'm no artist, I just know what I like (heh), but I can think of a couple things that might work.

First would be to simply scale down the plates. If the largest and the middle plates were shrunk horizontally, their outside edges would fall behind the
jointline and all would be well (since the leg would then be swinging 'around' them, rather than pushing them into the pelvis).

Or, inverting them might work too. Make them a V instead of a ^ shape, if that makes sense. That would do the same thing, namely, get them off the thighs
(where they seem to be attached right now).

I don't want to come off as a know-it-all or anything here; I -suck- at drawing, I really do. I'm just giving my opinion, and for all I know I'm
totally off-the-mark and I'm just seeing things the wrong way, y'know? And overall, I really do love the artwork.

'sides, it's Ops piece, no? I should probably shut up and let him comment

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Acyl]

No, you're right. And did you mean something like this?

That's about 10 minutes of quick hacksaw surgery. No high-res version at present. I can upload one, but the edit is more obvious at larger scale. What I did was isolate the plate area, sized that down, then filled in the gap left behind with new lines and colours.
Theoretically, a better way to do it would be to redraw the entire damn pelvis, but that would take significantly longer.
-- Acyl

[Wiregeek]

you need a test dummy. Here's some tights, some velcro, some plastic plates.. now go find someone of the appropriate body shape willing to let you stick
armor plating on their crotch.

; )
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Acyl]

Sadly, the only person who's ever seriously offered to show me their genitals for art reasons is male, and that, y'know, doesn't do anything for me. Due to reasons of heterosexuality.

On the other hand, I probably spend too much time staring at people's body parts...not thinking stuff like 'whoa, she's hot', but more like 'hmmm, so THAT'S how denim would crease in that position, I need to remember that'. Which is vaguely disturbing really.

As a friend put it: "That way lies a sad and tragic road, upon which you will never get laid."

Anyway. Yeah, quick edit on the last post. If that works, I might leave it at that and upload a larger version of the version-two edit for the usual high-res copy. I don't think I really wanna scratch-redraw the entire region.

The most I might do is clean up the background lines - with the tightened crotch and smaller armour plates, the black/blue 'chalk' background around the left leg looks slightly odd, I think...thoughts?
-- Acyl

[Wiregeek]

if it does look odd, I'm not seeing it.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sofaspud]

Yeah, what Wire said. I'm not seeing anything odd with the background at all.

And for a 10-minute hacksaw job (your words), that's pretty damn impressive. Nicely fixes it, IMO.

You continue to impress me, Acyl

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs