[Hazzard65]

Thought i'd chime in with some water weapon sketches. Not done yet, just need to do the bow and the arrow and then render em up all nice.

[Starexai]

Hazzard: Love it!

[DragonG]

Hi all! First try Axe! :]

[Jezebath]

DarioCoelho - Amazing sketches! I 'll be waiting for more stuff from you
Starexai - I like your designs, they are so much unique and colourful

I refined some sketches from yesterday, here are my wind axe and dagger:

[ckwi-art]

@Jezebeth - Your direction looks like it will turn out some interesting concepts. Your axe feels a bit swordlike, waiting to see how the rest will turn out with this direction.
@Hazard65 - Loving the coral direction. Your blades feel dull, either this is a design direction or something you plan to work on during rendering, cant wait to see more.
@cpterandall - I see you removed the horns on the axe. Liking your stuff so far, keep it up cant wait.
@Dario Coelho - If you ask me, what your doing is what Kovah was looking for when he started this jam, concept storming and just blasting out similar ideas. Loving it, hoping to see a more diverse armory and what else you come up with, closely watching you.
@josh-o-matic - I like your color scheme and your design direction, will hold further comment till I see how you deal with blades.
@Mudora - Looking awesome. Itd be nice to see some of the earlier scratchwork. Itd be nice to see your armory expanded with more varieties of weapons ie polearms, spears, chain/flexible weapons. Only real critique is what I believe is your axe doesnt seem to have that axe distinction to it. Looking forward to more, watching you closely.
@a3sthesia - One of the silhoutters, a step that is far too often neglected. Will hold further commentary for whaen you start rendering. Everyone else may want to start checking their silhouttes. Nods to josh-o-matic and mis_yula for also taking advantage of utilizing this very powerful concept testing technique.
@ZachM - Personal opinion, looks more scales and horns than rocks and spikes. Keep working though the serrated edges have a lot of potential I think.
@Robobobo - Axe concept looks great. Only critique is the monochromatic nature of it. If you want to keep the blue steel, maybe try playing with the material composition of the kraken and the pommel, maybe bronze or copper would look cool. If your up to the work tho a rough rusted copper look could be... ya, I think you get it. Cant wait to see more, watching you closely.
@mis_yula - Another silhoutter, very strong at that. Waiting to see where you take em.
@ChrisClay - There something to be said for very straightforward and bold design work, I think it has a Zelda feel to it. Ok critiques... Bow: try having the flames follow arms, see how it looks to you. Sword: from a usage perspective flame tips towards the point would be inhibitive to stabbing. Axe: Shaft/handle/grip feels unwieldy. Shield: maybe try having the flames spout from the crest on the shield rather than from behind it, also the dragons neck is hard to discern from the snout, maybe a color change or skin design change for the neck may help alleviate this. Keep working and pushing yourself, lots to learn from here.
@GillBates - Awesome, looking forward to more in the earthy giants collection. Watching closely.
@Ororo - Intriguing. Mace feels very rattle/maraca sized, and I think RhB has a point about the axe feeling bulky in your collection. Looking forward to more, also as being one of the very few air users youve got a standout position.
@DarkMechanic - Try making more versions of your current weaps and maybe add to your armory. I think your direction can pump out a lot of cool designs and concepts, cant wait to see what you do.
@Niconoff - Cant wait to see more, currently your the only distinctly futuristic style, dying to see more.
@Starexi - Im jealous, you can do the squiglies thing, my head wont let me do it, I have to use a clunky evolution process (very useful for doing offshoots and multiple similar designs tho) for my brain to allow it. Im liking your colorful direction helps your work stand out from the others. Biggest thing to mention for you though is to keep in mind that a concept for a weapon should look not only awesome but functional. I say this because your sword hilt feels very awkward and difficult to grasp. Also I havent been able to discern how your bow could work with a corporeal string because I havent been able to find good/logical connection points, but if your planning on a magical/incorporeal string it works perfectly. None the less your one of the ones Im following closely, keep it up cant wait to see more.

