[Liquid!]

Someone posted a Vader pic a little while ago, so suddenly I felt the urge to do the same.

There's not much to it, but any comments and critiques are very much appreciated.



[EDIT: Here's another slightly different version tweaked color wise, and also cropped differently. As you can tell this stupid pic is buggin' me somehow]



Thanks!

-c



[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited November 13, 2000).]

[AKIRA_x]

As in the words of Vader himself:

"hmmm...Impressive"

AKIRA

------------------
Whos ya dady!!

[Gumby3D]

Cool work man, you've really captured Vader's dark demeanor.

~Gumby

[Blitz]

Ya that�s good...

For an amateur..hehe just kidn.

Now is it me or is Vader's helmet more rounded at the top. It could be the lighting but it looks as if he is wearing a pot on his head. Did you use a photo, or just your head? Do you plan on doing a more finished vision?

Hehe...I�m getting a kick out of critiquing one of your works. Wow this is Liquid. Iv always been a fan.

Any way, enough with the ass kissing, ehm..
I want a completed version on my desk in one week. More depth. When drawing Vader I want you to think....how would I feel being half man and half machine? Do I like the Emperor? Why do I were a cape? Do some role playing if you have to.

Ok having to much fun and Mt. Dew.

Seeya around the forum Liquid,

Blitz.....Man among men...Artist among artists..and Middle linebacker in high school

[Grendel Khan]

That's cool, Liquid!

The only problem i have with it is that the helmet doesn't look shiny enough, i mean, it seems to have the same reflection level as the cape, while the helmet should be more plastic or metallic. Anyway, who am i to critique you the colors you choose?

Keep posting your stuff.

------------------
Bleed the Freak

[spooge demon]

Hi Liquid,

I do have something for you to think about, but not necessarily take to heart or follow. Just being aware of it is good, and you prolly know it already anyway.

I have noticed that most of your descriptions of surfaces are exaggerated as reflective. When something is totally reflective, there is no light and shadow, only the reflection of the source, so the image starts to have a huge amount of contrast. The diffuse or matte quality is downplayed. This is fine, but sometimes you need a variety of surfaces and materials to make something seem more real. This also makes your highlight shapes much more visible, which brings me to the second point:

Highlights (reflection of source) are a great tool for describing form. I notice that in most of your pictures you use a circular highlight shape. This is correct, if you are describing a sphere and a circular light source. So I think that you could assume a circular source, but distort the highlights so that they describe the form better. A cylinder highlight runs in a line. The edge of a flat plate is really a tiny cylinder, so treat it as that. I think it will help as I stated above, to give variety to your forms and adding the occasional matte surface will help with variety of materials.

Example is vaders helmet forehead, eye, and cheek. They all have similar highlight shapes. The only one that really would be this way is the eye, which is spherical. If you played up the difference in highlight shapes, the forehead and cheek would feel like a different form. If we think about these three areas in terms of my first point, the eye is more reflective than the dark helemet, so play up that difference. Unless, of course, the helmet is perfectly reflective, which it is not because it is black (perfectly reflective would be chrome), so it has some diffuse characteristics. Actually, you could reverse the situation; make the black shinier than the eye. A difference is the key.

I hope I did not step on your toes here, feel free to disregard.

[Liquid!]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blitz:
Ya that�s good...

For an amateur..hehe just kidn.

Now is it me or is Vader's helmet more rounded at the top. It could be the lighting but it looks as if he is wearing a pot on his head. Did you use a photo, or just your head? Do you plan on doing a more finished vision?

---

Thanks blitz! I didn't really have any ref, but the helmet, was sorta intended to be more flat on the top. I just thought it might make it look more like the German nazi helmets... I guess that much for that idea.

I wasn't going to make it any tighter. I'm working on some tighter pieces right now, but I'm finding that doing this sketchy stuff is much more fun and relaxing for me. It's a nice change of pace from what I usually do.

Again, thanks for the kind remarks!

-c

[Rinaldo]

Kewl...
Don't think I can add much to what's been said.

[Joachim]

Looks very nice liquid ! Hehe, micke should comment in this, he knows the exact size, with, inch between every little detail on every helmet in starwars

I was going to say the same thing as spooge, but not as detailed as him That, I gues that is somethng that make your style so unique, but I think by keeping your technique but being more aware of this you could do some great improvement. . .

ANother thing is the colors of the light. It's very nice how you color, and I like that you have such saturated pictures. But, esp. on this helmet, you get the feeling that the color of the lights are so strong that you hadly see the color of the original material. Though, darth vader has a black plastic helmet, so that makes it difficult do to different

But, great work as usual

------------------
Joachim's Place

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited November 13, 2000).]

[Blitz]

Hey thanks liquid.
Now I know what you were getting at.

