^We're seeing his back there, so it shouldn't look like the front. But it's wrong for the back of the uniforms. The real ones have a convex dart, with a point that sticks down.
May Art Challenge - Vektor
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Pretty sure that's what he said.
Well, at least you're not indifferent.
Not at all lol, and of course I meant that with the deepest respect and admiration...
Since you mention it, I have to admit I never noticed the uniforms were different on the back. I checked to make sure they weren't still using the collar-less spandex uniforms but I never gave a second thought to the V pointing down instead of up, or which side it was on for that matter. Easy enough to fix, though.
Thanks for the catch, guys.
Okay, it's about time. . . NOW you're playing in my ballpark, Vektor. With starships, I can talk metaphorically about shapes and similarities and archetypes. With this, I can talk about the human form.
Now, some of the guys here already caught the bit about the uniform being on backwards, but that's not a big deal, really. It's amazing how difficult it is to find a photograph of an actual TNG character from the rear. I guess this proves how much of the show's screen time really was spent photographing people standing or sitting around and talking to one another. I did find this site that specializes in Trek uniform patterns, and there's a sketch in this thread showing the approximate location of the delta in the back.
For me, though, that's not the only thing throwing off Picard's composition. The position of his shoulder blades is just too low, more like pectoral muscles. And the rounding of his deltoids toward us, coupled with a lack of obvious biceps (Patrick Stewart is no slouch), suggests to me a fellow who's walking toward me, not away. If I use my fingers to cover up Picard's head and hips, the fellow whose torso I'm looking at appears to be walking toward me.
Then when I remove my fingers, I notice something else, and it has to do with perspective. I assume this is supposed to be Picard's old Borg garb, suggesting that he's leaving Locutus behind. Judging from where Picard's feet touch the floor with respect to the wall, he's probably no more than three feet away from these old clothes. So they can't be twice his size.
And then there's lighting. I love that you shared your interim drawings, where you included a lot more detail in the legs than we can see in this latest view. The next-to-last rendering, with the medium gray background for the hallway, makes more sense for the amount of reflected light on Picard's uniform. But with the ambient light turned up full blast like A Certain J. J. Abrams Production, there's no way Picard's pants would absorb all the light in the room. Something has to give; either the light needs to be turned back down, or you need to add some "charcoal" to his pants.
When you're doing a theme like this, remember that it's the light that directs your viewer to the dramatic elements, so you want your light to carve a path toward where things happen rather than away. I can imagine a setting where the light glances off of Picard's pate and red shoulders, and where the fingers of his hands (the symbols of human expression, and thus freedom) glisten with the joy of breaking free from bondage. And Picard's old Borg eyepiece glances away in another direction. These should be your highlights, and if you were a photographer directing this scene, that's what you'd want to make sure your lighting captured and your cinematographer focused on.
Anyway, I love that you're doing human forms, and as you already know, I like it when Trek art contests encourage us to focus on people as subjects.
DF "Whose Enterprise-F Contest Submission Would Have Looked Suspiciously Like Paulina Porizkova" Scott
Now, some of the guys here already caught the bit about the uniform being on backwards, but that's not a big deal, really. It's amazing how difficult it is to find a photograph of an actual TNG character from the rear. I guess this proves how much of the show's screen time really was spent photographing people standing or sitting around and talking to one another. I did find this site that specializes in Trek uniform patterns, and there's a sketch in this thread showing the approximate location of the delta in the back.
For me, though, that's not the only thing throwing off Picard's composition. The position of his shoulder blades is just too low, more like pectoral muscles. And the rounding of his deltoids toward us, coupled with a lack of obvious biceps (Patrick Stewart is no slouch), suggests to me a fellow who's walking toward me, not away. If I use my fingers to cover up Picard's head and hips, the fellow whose torso I'm looking at appears to be walking toward me.
Then when I remove my fingers, I notice something else, and it has to do with perspective. I assume this is supposed to be Picard's old Borg garb, suggesting that he's leaving Locutus behind. Judging from where Picard's feet touch the floor with respect to the wall, he's probably no more than three feet away from these old clothes. So they can't be twice his size.
And then there's lighting. I love that you shared your interim drawings, where you included a lot more detail in the legs than we can see in this latest view. The next-to-last rendering, with the medium gray background for the hallway, makes more sense for the amount of reflected light on Picard's uniform. But with the ambient light turned up full blast like A Certain J. J. Abrams Production, there's no way Picard's pants would absorb all the light in the room. Something has to give; either the light needs to be turned back down, or you need to add some "charcoal" to his pants.