Big points in case the wall intimidated you...
Silhouttes: Very useful and powerful concepting tool
Iterations/Versions: The heart and soul of what concept work is
Functionality: I know its hard to keep in mind while trying to make everything look awesome, but if you wanted it to be used somewhere like a game or movie character it would be very important.

Great work everyone keep it up. And now my thumbs hurt... damn i miss having a computer...

[Seikfour04]

hi everyone. greatn work so far posted based my design on curvy lines which i connect to wind blowing over mountain peaks. the drape will be scarlet and is waving in the wind. the warriors wielding this weapon honor the god of air and they gain power when seeing the drapes flutter ub the wind, which is a sign of the presence of their god. will refine those designs. hope you like it

[Starexai]

Ckwi-Art: It's a wonderful thing for you to take your time to critique everyone's
work! Thank you for touching my piece as well. The squiggly layout is
another way but very new for me. I haven't really done it before. I don't have
a really process for digital painting and I can relate to you 100% on your
mind not allowing you to apply differently. I've been trying to self teach myself
digital painting because my school lacks that part. I love it but I get discouraged.
Thank you for your support and critique. This is why I'm involved with CGhub.
The community is great and it's definitely a learning experience. My original
process would probably start with rough sketches, line art, then color, but that
process takes a bit longer than I need it to. I was hoping to learn how to do
digital work that can be finished in a mere 3-8 hours. Challenging myself to do
quicker work for when I enter the industry. I have a hard time applying color
though. I think it's that I judge the piece before time is put into it. Can't seem
to find my style so I just do what I can out of desperation of wanting to paint!
Sorry I babbled off! Ha ha. For the bow I was going with a magical look, didn't
even think about the string while painting her. For the Sword, I was thinking
more of a Great Sword concept in a video game but unrealistic for reality.

[Hazzard65]

Done

[JomaroKindred]

Very nice art guys! I love to see people pushing their ideas and challenging themselves to get better.



@ckwi-art I think it's awesome that you took the time out to crit to so many people, thanks for that!

I'm not so great at giving crits but I'll give it a go...

@zsocee Pretty straight forward. I would love to see some other material in there to add interest.

@ororo Very sexy, very elegant!

@Niconoff Very well rendered, I look forward to seeing the rest of your weapons.

@RhB Nice sketches. I would love to see some of those cool elements like the dragon on the shield a bit larger. I think it would help make the silhouette much more interesting.

@DarkMechanic Cool so far man, just worried you want be able to tell they are actually elemental weapons. I will wait and see where you go with it.

@Dario Very inspirational sketches, your style and line confidence is super badass!

@Seikfour04 Very cool concept, I look forward to watching you pull it off!

@Hazzrd65 Im a but curious about the water. Is it static or is it constantly in motion?

@Mudora Very elegant design. The one thing that feels a bit weird to me is that the water has such clean lines. Would be cool to see it broken up a bit.

@cptcrandall Pretty hot!

@josh-0-matic Im really digging the sword silhouette and where you went with the bow.

@ZachM Cool looking bow, the only thing thats a bit weird to me is they all look like river rocks. Would be cool to see some of the textures broken up.

@Robobobo Feels really believable. The handle makes me think of a pencil though =)

@Starexai Pretty dope so far, I just dont know if there is a safe place to hold those weapons.

@ChrisClay You did a nice job breaking up the textures. I fear the arrow may be a bit to short. I look like if you were to draw it back that the arrow would take a nose dive.

@mis_yula's Feels sexy and chunky just like I like them =)

@Jezebath they feel very fast, and very sharp. The axe looks more like a sword to me and they both look very similar.


Here is my progress so far, and my idea for an earth sword. The blade would be made of some sort of jagged crystal or perhaps diamond. The rest of the blade is comprised of bone, wood, metal and leather. Crits are welcome and appreciated.