BUT
Because I am so loaded with caffeine (ever have a quad shot mocha & Mt. Dew) I went ahead and messed around with the pic. Don't kill me because I have messed up what you were going for. I made some of my own corrections to the helmet (with a mouse)

And because I did this correction before reading your second post I didn't know what you were going for. Sorry man, but here is my version of your pic.

I am still getting a kick out of doing this...hehe


seeyas man

Blitz....coolest guy around......my house

[spooge demon]

a buggery of an otherwise fine picture

It was fun though...

[Liquid!]

Craig -

You're not stepping on any toes at all. I very much appreciate any feedback from people. Mostly I appreciate the fact that you took the time to comment. How the heck else am I going to get any better?!

Everything you said is right on target. I have an inherent tendency to play up contrast, and pushing the values beyond what they naturally would do. However your point of 'contrasting' [no pun intended] the contrast and the mattes within a piece in order to achieve more attention for the areas with high contrast isn't lost on me at all. [3 "contrasts" in one sentence... phew ] The same goes for the circular lights and their reflective properties on various shapes.

Here's an attempt at fixing the contrast areas, and highlight shapes.

Hope this isn't too subtle, and is what you were referring to...



-c

[Blitz]

My, are we up late..

I don't know Spooge, I like my correction better. Just playn, Iv seen your websit to.*drops candle* hehe

I like the reflection you got on the top/right of the helmet.

Well Liquid, I bet you didn't expect this kinda reaction so quickly. (corrections, revised pics..and so on) I duno.
I like Spooge's and yours. But as far as Vader's helmet is concerned, well Grendel Khan is right in that Vader�s helmet has a lot of reflection in it. It is very glossy and plastic looking. (probably because it is plastic)

Well any hoo


Oh and Liquid, Get Madureira's butt off those RPGs and back to BATTLE CHASERS, ya.
heheh

Blitz.....Reader of lizards fortunes.

[Liquid!]

Damn. Seems like everyone is UP AT THIS HOUR [3:27AM my time]... I started typing the last response... then got doodling on some of the changes... posted the sucker and low and behold you Blitz and you already posted one!

JOACHIM: I don't want to come across as making excuses, however I'm STILL battling with my calibration, so I had to tweak the damn piece on my PC with levels, so the "subtle" blueish gray ambient light on the helmet may not be showing up, and the colors are actually a bit more saturated than they would be normally. I won't post another thing until I have this problem solved. This is getting ridiculous!

BLITZ: Thanks for the helmet reference. Seeing the pic makes me realize that its way too square... I could have sworn... Thanks for the re-work too!

CRAIG: Great Job! It's funny because you went smoother on yours than I think you usually do, while I'm purposely trying to force myself to loosen up a bit and try to use lose shapes so that I can get a better understanding of values. Now you're making me want to do a 'smooth' one... I really like the right side of the helmet! Also for some reason the head/shoulder ration works much better for me in yours. Thanks again!

Enough Vader. This was just going to be a quicky sketch... I'm going to bed.

-c


[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited November 13, 2000).]

[Chapel]

spooge: I'm confused on what you mean by "cylinder". Are you referring to the way the highlight should look? Instead of a circular highlight it should look more rectangular or like a cylinder? Or are you referring to the actual object that the highlight is on?

[Jaymo]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chapel:
spooge: I'm confused on what you mean by "cylinder". Are you referring to the way the highlight should look? Instead of a circular highlight it should look more rectangular or like a cylinder? Or are you referring to the actual object that the highlight is on?

---

He means that a convex surface curved around one axis will produce highlights like a cylinder would do: lines. because the reflected image of the lightsource is squashed only in one axis.
Oh boy, I hope I'm right....am I, spooge?

[Frost]

Craig: "When something is totally reflective, there is no light and shadow, only the reflection of the source, " -- are you sure about this? I seem to have noticed that this is not entirely true.

Let me try to explain... reflections on glass, or water, or any other reflective see-through objects only seems to relfect what is brighter than what lies under the surface. If the surface below is pitch black, you'll get a perfect reflection, if it is pure white, no reflections will occur. Reflections seem to work in a comparative/additive combination that is very strange, look at it... pour some water into the sink and see.. a light source will be reflected very nicely while the darker environment will not and you'll see through the surface into the bottom... specular and reflection being the same in my mind. Same as with looking into a lake, seeing the sky reflected, but the dark reflection of trees makes you see the bottom...as a sort of masking...

The same thing applies to reflective surfaces, where a black car will reflect more than a white car... or rather, covers more range in reflective values.

I don't grasp the working of mirrors mind you... so, anyway. Just pointing out my observations.

If I got this wrong let me know. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

cheers,
Danny (the other one)

[This message has been edited by Frost (edited November 13, 2000).]

[spooge demon]

Let me say first that my repaint of liquid�s vader is not meant as an example of what I was saying above, it took about 10 minutes and it was late and I probably should not have posted it. It is a little different way of working for me, and was a different approach to it than liquids, so I posted it anyway.