When you're doing a theme like this, remember that it's the light that directs your viewer to the dramatic elements, so you want your light to carve a path toward where things happen rather than away. I can imagine a setting where the light glances off of Picard's pate and red shoulders, and where the fingers of his hands (the symbols of human expression, and thus freedom) glisten with the joy of breaking free from bondage. And Picard's old Borg eyepiece glances away in another direction. These should be your highlights, and if you were a photographer directing this scene, that's what you'd want to make sure your lighting captured and your cinematographer focused on.
Anyway, I love that you're doing human forms, and as you already know, I like it when Trek art contests encourage us to focus on people as subjects.
DF "Whose Enterprise-F Contest Submission Would Have Looked Suspiciously Like Paulina Porizkova" Scott
Thanks for the comments, DF.
Most of the stuff you mentioned are things I would put in the "not finished yet" category, especially the lighting. What's shown in the last two WIP images is nothing more than a couple experimental gradient overlays and the effect they just happened to have on the elements already present in the scene. No attempt has been made as yet to properly integrate those elements with the lighting.
With respect to Picard, there's a whole list of things I need to fix. In addition to the aforementioned uniform error, his head is oddly off-center on his shoulders and his right arm looks like the elbow joint is in the wrong place and weirdly angled. It's supposed to be almost straight, angled toward the viewer on the backswing as he walks, but the shading on the forearm is too deep, making it look like it's angled forward, and the cuff of his sleeve is oriented wrong, adding to the effect. All easily corrected.
I also plan to widen his body slightly to make him a little more characteristically stocky, and probably will widen his hips and legs more than his shoulders to subtly emphasize the low viewing angle.
The lighting/shading on his back and legs does need more work. Bear in mind that all of it was done before I had decided what I was going to use for a background, other than a light source vaguely located somewhere above his head. In particular, the lights adjacent to the floor on either side of the corridor are not yet accounted for at all.
As for perspective and the size of the Borg garb relative to Picard, I think you're overestimating the disparity. I think maybe a 10% reduction in the size of the pile and lowering it slightly will do the trick.
I'm curious what you think about Picard's pose and the overall composition. I toyed with several different ideas for expressing his joy and exultation at having regained his freedom from the Borg, but ultimately the word "exultation" just didn't seem to fit Picard's personality. The only thing that looked right was him striding confidently back into the world he knows and quietly loves, wearing the crisp uniform that defines him, back straight, shoulders squared. And yet, we know that what the Borg did to Picard continued to haunt him and perhaps will to the end of his days, symbolized here by the laser that continues to glow even though the costume and paraphernalia have been cast off.
The natural lighting is pretty straightforward at this point, but there is still room for creative license. I mentioned before that I wanted to avoid the "light at the end of the tunnel" motif because I just think it's a bit too obvious and heavy-handed in this case, but I am leaning toward an almost ethereal brightness to the corridor lights and a definite darkness in the room Picard is leaving behind. It would be very easy, I think, for the theme of this piece to flip entirely from "Freedom" to "Haunted" or something similarly sinister.
One thing that was suggested by a couple of people further up-thread that I plan to incorporate to prevent that from happening is a concentration of color in the center of the image and a fade-out to gray (or at least greatly muted) around the edges. My theory is that taking away the color will drain the Borg elements of their threat and potency, all except for the bright red laser, but I don't yet entirely trust my instincts for such things so feel free to let me know if you have any better ideas.
Most of the stuff you mentioned are things I would put in the "not finished yet" category, especially the lighting. What's shown in the last two WIP images is nothing more than a couple experimental gradient overlays and the effect they just happened to have on the elements already present in the scene. No attempt has been made as yet to properly integrate those elements with the lighting.
With respect to Picard, there's a whole list of things I need to fix. In addition to the aforementioned uniform error, his head is oddly off-center on his shoulders and his right arm looks like the elbow joint is in the wrong place and weirdly angled. It's supposed to be almost straight, angled toward the viewer on the backswing as he walks, but the shading on the forearm is too deep, making it look like it's angled forward, and the cuff of his sleeve is oriented wrong, adding to the effect. All easily corrected.
I also plan to widen his body slightly to make him a little more characteristically stocky, and probably will widen his hips and legs more than his shoulders to subtly emphasize the low viewing angle.
The lighting/shading on his back and legs does need more work. Bear in mind that all of it was done before I had decided what I was going to use for a background, other than a light source vaguely located somewhere above his head. In particular, the lights adjacent to the floor on either side of the corridor are not yet accounted for at all.
