My Alien

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I did a sketch of one of my own characters and coloured it in Adobe PhotoShop. This time I decided to make something a bit different to my other coloured drawings. I wanted to push my coloring one step further and take away the line art. I used the original sketch as a guide.

I might go back to it later and work on the background more.

Submitted by J I Styles on Thu, 19/02/04 - 5:15 AM Permalink

blah, Lost my previous post to the great "page cannot be displayed" void [:)] To paraphrase myself:

I like him! [:D]
I'd say maybe do a little work to define the curvature of his head, and do an extra pass to add in subtle colour bleeding and reflection to the metals

Submitted by Aven on Thu, 19/02/04 - 5:30 AM Permalink

Very nice paint job. I actually like the odd angles of his head. It doesn't stand out too much since his helmet and tubed arms are not 'perfect' either.

Submitted by MoonUnit on Thu, 19/02/04 - 6:08 AM Permalink

wowzers thats very good stuff, my PS colouring so far is just three layers of colour with a bit of blurring and blending so i suppose im not too hard to impress :P

none the less i like the pic, well done

Submitted by Makk on Thu, 19/02/04 - 9:25 AM Permalink

Cool :)

Submitted by Tooner Fish on Thu, 19/02/04 - 10:01 AM Permalink

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_c.jpg[/img]

I've tried making some changes...

Have I got the head at the right angle? Is it looking better or worse? Argh, I've been spending too long in front of this image.

Thanks for the feedback! It's always appreciated.

Submitted by Johnn on Thu, 19/02/04 - 12:38 PM Permalink

Head angle is fine !? ...I think you have been looking at it toooo long. The extra detail/modelling on the second one's head works well in defining the eyes- gives a bit more expression to the face.

Submitted by bullet21 on Thu, 19/02/04 - 6:15 PM Permalink

Wow you don't need to know how to model when u can use photshop like that. Look great.

Submitted by Tooner Fish on Sat, 21/02/04 - 3:58 AM Permalink

JohnN:
Thanks. It's true I had been looking at it for too long. I needed a break and fresh eyes to look at it. It's great to hear everyones first impressions on it.

The new shape for the head does work better. It also helps to define the profile of his head. I might work a little more on the eyes and see if I can express his emotions, personality etc.

bullet21:
Thanks! I can't model very well... but I like to draw :).

Everyone:
I need a little help with the eyes.
My Alien is a weak and innocent creature. His only physical strength is in his suit. He uses the suit for self defence and only uses it for attack when he really needs to.

What sort of elements in his eyes would best represent his weak and innocent nature? Cold colours? Would reflective eyes work better as well?

I'll try figuring that one out for myself but if anyone has any suggestions then I'd love to hear them :).

Thanks!

Submitted by bullet21 on Sat, 21/02/04 - 4:33 AM Permalink

I think tears in his eyes would give him a look of innocence which sounds like what u are kinda after. The whole weak with out the suit thing reminds me of earthworm jim.

Submitted by J I Styles on Sat, 21/02/04 - 5:15 AM Permalink

It's looking good [:)]

Tooner Fish: the simple "wet puppy dog look" would work wonders if you wanted to go that way - at the moment it looks like a thin membrane of the same sort of skin stretched over the eyeballs.

Oh, and the other thing that I couldn't quite place my finger, but I finally thought what it was, is the glass bubble doesn't seem to have the shine or reflectivity of the opposite interior surface.

Submitted by Tooner Fish on Sat, 21/02/04 - 10:34 AM Permalink

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_d.jpg[/img]

bullet21:
Tears huh? Good idea, I didn't think of that one. I tried not to go overboard on the tears. Don't want to make him to emotionally weak. Did I do an alright job?

Yeah, it does sound like EWJ. It was in no way intentional. I made this character back in 1998/99. I was having fun drawing characters with tech suits and decided to make a creature that really needed a suit to survive. I've drawn him here and there and have only developed him a little in the last 6 - 7 years. I'll just have to be careful that I don't get too close to the worm in the suit.

J.I. Styles:
How are the eyes looking now?
The glass bubble (helmet) has been a bit of an issue for me. It has so much potential to colour and I've been stuck as to how it should look. It makes me wish I had an empty glass fish bowl lying around somewhere for me to source from. Is what I've done so far convincing enough? Thanks for the pointing out what it was missing! I've added reflections from the lights above and the floor below.

Everyone:
I've tried adding eye lids to change the emotion of the alien. Here are a few trials:

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_a.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_b.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_c.jpg[/img]

Submitted by MoonUnit on Sat, 21/02/04 - 10:22 PM Permalink

the third looks either like hes a bit sleepy or hes giving off a bored expression, personally i like the second best.

Submitted by Tooner Fish on Sun, 22/02/04 - 2:44 AM Permalink

Too true MoonUnit. I've decided to stick with the second one.

Update time:

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_e.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.users.bigpond.com/toonerfish/alien_head_d.jpg[/img]

I'll go and have a break, keep quiet for a good while and get back to you all with a finished pic.

Thanks for everyone's help! I'ts greatly appreciated!

Submitted by hobonation on Sun, 22/02/04 - 10:24 PM Permalink

man thats awesome. I love the style (reminds me of..me!)