That´s like one of the alien movie botzO.o way too cool

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"Mother is God in the eyes of a Child"
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The head is WAY too big imho. Why do I say that? If you look at human or just plainly animal proportions. The bigger the head relative to the body the younger it is. So to me, it looks like a giant baby robot, ARGH, even though the scale makes it very big compared to the house. Also, what's with the grills on the headpiece? It needs to take in air to cool the cockpit? I'm sure they're just there for aesthetic purposes. But to me, stacking even more things on that huge head is not a very good idea ^^.

And where are you going with the slumped pose? Is he beaten or deactivated or something? And what's with the glasses of the robot reflecting something else than the windows on the houses. It detaches from the believability of it actually beeing there. You should always try to integrate your subject in the enviroment.

Remember, I'm trying to give you constructive critique. So don't feel offended. We all enjoy what we do, no? ^^

Haha, no offense taken. Actually, thanks a ton for making me think more about composition. I must be honest: you're really just critiquing lighting/texture tests, but who's to say I can't take more pride in those, eh?

You bring up some good questions, and now I take the risk of sounding like an overly defensive artist, but whatever. I'll answer a few.

The reason for the excessively large head (You ever seen Invader Zim? Classic show. nvm) and the crazy vent things is the head actually detaches from the body and zooms around. Just because it'd be sweet.

In my defense, if you look at the "glasses of the robot", what it's reflecting is mathematically accurate; it's reflecting the road in front of it.

Yeah, the robot was basically deactivated. The story I had going in my head was that the robot was basically, like, the equivalent of a "robot boxer", who lost one too many matches, and is now just spending the rest of his days out back, waiting for his ship to come in. I dig the concept of something so "high tech" being considered old-fashioned.

But yeah! Thanks a ton for the comments! I'll definitely try to keep my standards high.

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I dig it. Huzzah!

I'm also into steampunk, I think it's lovely to blend medieval themes with the new and high tech.
No, you're right, I haven't seen Invader Zim, I'm just basing this on real world animals. It DOES make the robot look cartoony, but if that's the point, then all is well!

But really, so why does the head detach from the body? It doesn't really look equipped with anything. I also have a tendency to add things "just because that'd be cool". I've done it WAY too much. Always adding horns to whatever and all kinds of stupid little things that look nice but makes no sense. Try to stay within the concept you are trying to create and let every detail and design decision lead to that goal. Sure, this is DAMNED hard. But the more you try, the better you get at it. If you don't even try and just add a bunch of stuff that's cool, it kills it.

And always ask yourself "What can be better" and THEN think how you can do it. If something looks or feels wrong, don't try to make it "ok" or cope with it, just take it away and do it again. Oh well, whatever you do, don't take what I say as cold facts or mindless ranting for that part. This is my subjective opinion based on my current knowledge of art and preferance.

Being a hard critique vs others help to keep it up for yourself. You should try to be a naysmith too. Look at whatever artpiece and try to find EVERYTHING that bugs you, don't just look at what turned out good. Look at what was bad and try to understand why it was bad and how you yourself should avoid it. Looking at what's good is also a great thing, but sometimes, knowing what's bad can be way more helpful.

Someone once said that the difference between pros and amateurs is that the pros are aware of what looks right and what doesn't. This takes ALOT of time and effort to achieve.

Before I end this rant I just want to point at the fact that the MOST important part of any design or artpiece is the most simple steps. Try working with just a black silhoutte and make it look cool. If the silhoutte works, the whole thing will work alot better. Don't rush it. Make every part of the process great. For if the shape is bad, everything else will look bad no matter how much detail or color you add.

Cheers ^^.

This is a great conversation, too bad don't get too much of that.

Kudos to you ~Raz42 and ~Mrdodobird.

The problem with being your own naysmith is either too little or too much. Having a good critique means someone who could pick out blindspots. Its not easy to catch those on one's own.

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98% of the teenage population has tried or does clean pots. If you are of the few that does not, please help out in the kitchen more!

Heh. You know, I think I'd rather have slightly less-par work than turn into a elitist sounding art-pessimist.

"Look at whatever artpiece and try to find EVERYTHING that bugs you". See? I couldn't enjoy art anymore! And if I don't enjoy it, or get some benefit from it, what's the point? All I'd see were the things I'd need to improve on, never being satisfied. Sure, that may be how we grow as artists (debatable), but at the same time there's a whole lot to be said with being happy with one's work. Regardless, I've never really been able to say anything in a piece of art is "wrong", after all, who's to say the artist didn't intend it to be like that?