As for perspective and the size of the Borg garb relative to Picard, I think you're overestimating the disparity. I think maybe a 10% reduction in the size of the pile and lowering it slightly will do the trick.
I'm curious what you think about Picard's pose and the overall composition. I toyed with several different ideas for expressing his joy and exultation at having regained his freedom from the Borg, but ultimately the word "exultation" just didn't seem to fit Picard's personality. The only thing that looked right was him striding confidently back into the world he knows and quietly loves, wearing the crisp uniform that defines him, back straight, shoulders squared. And yet, we know that what the Borg did to Picard continued to haunt him and perhaps will to the end of his days, symbolized here by the laser that continues to glow even though the costume and paraphernalia have been cast off.
The natural lighting is pretty straightforward at this point, but there is still room for creative license. I mentioned before that I wanted to avoid the "light at the end of the tunnel" motif because I just think it's a bit too obvious and heavy-handed in this case, but I am leaning toward an almost ethereal brightness to the corridor lights and a definite darkness in the room Picard is leaving behind. It would be very easy, I think, for the theme of this piece to flip entirely from "Freedom" to "Haunted" or something similarly sinister.
One thing that was suggested by a couple of people further up-thread that I plan to incorporate to prevent that from happening is a concentration of color in the center of the image and a fade-out to gray (or at least greatly muted) around the edges. My theory is that taking away the color will drain the Borg elements of their threat and potency, all except for the bright red laser, but I don't yet entirely trust my instincts for such things so feel free to let me know if you have any better ideas.
It sounds like you have a handle on several of the things that need touching up, including the strange illusion that Picard's right arm has two elbows. If you want to play up the symbolism of Picard's pose, you might work on the hands. Hands are sensitive things that a viewer subconsciously pays attention to. (Some of the sexiest photos of ladies include hands.) You have the start of something with his right hand open towards his leg, but his left hand. . . cupped up slightly. Consider drawing an extended metaphor of the Seal of the President (look at the eagle's talons and you'll see what I mean): Have Picard's right hand open but splayed a little bit, like the start of a handshake. And have his left hand be clinched like a fist.
Or. . . Have him do a perfectly Picard thing. Have him straightening his tunic. Both arms reaching back, tugging on his hem.
Now, I talk a good show, but historically I've actually done a somewhat lousy job with proportions. For most folks, I would recommend having someone photograph them at exactly the angle they intend to use, and then use themselves as their own model. But if you wonder why I've drawn people with short, stubby legs, it's because. . . well, I have short, stubby legs. And I tried the photographing-myself-in-the-correct-pose idea before, and the result was that my figures looked too much like me (even the girls). So in doing my contest entry for March, I gave myself the challenge of doing bare legs, in proportion, using a gender other than my own.
Making a walking person look normal is hard. It takes an understanding of the subtleties of balance -- specifically, what looks like a balanced person walking upright versus about to tip over on one side. You know how I harp on you about making your starships look balanced? It's harder with people. When a person's walking normally, he or she swings her arms ever so slightly in alternation, side-to-side. (When you try to do it consciously and think about it, it gets harder.) But when he's using his arms in gesticulation, or when she's carrying a briefcase or a box or a grocery sack, the arms can't always swing the same way. So the stance changes to compensate, in subtle ways that you only notice when you're looking at a 3D animation of a person carrying a sack and something doesn't look quite natural.
So my suggestion is this: Get a camera that takes pictures in succession, with one of those "auto-shutter" features. Then photograph a man, or have someone photograph you, walking down the hallway from below-torso level, just the way you've intended here. Relaxed arms "hang" differently from stiffened arms, and it's here where you'll discover that your Picard looks stiffer than he should. His arms are splayed out, but his shoulders are flat as a slab, which takes away from the "freedom" posture I think you're going for.
Just don't photograph me walking away, because you'll get these Yosemite Sam-like nubs that don't look the least bit like Picard.
As for color: It is true that the eyes move toward the part of a scene with the brightest, or most vivid, use of color. So the bright red uniform already helps you here, as does the fact that Borg garb is typically drab grey. But I'd be careful with desaturating selected areas because I think the result, in this case, would be contrary to your theme. A monochromatic background with a bright red person in the middle could be construed as a classic war propaganda poster. And it might even look good as that, but that's not your theme.
But here's where you can have a kind of light at the end of the tunnel: Let the light be coming from a source directly in front of Picard, obscured by his body. And let him block that light in such a way that it creates rays and casts a shadow directly onto us (the viewer). Let the light dance around his form and accentuate the bright, normal, and human-looking areas that make us see him as healthy and natural, like his hands, his cranium, his neck.
