Hi! New comer here, and pretty new to CG, but I thought I would give this a try for the experience. This is what I have got going so far. I am not super happy with the torso area, I was going for a long lean look, but it isn't looking quite right to me yet. Any ideas or input would be so great, thanks! I haven't decided if it'll be sci-fi or fantasy yet, shell be holding a staff or long bow type weapon in her hand, which is sort of going fantasy, I guess.

Another action sketch just to show a bit more of the feel I'm going for. I'm going to work on some more head options for my warrior woman, I'm vacillating between the alien concept that I started out with, or just a regular human. I'll try a few sketches of both to share, and hopefully get some opinions! I'd sure appreciate that!
I know I'm not that good at this yet, I've only been doing this for a couple months and I've only got Photoshop 8, which is very old. No curves or masks available! So please, any tips would be great. I've learned a lot from youtube tutorials so far, but it's been a pretty steep learning curve!

11 days later

Well, here is a little bit more finished sketch of what my final picture might look like. I'm planning a rather better background, I hope. Something nautical, steampunk, with a little wider perspective.
Any ideas/advice would be appreciated! Everyone on here is doing really great work! I'm a little nervous about how to lay it all out to look right/professional. But, it's all a learning experience, so should be fun!

Hi, super rough bad sketch here, but hoping for at least one bit of feed back. I'm not sure which composition to go with, which looks better, more dynamic? Any ideas?

8 days later

Here is one of the previous poses with a bit (I think) better background. Hope to get some feedback soon so I can feel more sure about how to get going on my final good copy. I would sure appreciate it!

Lovely pieces! I love seeing people who are not afraid to start from scratch, because 9 out 10 times it helps the image immensely, plus you as an artist get more practice in which is always great :smile:

As to your questions from here.
I know how discouraging it can be, my first attempts over at the old forums went similarly and honestly, getting ignored is easily one of the worst thing for artist motivation that can happen :pensive: . As to "why", there are multiple reasons that I know.
First off, I've noticed in the monthiles over here, the first few weeks people get a lot of replies, but at later weeks, everyone starts working hard on their pieces and not so many people go around commenting. It's often the first impression that makes a topic popular or not and if you don't get noticed from the begging, it can be harder later.

Secondly, people like commenting on what they like. That means that a professional artist with years of practice will always get far more comments that someone still learning (even though they need it the least).

Thirdly, it's a big forum. The topics are updated constantly and with such a flood of new content, it's hard to get noticed easily.

So what can you do?
Here's what I did anyway: Go around and start commenting on topics. That's it. Not the topics that have dozens of replies, but the ones like yourself, with little or no attention (and believe me, you are not the only one struggling with getting noticed). And don't just comment "Nice pic", but try to make a reasonable critique, exactly what you would like to see.
Some of those people will in turn check your topic out, write a critique themselves. After a while, people will start to recognize you as a part of the community and be interested in your work because of you.

At least that worked for me :smile: (it even made me a mod! haha)
Hope that helps at least a little bit (:

(I've wanted to write a short critique, but this took much longer than expected, so I'll have to add it later.)

You would have to grey scale this entire scene first (you have a month), then work on the values of what you want read most.
An example the two figures the rest of the scene fade into the distance.
I am not a concept artist i know though that values matter always. (grey/gray scale)

What i see now is that you probably went straight into colors and lights/dark's which results in this looking really dark with some spots of color in it.

I see the girl and everything though it would be super cool to be able to read this much easier (for the eyes).

It's not bad just can be better, as for attacking scene pose, i wouldn't know how to help, i usually look up dynamic stuff of even get a screenshot from a movie that is popular and mimic that battle scenario that fits what you are making.

That is all i got best of luck.

Thanks so much for the reply! I was figuring all those things were probably in part to blame, but of course, constantly second guessing everything! I have been trying to do just that, commenting on others works, hopefully it will slowly come together, if I have enough patience! Lol :smile:

Hi! Thank you for the reply and ideas. Yes, I didn't do any under painting, that's a newer concept to me even in my usual acrylic medium, and I really had no realization that it might help with CG! Always something new, lol. I will definitely be giving that a try starting today.
Thank you again, it means a LOT to have some feedback.
<3

No worries i know how it is when you don't get much, that is just the way it is.

Best of luck glad you are from another background and trying something new, just take your time obviously, bunch of info out there on the world wide web. :smile:

Hopefully someone who knows more about these processes can come around some time to help, other than just chatting on a popular thread...

Working on that grey scale drawing. I just wanted to share how it's going. The first one is without a search light on her, the second has one. I'll have to keep going before I can figure out which will look better. I'll also have to get the new photoshop, Photoshop 8 does not have curves or masks or feathering edges, so that's why my search lights look so dumb! lol

Any ideas to improve would be gladly accepted!