The truth is, you can't please all the people all the time. Look at your first post. Things you indicated were wrong were: The fact he's slouching with no explanation, the reflection in the window, and his large head, none of which are wrong to me in this context (and one of which is mathematically correct, regardless).

Basically what I'm saying is that since you can't please everyone, just try to please the audience you know best; yourself.

IMO, it all comes down to your artistic goal. My goal isn't to "improve", or be great, believe it or not. It's just to express what's in my head. I don't worry too much about "avoiding the bad" (an arguably arbitrary phrase anyway), I just keep working, using the knowledge I've gained from past work. 3D work's kinda a relaxation thing, I guess.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm arguing, I'm just bringing my personal "art philosophy" into it.

Cheers!

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I dig it. Huzzah!

I'm definately not trying to force you to become like me! We have all different angles of attack when it comes to art. When I say "wrong" I don't really mean that it's wrong, just that it could be better. Haven't you ever looked at something and thought if it had this and that or was done in a different way, it would be even greater?

Now I've understood your point about relaxation and just having fun. I do it alot myself. And about enjoying art, I enjoy it almost WAY too much. That's why I can be such an elitist jerk about it. One of the reason I complained about the slouching position was because it showed off the silhoutte pretty bad, I actually thought it had 4 legs at first glance, but as you say, it might have been done to achieve the effect you wanted.

I LOVE WHAT I DO. I love it so much I cry sometimes. In a good way, I hope. My dream is to be able to create or rather recreate what I see in my head, that'd be my goal.

If you don't like my way, then don't use it. Even if you just do it for relaxation and fun you'll still slowly become better as time goes by. But you'll never ever become "good". But if that isn't your goal, then there isn't a problem.

The most important audience is you, no doubt, to yourself and what you do only have to be good in your eyes to be a succes for you.

Not to sound like an incoherent ranting arse but your "art philosophy" sounds like not caring about it at all. I'm beating a dead horse, I know. So I guess I'll stop.

Cheermonglering and so forth!

Well, I suppose it was ambiguous.

My only real goal is to express the things I want to express. "Being good at art", as a concept in and of itself, doesn't really have all that much appeal to me.

I suppose they're synonymous, "wanting to express things via a medium" and "creating art".

"Haven't you ever looked at something and thought if it had this and that or was done in a different way, it would be even greater?"

Surprisingly, not often, although I have a huge habit of looking at things and trying to figure out exactly what about them intrigues me. I suppose that's the main difference between us. I study the good, you study the bad (although I'm sure you study the good as well). Admittedly, occasionally I'll look at something and think about how I'd do it instead, but rarely is in the context of "better" or "worse".

But yeah, both smelting the gold to isolate the copper and skimming the milk to get the cream, in the end, still just leaves you with the good stuff.

Notably, I apologize for implying you didn't like what you did. I just found it amazing that someone who (from the way it sounds) sees primarily errors and mistakes could really enjoy what they did. I imagined you looking at a picture and pointing out all the mistakes, a task which would make me unable to really appreciate... anything. Like watching a movie with the guy who always points out all the mistakes- that totally ruins the movie for me.

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I dig it. Huzzah!

A final comment, after reading over my posts, I think they give a wrong impression. It DOES make it sound like I don't care. Assuredly, I do have a slight obsession with creating "that perfect piece of media", my way of getting there is just different.

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I dig it. Huzzah!

Well some people say that the means to the end doesn't matter as long as you are satisfied with the ending result . Tbh, it's not that I'm a total naysaying pessimist, it's just that I appreciate the mistakes too. I find it fun to realize that I've done something badly or expressed what I wanted in a way that didn't work. It's so much fun to just sit down and think of how I could improve on it and become better. It kinda feels like an RPG to me ^^.

The first thing I do when I look at a picture is everything I like about it, I enjoy it, THEN I start to look at everything that's not good and ponder over why I think that. And as you said in your final comment, we are pretty much after the same thing, just walking a different path.

Oh and just because I love discussing this I'll have to bring it up! My definition of beeing good is having the technique and knowledge to put your mind on paper or any medium. The designs and pictures I see and feel in my head are way better than anything I can do on paper at the moment.

As you can see, the term for me is very abstract, because everyones mind is different and there is no way of knowing how much they are actually able to translate. I just find it important to seperate the good, which is praised by the masses and the good that satisfies yourself. The latter being the only one that matters.

Just to show you how much I love what I'm doing I'll tell you a little something from my IRL. I have a very large pad of paper on which I sketch while watching movies and the like. I did some quick curved lines on it and for the past 3 days, everytime I walk by those lines I see such awesome ideas just waiting to happen and I get all happy ^^. I love the process and I love/hate the results. It's working for me!