[ckwi-art]

@Starexai - I have the time on my hands to help everyone so I might as well. Also equipment design is kind of what I'd like to do so I have a particularly deep passion for this kind of stuff. You'll notice quite a few quite a few artists who can start from squigglies or color splotches, but alas I cant due to my brain relegating them to cow pies long before I can do anything with them. My favorite drawing canvas is graph paper, just to show how much of an order freak i can be...

To give you an idea how I work, I'll try to explain how my process works within the constraints of this competition. In short my process is basically design evolution, i make it and continue to alter and add more details as I flesh it out. So my most mentally fleshed out idea for this concept is a 2Handed Earth type sword.
Step 1: Find a starting point. On the wikipedia page I posted here earlier, I found the Chinese 2H (or it might be 1-1/2, if that needs more explanation feel free to ask) sword the Dadao. If you look it up, its basically a 3-5ft long meat cleaver. Perfect for the very clunky, large, brute force type weapons and earth element makes come to mind.
Step 2: Draw a very plain and boring Dadao outline, blade, crossguard, hilt, and pommel with no details 3 polygons and a circle basically.
Step 3: Come up with a design direction. I plan on doing a light sandstone/limestone looking rock held together by what seems like a tree grown into the rock.
Steps 4+: Keep adding to and altering till I'm happy. Very important side note here, when you make a big silhoutte addition and complete its course throught the piece, save an iteration to go back to, same with the original basic weapon outline, until you feel like the weapon is uniquely just it aside from color keep doing this, theyre good branching off points to hold onto. Especially when doing concept work, using your own work to create a digital encyclopedia of sorts is beyond helpful (the things you learn when you go without a computer for 2 years). Eventually I'll call a concept done, or too challenging to alter further without making serious counterproductive/useless changes or damaging the work/direction.

In regards to your desire to be able to do a fleshed out digital work in 3-8 hours fully rendered, not that important. Take a look at Riot Games' Leage of Legends Art Spotlights for character splashes on Youtube. Real time listed is generally 8-13 hours, and thats for a character thats already designed and fleshed out, general color scheme chosen, and home environment already known, and it still takes that much time to do well. A better goal would be to be able to do a concept dump in that kind of time like Dario Coelho, because in the long run its far more useful, creating always is and always will be a harder task than improving.

In regards to coloring issues I have an idea that may help you and other beginners out. Look at all your Photoshop, Painter, or whatever progran you use's tools and pitch all of them except hard and soft round brushes, layers, layer types, color picker aka "eyedropper", and eraser. This basically brings you down to working traditionally without the drawback of destroying your original work. Dont bring any outside assets except scanned in sketches or some linework you wish to color practice with. When you start getting a feel for that add in the pen and selection tools, this will round out your bread and butter tool set. After you have to play around in the self imposed "kiddy pool" start branching out and toying with the advanced features and try to learn anything you want to for whatever your working on. Try not to learn anything you cant use immediately or in the visible future, just makes it harder to learn and remember, necessity and desire are the two greatest tools of learning. Hopefully this will help with that nightmare of "omg I know nothing, /facepalm, I am stupid/I suck", all the experienced people here can probably attest to hitting this point when they were learning and maybe even every once in awhile still.

Lastly I understand "reality" for a non-reality based concept is often an afterthought, forgotten, or a non-consideration as it was in your case. Which early on I can honestly say is a good thing, reality can be a massive crushing wall for imagination, an inhibitor of possibility. But take some time to look at MMOs and RPGs, no matter how outlandish and crazy equipment gets, they still exude a feeling that if the games character picked it up they could use it without obvious issues (its a game knowledge of item and skill with it are near irrelevant statistics that I understand also). Take Warcraft III for example, the original weapon of the Taurens was a totem pole, which basically amounts to a branchless tree. As a truncheon/club it is an unusable weapon by anyone smaller than 15-20ft tall or possibly more within the logic constraints of the game. Problem solved by making the weapon used like a portable battering ram/wall which for a 7-8ft tall tauren was possible when carried under one arm or over shoulder and supported and guided by the other arm when in use. Get what Im saying? Today depending on a games style if it doesnt seem plausible to the gameworld gamers will notice and call out the BS when they see it. Also look at the Dead Rising "Shopping Mall Zombie Farm" games for more insight into getting weapons to work.

