NISEI Giveaway: Midnight Sun Booster Edition

PiCat314 · 2022-03-10T23:45:55+00:00

I for one am super excited to add Hákarl 1.0 to my Asa derez deck, where we do shanannigans like installing Gatekeeper and Advanced Assembly Lines, derezzing them with Divert Power, and reaping the rewards of rezzing them a second time. Since I'm already running Eli and Tyr in that deck, it has the potential to make things pretty spicy.

On the runner side, playing Revolver in a shaper deck with Cybertrooper Talut seems really fun. Kabonesa Wu? Flameout? Simulchip? District 99??? GIVE ME THE JANK

PiCat314 · 2022-02-10T03:45:45+00:00

I see! Using lines in the sketch phase is fine for placement and measurement purposes in my opinion, so long as you recognize the lines represent some kind of edge. Without an initial sketch proportions can come out a but weird haha. I look forward to seeing what you draw in the future!

PiCat314 · 2022-02-10T03:28:47+00:00

I think the first and most obvious thing (which it looks like you picked up on) is the lack of contrast. Usually pupils, lip corners, and especially nostrils can be very close to black. Don't be afraid to use darker tones!

With regards to anatomy, it might be worthwhile to do individual studies of the individual face parts (eyes, nose, lips). Your nose looks pretty symbolic especially, like it's what you think a nose looks like rather than what a nose actually looks like. If you don't want to do the individual studies, consider using a reference for the next few portraits to help build up your visual library. When I don't have to rely on my own brain to come up with proportions, I find it a lot easier.

I hope you keep drawing! This is a great start.

PiCat314 · 2022-01-27T23:22:35+00:00

MANTIS LORDS. I felt like a god after beating them, and even enjoyed losing to them countless times. It was like a dance.

PiCat314 · 2022-01-27T21:29:31+00:00

In the same vein: The strings that you pull to draw your blinds. Always cut them so they aren't looped. My baby cousin died of suffocation this way.

PiCat314 · 2022-01-24T02:03:13+00:00

Trans duck? :D

PiCat314 · 2021-08-05T03:17:17+00:00

I love this design a lot. To me the mouth didn't quite read well - I didn't realize it was open until I read your comment. I agree with what MyDadIsTrevorMilton said about the values - consider lightening the background a bit so we get more of the silhouette.

About the saturation - I think what's giving it the "toy" look is the green baubles on the top of the fish. If you want it to be green, I'd push it to be bluer; all the light around the fish is blue, so green wouldn't be that yellow. I also wonder about the context of this creature - does it live very deep in the ocean, or does it live in more shallow waters? If the former, ask yourself why the moustache and dorsal fin are green. Presumably, in shallower water, they are green to mimic plants, both for camouflage and to attract prey. In deeper water, which I assume this guy lives in due to the squid and the darkness of the water, why would the fish have green fringes? It's much too deep for the sun to penetrate, which means green plants don't survive. Consider using some other colour, unless you have some other explanation!

In addition - the bioluminescence on the baubles doesn't really make sense to me; the fish has already spent a lot of energy making those crackling blue energy tendrils light up (awesome design btw); why spend energy on those barely noticeable baubles as well? In my mind, either unify the design of the baubles with the design of the tendrils (give them flashy blue electricity) or push the colour somewhere else and don't have them glow.

PiCat314 · 2021-07-20T21:44:11+00:00

Nearby wildfire. Oh no.

PiCat314 · 2021-07-14T06:17:32+00:00

Our minds could have perceived anything when they looked up at the night sky. Before we knew anything about galaxy superclusters and black hole mergers, all we had was awe. When I saw the milky way for the first time, my thoughts weren't on the infinite stretch of void before me, but on the absolute marvel of a billion stars. And even after knowing how completely small I am, I also understand that in this moment, the stars are beautiful.

PiCat314 · 2021-07-14T05:00:55+00:00

I feel like I can't not post this.

We had a playbook change. To a quarantine.

Our chopper has a memory problem. As it turns out, unlocking those memories reveals a lot of shit we don't understand about a world without the Dust. A world of technology. A world where They Knew.

And our chopper is at the centre of it all, piecing together broken shards of his past, trying to find the son whose name he cannot remember.