And let this light be the major source of light for the entire corridor, if not the sole source. As if someone beamed a flashlight his direction in a darkened spaceship and was yelling, "Captain, over here!"
DF "Just Don't Let J. J. Abrams Hold the Flashlight" Scott
___
P.S. And just to show I wasn't kidding when I said my art projects sometimes tend to look like Paulina. . . Here's a sample from a quarter-century ago.
Or. . . Have him do a perfectly Picard thing. Have him straightening his tunic. Both arms reaching back, tugging on his hem.
Now, I talk a good show, but historically I've actually done a somewhat lousy job with proportions. For most folks, I would recommend having someone photograph them at exactly the angle they intend to use, and then use themselves as their own model. But if you wonder why I've drawn people with short, stubby legs, it's because. . . well, I have short, stubby legs. And I tried the photographing-myself-in-the-correct-pose idea before, and the result was that my figures looked too much like me (even the girls). So in doing my contest entry for March, I gave myself the challenge of doing bare legs, in proportion, using a gender other than my own.
Making a walking person look normal is hard. It takes an understanding of the subtleties of balance -- specifically, what looks like a balanced person walking upright versus about to tip over on one side. You know how I harp on you about making your starships look balanced? It's harder with people. When a person's walking normally, he or she swings her arms ever so slightly in alternation, side-to-side. (When you try to do it consciously and think about it, it gets harder.) But when he's using his arms in gesticulation, or when she's carrying a briefcase or a box or a grocery sack, the arms can't always swing the same way. So the stance changes to compensate, in subtle ways that you only notice when you're looking at a 3D animation of a person carrying a sack and something doesn't look quite natural.
So my suggestion is this: Get a camera that takes pictures in succession, with one of those "auto-shutter" features. Then photograph a man, or have someone photograph you, walking down the hallway from below-torso level, just the way you've intended here. Relaxed arms "hang" differently from stiffened arms, and it's here where you'll discover that your Picard looks stiffer than he should. His arms are splayed out, but his shoulders are flat as a slab, which takes away from the "freedom" posture I think you're going for.
Just don't photograph me walking away, because you'll get these Yosemite Sam-like nubs that don't look the least bit like Picard.
As for color: It is true that the eyes move toward the part of a scene with the brightest, or most vivid, use of color. So the bright red uniform already helps you here, as does the fact that Borg garb is typically drab grey. But I'd be careful with desaturating selected areas because I think the result, in this case, would be contrary to your theme. A monochromatic background with a bright red person in the middle could be construed as a classic war propaganda poster. And it might even look good as that, but that's not your theme.
But here's where you can have a kind of light at the end of the tunnel: Let the light be coming from a source directly in front of Picard, obscured by his body. And let him block that light in such a way that it creates rays and casts a shadow directly onto us (the viewer). Let the light dance around his form and accentuate the bright, normal, and human-looking areas that make us see him as healthy and natural, like his hands, his cranium, his neck.
And let this light be the major source of light for the entire corridor, if not the sole source. As if someone beamed a flashlight his direction in a darkened spaceship and was yelling, "Captain, over here!"
DF "Just Don't Let J. J. Abrams Hold the Flashlight" Scott
___
P.S. And just to show I wasn't kidding when I said my art projects sometimes tend to look like Paulina. . . Here's a sample from a quarter-century ago.
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^^DFScott - Just to emphasize, it is never wrong to have your women look like Paulina. 
BTW, I do enjoy your comments (as much as I enjoy Vektor's art). You are really able to put a very difficult concept into words that someone with no experience, such as myself, can understand.
BTW, I do enjoy your comments (as much as I enjoy Vektor's art). You are really able to put a very difficult concept into words that someone with no experience, such as myself, can understand.
Thank you, USS Jack Riley. Although I'm a writer and editor by trade, I grew up in an art studio, where my mother worked for about a half-century teaching individuals how to paint or draw what they see, not what they think. If Maria were here in person, she'd ask Vektor (she'd have a hard time calling him "Vektor" but she might settle for "Jason") to take a walk around the room. Then she'd yell "Freeze!" and jump around him like a dance instructor correcting her choreography. "Now feel these arms," she'd say, placing her hands on his biceps the way you'd never expect a woman to do unless she were a professional sculptor. (Which she was, which is why her hands were like Vise-Grips.) "Feel where they are in space! This is what balance feels like. Do you feel balance? Do you feel it???"