For learning materials, I recommend checking out IFX Magazine, Gnomon Workshop, and Ballistic Publications for physical resources. Schoolism, Gnomon Workshop, and CG Society for online courses. After that with a little searching you can find decent tutorials on DeviantArt, GameArtisans, and here. Lastly, any person with knowledge of what you do and is willing to talk to you about it is a great learning resource, ie myself, most art site forum moderators etc.

Good Luck have fun. My thumbs hurt again... damn cell phone as primary comp...

[ckwi-art]

Originally Posted by GillBates

Very nice art guys! I love to see people pushing their ideas and challenging themselves to get better.



@ckwi-art I think it's awesome that you took the time out to crit to so many people, thanks for that!

I'm not so great at giving crits but I'll give it a go...

@Hazzrd65 Im a but curious about the water. Is it static or is it constantly in motion?

@Mudora Very elegant design. The one thing that feels a bit weird to me is that the water has such clean lines. Would be cool to see it broken up a bit.

Here is my progress so far, and my idea for an earth sword. The blade would be made of some sort of jagged crystal or perhaps diamond. The rest of the blade is comprised of bone, wood, metal and leather. Crits are welcome and appreciated.

Thanks man, tbh im a far better critic than I am an artist, just unlike most critics id like to be better at what i critique.

In regard to your comment on Hazzard65's stuff I dont think his are actually meant to be comprised of water just to reflect its look.
In regards to your comment on Mudora's stuff, it felt like the water was meant to seem a lot like the monster Jell in the Monster Rancher series in term of composition are moldable solid that has a liquid feel to it.

Hazzard65/Mudora itd be great if you could clear this up for us.

@GillBates - I appretiate how you kept the motifs from one weapon to the other while still making them feel different, the pommel tassel, studded hilt/shaft, bone backbone for the blades, and leather bindings holding them together. Also have you considered possibly using obsidian for the swords blade, a very earthy rock but still can have that sheen that comes with diamond and crystal?

[Robobobo]

Lotsaluvin, thx man
ckwi-art, thanks for 'crit' for now I'm just putting on some basic for final, l8r I will do some more work on shapes and color) I'll try bronze)))
GillBates, foc))) I wanted it to be a column not a pencil))) will be fixed)

Sorry guys for no comments, I'll write some bunch of letter in a few days)

[ckwi-art]

@Robobo - Happy to help. Understandable, with better artists I find giving big ideas earlier on is far more useful because they start juggling ideas that arent immediately impactful in the forefront of their mind and kind of mentally "playtest" them or think of ways different ideas would alter their designs as they go, rather than try to immdeately overwork/think into them right away and stress themselves out like newer artists will (painful memories right there). Based on your response Im almost positive youve mentally photoshopped a shiny brown and a dull green onto both your concepts while you were looking at em, and probably a few more springboarded ideas.

[Hazzard65]

They are static.

The crystals are what the forms grow out of in a watery fashion and then solidify. Forming an almost glass like texture but very hard.

[JomaroKindred]

@Robobobo Dude that shield is RADASS...yes RADASS!

@Hazzard I dig it man!

@ckwi-art Thank you for the suggestion and the very constructive crits. I do like the obsidian more then the diamondesque blade. It feels a bit more badass and mysterious!

The idea of obsidian did cross my mind very briefly, but the left side of my brain took control..."its Very sharp but super brittle" the right side of my brain should of then said "pssh whatever it's other worldly, enchanted, magical, fake krytonite material with a spooky glow! MUHAHAHHAHA"