you know i love your stuff. I've followed your work for a while now and i think i have a good idea of your workflow. As a fellow artist i thought i would offer a critique on this piece that could be applied to other works. Every artist has tendencies and habits, some good some some bad. I know from experience it can be hard to take risks artistically, and often times a failure breeds more progression/ evolution than a success. With that in mind i take up issue w/ what i will call "full Frontal". Full frontal means that whatever shape you are looking at you are looking at it straight on. No sides, no turns or twists just straight on, almost like a mug shot. In a working environment full frontal will immediately flatten an image,i.e., reduce the depth of the image. I noticed that you use the technique often w/ your characters' legs, and i believe it works sometimes and other times it is working against you. In the case of sixshot's right leg, it is working against you. My guess is that the left leg was drawn first and fully developed and rendered before the right leg was even drawn.Then when it came to the right leg it was difficult to get it to stand properly or match the clarity of the left leg. It kind of awkwardly juts out at the thigh w/o overlapping any of the left leg. The right foot looks totally different than the left. The left leg is beautiful in terms of the curves and dynamics and creates a nice firm stance/ while also dictating where the ground/ floor is. The right leg however is straight on to the viewer and immediately throws off all the good work the left leg is doing. It is also the part of him that is closest to the viewer and should project outward into space, but the angle at which it is at makes it flat , and prevents it from becoming "3-D". The head is actually doing the same thing but not to the same degree as the leg. I personally believe full frontal is best when used w/ extreme foreshortening. Like a fist coming straight at you or a projectile where they are much larger (because they are closer to the viewer). Rarely in life do you ever encounter something straight on so visually it is not a comfort zone for us. I see it all the time in TF art, mostly because the artist can't render the leg properly at that angle, so they shortcut to the "full frontal" cause its the easy way out. My suggestion to you is to try a couple new bots that refuse to go "full Frontal" . Loosely render both legs at the same time until they stand firmly on the same ground. Make the bots head look elsewhere besides straight ahead up down to the right anywhere but straight ahead. Your strong suits are the excellent angle relationships you set up, and your strong poses/ compositions. Your coloring is phenomenal. i think once you move past "full frontal" you will see a new dynamic to your stances. I hope this helps you more than me saying "great job!" As an artist i value critiques and I always have positive intentions so please respect my admiration for your work and the hope that it just keeps getting better! Shark all the way, totally appropriate. Now I'm thinking it would be cool to sharktify his pistols somehow. Looking forward to the colored version. Keep it up Blitz!
Very nice! And I don't agree with the people who aren't keen on the shark mode. That's what you like best, and you're the artist. IMO that means you can focus on whatever aspect of the character you like the most.
actually the full frontal pose is more to do with displaying the whole of the robot. I know that might sound odd but think of this more as part of a character sheet or a proposal its showing as much as possible with out being a technical drawing. As for the flat face well yeah that's just a tenancy I often draw the head first and go from that point a few of mine dont have it such as wheelie, after burner and wheeljack plus a few others but I get what you mean.
Here this may help. the full frontal only meant the one part of the body that was straight on. I did not mean the whole body. For sixshot it was the bottom right leg. Now I do believe the pose is a little less striking in my edit but i think that it has much more depth and your eye reads the leg correctly in terms of spatial mass. I changed the head a little too. Do you see what I mean?
Oh wow. All I got to say is THEM LEGS! Odd thing to get me excited, but their aesthetic is beautiful. Also, the flow of guns and holsters down his body is... amazing.
while thats fine for me thats a little dull and I really tried to go away from this kinda pose years ago. For me he just ends up looking too relaxed maybe if this were part of a comic strip and I wanted to have a standing pose I'd go with this but for what I want I dont mind the odd flat spot if it makes it look a bit more showie.
must. make. custom. of. this. this is just too awesome to stay a two dimensional image. oh, and i really like the fact that he has six guns. (though, do they only have one shot each ?)
This is rather unusual I realize, but when you're done with this and any other projects you have on your plate you should throw together a coloring tutorial. Your coloring really brings life to your work.
This is frickin' awesome, man! Love the idea of a shark mode replacing the wolf, it does seem odd that Sixshot lacks a water-based mode when you think about it. Then again, aquatic alt modes are always overlooked when it comes to Transformers, IMO. Can't wait to see this coloured. I second the request for alt-mode drawings, that'd be sweet.
I kinda feel lazy for not finishing the coloured pic now...well maybe because it is rather lazy of me
colours added... told ya guys I'd add do it... cant say the same for the alt mode pics as I've been convinced to do a mosaic