Then she'd jump over to one of her dozens of available clipboards or sketch pads, and in about three seconds outline the skeletal structure of his frozen form. She'd draw a bisecting line down the middle of the cranium, through the spine, to a point between his shoes. "Do you see that there's just as much volume on this side of the line as that side? Can you see what you feel?" And then she'd challenge him to draw the same structure (in an effort to be patient, she'd wait at least 15 seconds).
I do my best to channel Mom whenever I can, especially since she taught me how to be critical without being judgmental. The "D" in my pseudonym here actually stands for her last name, "DeLaJuen," and I maintain my old pen name for art forums like these in honor of her.
DeLaJuen - Fulton Scott
Then she'd jump over to one of her dozens of available clipboards or sketch pads, and in about three seconds outline the skeletal structure of his frozen form. She'd draw a bisecting line down the middle of the cranium, through the spine, to a point between his shoes. "Do you see that there's just as much volume on this side of the line as that side? Can you see what you feel?" And then she'd challenge him to draw the same structure (in an effort to be patient, she'd wait at least 15 seconds).
I do my best to channel Mom whenever I can, especially since she taught me how to be critical without being judgmental. The "D" in my pseudonym here actually stands for her last name, "DeLaJuen," and I maintain my old pen name for art forums like these in honor of her.
DeLaJuen - Fulton Scott
Cool. I can see how that would help.
Back on topic - when can we expect some more pretty pictures Vektor? No hurry or anything, we just want to see them yesterday.
Back on topic - when can we expect some more pretty pictures Vektor? No hurry or anything, we just want to see them yesterday.
WOW....wow...I bow to you Vektor, your linework is amazing, I know you use a cintiq but what software, the cintiq is in my future purchases and I need to get the program you use. I have to say I am not even gonna try to do one this month no way I am gonna beat that.
Okay, this isn't quite finished but it is very close.
The corridor background was a lot harder to paint than I expected, even though I only had to do half of it and then mirror it. The ceiling areas in between the corridor segments still need to be filled in, as do the doors on either side, along with labels on the wall panels and assorted minor details.
Picard is about as good as he's going to get. I made numerous small proportional adjustments, tweaked the shading, added details to his hands (the black spot in his left palm is something I still need to fix), changed the direction of the wrinkles on the back of his shirt, etc. I still plan to lighten the outer edges of his pant legs to pick up some of the glow from the lower light fixtures, maybe a little shine on his boots.
The Borg costume needs some tonal adjustments to blend it in better and I'm still hoping I'll get the time to add more tubes and wires and such. I did add a weathered texture overlay to make it look less plastic-y and more interesting.
The lighting is pretty close to where I want it, even though I did wind up with the "light at the end of the tunnel" effect after all. I'm also going to put in a little extra color in a few places, but nothing strong enough to compete with Picard as the central focus.
I have a little more time to spend on it tomorrow afternoon and then I'm calling it done.
Edit - Do some of the black parts of the image, especially Picard's uniform, look a bit washed-out to anyone else? I'm getting somewhat different results on different monitors and I'm not sure which one to trust.
The corridor background was a lot harder to paint than I expected, even though I only had to do half of it and then mirror it. The ceiling areas in between the corridor segments still need to be filled in, as do the doors on either side, along with labels on the wall panels and assorted minor details.
Picard is about as good as he's going to get. I made numerous small proportional adjustments, tweaked the shading, added details to his hands (the black spot in his left palm is something I still need to fix), changed the direction of the wrinkles on the back of his shirt, etc. I still plan to lighten the outer edges of his pant legs to pick up some of the glow from the lower light fixtures, maybe a little shine on his boots.
The Borg costume needs some tonal adjustments to blend it in better and I'm still hoping I'll get the time to add more tubes and wires and such. I did add a weathered texture overlay to make it look less plastic-y and more interesting.
The lighting is pretty close to where I want it, even though I did wind up with the "light at the end of the tunnel" effect after all. I'm also going to put in a little extra color in a few places, but nothing strong enough to compete with Picard as the central focus.
I have a little more time to spend on it tomorrow afternoon and then I'm calling it done.
Edit - Do some of the black parts of the image, especially Picard's uniform, look a bit washed-out to anyone else? I'm getting somewhat different results on different monitors and I'm not sure which one to trust.
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It looks a little charcoal grey on my display, actually. Perhaps if you crush the blacks a little? Loving the light source adjustments, BTW. You nailed it, methinks.
~Belisarius
~Belisarius
arrr, the siren be comin' for him!
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