Silverthorn's Gallery

[Silverthorn]

Shamelessly crossposting from here

At last, it is Don(e). In case you have been living under a rock roughly one year ago, here's a little background-info: on January 25th, arguably one of my biggest collaborations with @Ramond started with his installation of Mafia, adequately titled RaMafia. This was no ordinary forum game. It was the first time a forum game was actually ported into a video series! Don organized the game, I provided the graphics, the stories were a collaboration between @Ramond, @STM1993, and myself. Unfortunately, the game ended prematurely and was lacking a proper conclusion. Now, with 354 days delay, we are happy to bring it to an end!

Without further ado, I present to you:

RaMafia - The Series
(Best viewed in fullscreen)

Youtube-playlist-link

[Gad]

Ok. First of all I am impressed by amount of good art and the way videos are made. You do really well with backgrounds. You also have recognizable style, which is very unique. But there are things I have to complain about, because they make your art look very unprofessional.

1. Some objects are out of shape, esp perspective stuff. As you do your art as digital you could simply use some guides. And use them for whole pictures. Usually main objects,  like buildings are ok, but then the details, like windows or some diagonal lines are out of perspective or scale.

2.If you can't draw something properly use a reference or even trace it. Some characters or body parts are just ugly. Even if you have your own style for characters, I can understand proportions could be twisted. But then you have some very wrong parts like arms, or the shape of running shadows. And what makes it even worse is the shading.

I think if you work over these you will be able to develop high class art.

[Silverthorn]

Yo, never got around writing up a proper answer, so I'll do that now!

Ok. First of all I am impressed by amount of good art and the way videos are made. You do really well with backgrounds.

Thanks a lot, really appreciate it!

1. Some objects are out of shape, esp perspective stuff. As you do your art as digital you could simply use some guides. And use them for whole pictures. Usually main objects,  like buildings are ok, but then the details, like windows or some diagonal lines are out of perspective or scale.

I am afraid that this part was not in my hands. The layered images I sent to Don were actually all put in proper perspective (with grids and whatnot). In the videos, these layers frequently move into different directions, thus potentially breaking perspective. I do admit that some bits are slightly wonky and could've been reworked...

2.If you can't draw something properly use a reference or even trace it. Some characters or body parts are just ugly. Even if you have your own style for characters, I can understand proportions could be twisted. But then you have some very wrong parts like arms, or the shape of running shadows. And what makes it even worse is the shading.

I do agree about the people-thing. To be honest, in several videos, parts are visible that were hidden in the still images. Call it a bug, call it a feature, doesn't matter really. In fact, I was rushing to get these paintings out; if I knew how much time would be required for them to be put into the video, I surely would've spent more time developing them. So, I was trying to get everything out by April last year (which I actually did as well). Some coordination with Don would've maybe helped as well; this was totally sequential and I often had no idea how he would place the layers into the movie.

Now, of course, one could argue why I did not spend the extra-time refining them; after all, I still had 10 months. There are two reasons: 1) I obviously struggle painting humanesque shapes which is why, if there is ever something similar in a painting, you can safely assume that those took at least as much time as everything else in the image together. I neither had time nor was I willing to go through fifty-something images, redoing them properly. 2) The monetary aspect. If I was commissioned to do this kind of stuff, I'd have not only motivation but I'd be obliged to deliver something proper. These were done in my free time which is sparse enough already.

In essence, I know that my anatomy-related stuff is crap. The thing is, though, that I decided to not practice it earlier when I had a massive surplus of free time and/or energy. Nowadays, I am happy when I can get one landscape/space piece out per month...

I think if you work over these you will be able to develop high class art.

Will try. Not particularly digital but with the good ol' pen & paper in somewhat boring meetings if my boss isn't looking