[arttorney]

These challenges are open to all CGHub members. I'll leave the other question to Icon.

[Surthur_Tim_Keil]

Originally Posted by GabrielVerdon

What do you mean by this:

"Bonus: Single Character Illustration on white background!"

Is this a character design challenge or an illustration challenge? I'm a little confused.

I would like to see this answered as well, are we suppodes to do a concept on white before sending in a complete illustration with bg and all, or how do you think this is supposed to roll ?

[Peter_Coene]

a bit of progress, not much time to work on it today.

[stace]

This challenge alone made me become a member after being a long time lurker.

Princess Mononoke was my first Miyazaki film I saw, and I instantly thought of humans wearing pelts. Miyazaki also puts so much attention and detail in his landscapes (heard it was his favorite thing to paint), so I wanted to include that as well.

Just some sketches so far.

[arttorney]

Fundamentally this is an illustration challenge. The single character design challenges are in Characterforge. Think book or graphic novel cover, album cover etc. for this challenge. That bonus character on white mentioned is probably something you can do for extra brownie points on top of doing the main illustration. If you want to be in the hunt on this competition you should probably throw the bulk of your effort into producing an illustration of one or more characters in an environment and characters and environment should all be Miyazaki inspired. Look at the poll threads of the 1-6 Illustrated challenges to see examples of what kind of work gets done for this challenge.

[icon]

Gabriel Verdon & Surthur_Tim_keil (and to anyone else with a similar question):


Arttorney explains it well.

To add on to his statement the character on white is something a bit easier than a full on character illustration.. it serves two purposes:

1. Often people go right to illustrating without thinking about the design of its parts ( characters, creatures, etc. . To do the bonus before the painting would obligate a person to really think about the pure design of the character. It's a bit of extra work but it gives yourself a chance to explore different ideas and come up with the best design that works for your image.

2. If you finish your painting before the deadline ( which is still about 3 weeks or so away) it keeps you busy!


Now how can this be related to an llustration?

An illustration is an image that tells a story... and you can tell a story with a single character. Keep in focus it's gesture and action. There are also strong compositions to be found with the use of positive and negative space.
Establish a strong gesture with the character, a strong design, and an interesting composition and you'll do the bonus some serious justice!

Also this is not character forge! So it can actually be a closeup, or a mid shot of the character!

Here are some further examples by different! Notice the clever use of white as a compositional element and strong gesture.

image by Dave Palumbo

image by Ryan Portillo


(image by Marko Djurdjevic)


I hope that answers your questions! Keep em coming!

[GabrielVerdon]

Thanks icon and Arttorney! That clears things up for me

[N30]

great topic!

and yeah this answer changes my view on this challange.. hmmm


would be awesome if someone finds a website with the mononoke concepts

[Burc]

Hi, this is my first quick sketch.

[Nubian-Anubis]

fantastic progress

[Peter_Coene]

another step, beginning to work the color in.

[NatHall]

@peter_coene : Her breasts look unnatural to me or it could just be how taut the cloth looks.

[arttorney]

They seem plausible for me Peter, given that this is clearly a scene involving violent ongoing action. While I ordinarily might think that near one might tend to fall rightward and down (from viewer perspective) with its own weight, it looks like she just violently raised that lance with the left arm (her right) which I figure would cause all the parts of her torso to skew around toward her right and somewhat away from us. This is a daring scene to draw compared to some sort of an idyllic koi pond scenario. I'm impressed about that.

Careful to make sure her right shoulder and upper arm insert correctly.

[wsly]

Originally Posted by Peter_Coene

another step, beginning to work the color in.
http://cghub.com/forum/attachment.ph...6&d=1292011098

Not to be a downer, but isn't that basically fan art? You haven't really redesigned the characters, you've just drawn them in your own style. They're essential the same as they were in the films.

I like how it's coming along, I'm just not sure it's within the parameters of the contest.

[Peter_Coene]

Originally Posted by wsly

Not to be a downer, but isn't that basically fan art? You haven't really redesigned the characters, you've just drawn them in your own style. They're essential the same as they were in the films.

I like how it's coming along, I'm just not sure it's within the parameters of the contest.

Dictionary.com, meriam-webster online, and wiktionary neither had definitions for "fan art" nor "fanart." None of my old fashioned dictionaries (the ones with pages) did either. Considering that for some time now I have been opposed (almost on a moral level) to "fan art" I have come up with a bit of my own definition of it, and for lack of an outside definition have gone by that definition in the creation of this piece so far.

According to my own personal definition, fan art is art created by a fan, with little intention outside of "I'm a rabid fan so I decided to make it, or something like it, in as close to the same style as the original." Usually the intention of fan art is not to show skill, but to show the fan's love (or even fetish) for the subject matter.

One easy way to tell the difference between fan art and well, not fan art, is that the creator of fan art will throw a fit about how they love the original or how you are being mean or act offended as if you are attacking something that they love.

In this case... well, yes, I like Miyazaki's creations, so I guess that I'm a fan, but I have tried to push that as far from my mind as possible when creating this. Instead I am making it because I saw that's what the contest is about. Furthermore, my choice of style is far removed from that used in the films or what I have seen of Miyazaki's original art in making of books. Instead the style is a bit more influenced by Frazetta, other modern illustrators, as well as what was learned in terms of artistic technique and such in art school and while on the job.

As for it looking the same... well, I don't remember Mononoke ever wearing anything that skimpy.

Even if it is were the same, we have to remember that this is an illustration challenge, not a concept art challenge. I have treated it the same way as many professional illustrators treat the projects they are given. Often they are told, "the characters look like this, draw/paint/etc something pretty using our characters." So, using that same type of logic, I'm taking the visuals of the characters that already exist and making an illustration that includes their likeness.

This is often a misconception about concept art and illustration. Often it is thought that illustrations are just well painted finished concepts, which is not really the case. This is a misconception that usually arises from game companies and such putting out shiny finished illustrations as promo work and labeling them as "concepts." More often than not, those are illustrations that were made after the look of the game/movie/whatever is already locked down, and the promo work is an illustration based on the established look.

So, if we go by a definition that sets "fan art" as any work where the characters look the same as the original, then much illustration work of the type I have explained above falls into this category, and therefor it would be silly to not allow it. If we go by my definition of fan art, which makes it a matter of the intent of the artist, then, for one thing, it means that the piece I am working on is not fan art. Furthermore, (and more importantly) such a definition properly separates the professional illustrators from the rabid fans.


I'm glad that you brought this up though, because I think that the resulting dialogue will help to better asses and understand (and avoid) the phenomenon of fan art.

Originally Posted by NatHall

@peter_coene : Her breasts look unnatural to me or it could just be how taut the cloth looks.

I personally like drawing perky ones, and I know people like seeing big ones. So I combined the two. It's not like anyone in our so called civilized society has really made a huge fuss about boobs looking natural, especially in art where it isn't truly a boob, but a 2D representation that makes us think of boobs. However, if the lack of gravity-caused suspension of boob is enough of an issue that this particular rendering of mine is causing your lack of suspension of disbelief, here are a few valid explanations for the particular look which might be enough to put you at ease:

1. Being that this is a fantasy world, it is perfectly possible for boobs to be simultaneously big and perky. I know that this is a fantasy for many men, so I don't see why they can't be that way in my image.

2. What Arttorney said.

3. The original Mononoke was fairly flat chested. For her to have big ones like we see in my image she must have had a boob job. That would explain the unnatural look, as many boob jobs look like that.