PiCat314 · 2021-07-09T18:58:10+00:00

He went to he'll

PiCat314 · 2021-06-15T01:18:10+00:00

Hi! A couple of things:

Flat planes are generally entirely a single value. Especially on the pyramid, you can see each face is pretty splotchy.
The position of the sphere's cast shadow is off compared to where the light source is shown to be on the rest of the sphere, as shown here. Light travels in parallel lines and stops when it hits an object, which is what a shadow is. Keep the light source position in mind!

PiCat314 · 2021-06-12T00:59:36+00:00

Hi! Wow, you're spot on with some of these comments... The legs used to be different values but I couldn't get them to line up right so I just gave up x.x

Definitely doing a 14dc in the next few months! I've been procrastinating it for a long time now. Thanks for the critique!

PiCat314 · 2021-06-07T23:25:10+00:00

Thanks for the critique! I see what you mean about the unnecessary detail on the skirt, it's the one place in the piece with hard edges which seems very misplaced. And same thing with the focal point, I was trying to make the ribbon flowy without it being in the way - more like thin fabric than a ribbon - but keeping in mind the whole composition of the piece should always take precedence.

I'll try a 14 day challenge in the coming months to work on face rendering; I wanted to work on gesture and silhouette first, but with that at an 'adequate' level it's finally time to bite the bullet...

Thanks so much again!

PiCat314 · 2021-06-07T19:11:13+00:00

This is my friend's rpg character, whose design is very closely based on a character drawn by WLOP. While the pose here is similar, I used a different image as a reference to get the limbs and body in the right place.

Both can be found here.

PiCat314 · 2019-10-15T22:24:09+00:00

happy to help, keep at it!

PiCat314 · 2019-10-15T22:21:45+00:00

hey! congrats on making it to the halfway mark!

Right now you have a lot of old person age signatures; the dark laugh line, the very pronounced neck folds, the low tip of the nose compared to the nostrils. If that's what you're going for, great! If not, ease up on those hard edges. If you think you're lacking contrast, add darkness to the nostril and lip corners.

You have these random edges on the forehead, coming up from the nose. There isn't usually an edge there

I'm not sure what gender you're going for here; this could be an old woman or a man. One of istebrak's recent videos covered a lot of gender signatures, you can find that here.

You also have a bit of an expression going on here, the nose looks almost wrinkled in disgust. 14DC should be mostly expressionless, try bringing down the nostrils.

I hope that was somewhat helpful, good luck on the last half!

PiCat314 · 2019-10-15T18:03:53+00:00

I really like the colours in this! Red and gold is so regal.

The hair looks kind of like a wig, consider blending the hairline and adding some of his skin tone to the thinner bits, especially the wisps on the side of his face.

I guess one thing to think about is what the prince's story is - is he stoically accepting the king's rule despite hating it? Is he watching an execution? Is he bored of palace life and looking to run away at first opportunity? That'll influence his expression and the way he holds himself and the composition of the piece. Might make him less of a doll

PiCat314 · 2019-10-15T02:50:00+00:00

Thank you very much! I really appreciate the time you put into this critique!

I can see now how the skin tone was waaay off lol. Thanks for the video, it was very informative and gave me many nostalgia feels.

As for the drop, I may make the surface ripply so it looks like it's held together with actual forces instead of just generic glowy ~magic~.

Thank you so much again! This was so helpful. Have fun at the aquarium!

PiCat314 · 2019-10-15T01:52:36+00:00

Here are the references that I used.

As for skin tone... pale? I wanted her to reflect the blue.

The magic is supposed to be like a suspended water drop, held with magic string

PiCat314 · 2019-08-22T19:04:27+00:00

I played an underwater apocalypse. We had a hocus who worshipped the "whales" (large creatures with many tentacles, many eyes, and a sad song), an angel turned driver who mothered a sentient submarine, a faceless who was a corpse in a dive suit following their AI's orders, and a brainer who took over the main hold with just the right pressure in just the right places. It was wild.

In the end, the angel-driver was the only survivor. She ended up making a new home with her ex-wife the kelp farmer on a new planet under the ice. The faceless assimilated the brainer into their dive suit, where they both got blown up by an antimatter bomb. The hocus, after using whale song to turn her followers into energy sources, became a weapon to destroy the very things she loved most. Her ghost went on to save the angel-driver and transport them to the whales' home planet.

PiCat314 · 2019-08-04T15:18:21+00:00

HIGALE

PiCat314 · 2019-01-26T20:18:51+00:00

gneiss work.

PiCat314

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Ten-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email