You have a very interesting concept here. In my opinion, you're on a good path and I encourage you to keep up the work! :smile:

A little tip: I think there is a bit too much going on in the background, and by that I mean the gleam of the water. It might draws the attention later from the scene you want to highlight. You could also add a little blur, smoke where the water hits the horizon in the very back of the picture due to the aerial perspective, which could create a greater illusion of distance. Furthermore, I'm not sure if you decided to keep the headlight falling directly on your character or not, but in my opinion it would be better without it.

Thank you for the feedback!!! Very much appreciated! I will dial back the reflection in the water some, and I'm updating my photoshop soon, so will be able to add those blur area thingies that I don't have in Photoshop 8. I'm not sure yet about the spot light on my character if I just highlight the areas on her that would be bright if it was there and fade the surrounding spotlight effect? I'm just thinking it may make her show up better. But I can improve that with the update too, as I don't have curves in this version either. I guess I'd better bite the bullet and update! Times running out!
Thanks again for the feedback, it helps SOOOO much.

Thank you so much, I really really appreciate it. I'm constantly second guessing my work, especially in this new medium, so it's good to know it's heading in generally the right direction!

So, just an update and hopefully some back story for my character:

I got a one month subscription to Photoshop and have added some new effects to my latest drawing (will post when I have a bit more done). I'm held up a little with some of the updates though, the 'feel' of some of the brushes is a lot different from what my version of photoshop was like and so I'm not quite getting certain effects the same way I was able to before. Also, the tool icons are all different looking now, so have to relearn what everything is to a degree. Then there are the altogether new tools to try and see how they can help me. I hope I'm using everything right! I did a tonne of youtube tutorials to help learn as much as possible, but, crap, there is a LOT to learn! And not much more time to learn it! All this is setting me back a little, so I really hope what I'm working on now is going to be presentation worthy. I know I will not be the best on here by far, but my expectations of myself are such as that I'd like to present my best work, and I'm horribly hard on myself if it takes longer than I 'think' it should to get to a certain point in my learning curve! So I really don't want to completely look like crap in comparison with all the awesome stuff I see coming out from you guys!

Well, that's the update on progress. I'll post separately her story so that no one has to weed through my rant to see it! lol

Aranel: Warrior from the sea

In an alternate, Steampunk universe, there is a race of Ocean & shore dwelling aliens known as Scyphozoanians, a kingdom of reclusive creatures who find themselves trapped in the middle of a terrible civil war between the surface dwellers and their rebelling automaton creations! To save their own people, and because they are generally extreamly fearful, the Scyphozoanian King decides to try to escape to deeper waters, hoping that will protect his people and they may remain neutral in the fight! Yellow bellied barnacle suckers!
But there is a few braver souls, who realize that running away can only postpone their demise.

Among these who see the need to take action is Aranel.
Although she doesn't yet realize it, Aranel is the secret daughter of the King, and therefore, as royal blood, she possesses a certain ability to use the stored electricity in her tentacled "hair" as a weapon against assailants. She learns she is able to funnel the power through her hands into special devices that can be used to aim and amplify the energy to overcome and destroy the rampaging automatons. The two devices she uses are a palm concentrator that funnels the energy in a thin stream, like a ray gun, and can be easily aimed by facing the palm of the hand out towards the target and pushing a button on the side of the device with the thumb. The other device is a staff that is lethal at both ends, one end being a very sharp spear, the other another a spear-like point with wires that come from the handle of the staff to transfer Aranel's energy through to the point.

Aranel, who grew up as an orphan, was very curious about the land dwellers that her kind seemed so afraid of, and studied them a great deal before the war. She felt some sort of kinship to them that she lacked towards her own people and when she saw their need in what seemed a loosing battle against the rebelling technology, she saw an opportunity to not only escape her lonely life, but to help both the land dwellers and her own people as well.

The small resistance group she joins herself to train her in combat and are very impressed by her quick learning and amazing dexterity. She is surprised that they are not taken aback by her very alien appearance, until they take her to meet an old Scyphozoanian man, who says he used to work in the army of the former King, who was a good deal braver than the current one. It was the new king who sent him away when he felt fleeing was a better plan than fighting. He is the one who realizes by watching Aranel during training, that she is of royal blood, and gives her the devices that will help her take the lead in the battle against the terrifying automatons who are intent on converting the entire planet into steam & spring powered sentient machines! The horror!!!! :anguished:

I'm trying a more transparent look for the final skin. What do you guys think? I find its still looking a tad flat, any ideas on how to get the round look with that transparency there? Thanks!