I suppose this is common knowledge, but a surface becomes reflective when the light rays hitting it are reflected in a direction that is somewhat equal to the angle that they came in on. The law is angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. The degree to which the surface is matte is how much scattering, or randomness happens to the incident light when it leaves the surface. If the rays are perfectly reflected, you get chrome. The other way is those matte cubes. The primer you spray on car fenders is a pretty matte surface. The roughness of a surface is a general indicator of whether something is matte or reflective. A rough surface causes the light to be bounced randomly because each light ray is hitting a tiny surface that may be turned at an odd angle. Think of it like bouncing a golf ball on a really smooth driveway. You know where it is going to bounce. Bounce it on a pebbly or rough surface, it is going to very unpredictable. There are many surfaces in between.

With water, you see the light source reflection, but where there is no bright source, you see what you would see if it were a matte surface, which is clear with water, so you see through it. Look at muddy water. The particles suspended there act as a matte object, and makes the areas without a bright source reflection brighter. seen the green algae filled waterways in Venice? So the contrast difference between a source reflecting in water and not is lower. Water also reacts very apparently to the fresnel effect, see below.

A common error in architectural renderings is casting shadows on glass. Does not happen. UNLESS the windows are dirty, then you get a similar thing happening to dirty water. Same thing were to happen if you made a dirty chrome sphere. Think of it that way. Take a chrome sphere, it is 100% reflective. Now dust it with auto primer. The reflections are still there, but not as contrasty, and you can begin to see effects of light and shadow. Now spray more on. Same thing happens even more. Now coat it real good. It is now a matte surface.

I did a repaint to that truck; you can see that car paint is a combination of matte and reflective. See the front of the car where it rolls under? That area is shaded from the key light as well as the bright diffuse source of the sky, and it gets darker.


What you are seeing with a dark versus light reflective surface is the relative difference between the value of what is reflected and the value of the material. Vader�s helmet is dark, so the reflections, which have nothing to do with the actual color (called local color), so the contrast makes it seem shinier. Think if the helmet was white. Take a photo of and sample the highlights, this highlights of the dark and light helmets would be roughly the same. But the areas with no reflection would be much darker than the same areas on the light helmet. This is what you are seeing in water.

What out 3-d bretheren have termed the fresnel effect, the lower the viewing angle the more a surface reflects. You can see this almost anywhere. One place that you can really see it is in a head. When you see a head from � front, the far side of the face is turning away from you severely. If there is something bright back there, it will pick it up. Movie cinematographers light to exaggerate this feeling.

That is enough for now, it is difficult to explain. Ask questions.

Btw I redid the fighting Chinese girl in �who�s next thread� I kinda liked parts of it, but I think nobody saw it.

[MisterOwl]

That picture of Vader that was posted a few days ago was mine. I really like what you have done with your version. All of the discussion concerning light and reflected light on your project is extremely helpful for me to read as well as you, I guess. Not that you need it as much as I do.

It was unclear about wether you used reference for your version or not, but I must say that I enjoy other artists' version of the characters of Star Wars. You need not capture the full likeness of its characters for others to know what you are depicting. Though Vader's head is a little square in your picture, I really enjoy your take on him. Also, I realize this is a sketch and I enjoy the spontinaety of the piece. Some of the most exciting work is the stuff that isn't ment to be totally finished.

[burn0ut]

mmm so much usefull information thanks liquid/spooge/others/
learned a bunch todey!

[Chapel]

Thanks spooge and Liquid!.. much appreciated.

[Frost]

Aye, I hope I don't look too stupid with this... =)

Here's what I mean by dark values in reflections permitting see-thru objects: (please excuse the lousy-ish drawings)


Here you see that there is a seemingly comparative issue between specular/reflective values and the underlaying values (be it the local color of the object, or the value behind a tranparent object). Hmmm, maybe it's just the way I see things.

I guess you're saying that the entire reflection value range is scaled down to the local color value and up? Equivalent to the 'screen' filter in pshop?


[This message has been edited by Frost (edited November 13, 2000).]

[CapnPyro]

Shit dude, Im understanding none of this. All I know is Vader looks pretty.

-Cap

[eetu]

ok this is a bit nitpicky again but for completeness' sake:

spooge (or whomever), got any insight on reflections/speculars picking up color from the reflective surface ?
_in theory_ 'metallic' objects get their specular highlights tinted by the object color, while 'plastic' objects have highlights the color of the light source. the differentiation coming from the electrical properties (conductivity), and of course most materials would be something in between.

my question is, how much does this really show in reality ? enough to warrant thinking about, or is it just theoreticist BS ? :)

for example, polished car paint. i tend to think that it has two overlayed reflections/speculars, one from the metallic paint surface below and one from the lacqeur (sp?) on top. the second one would be a lot tighter and 'plastic' in terms of getting it's color from the reflection source, and the first one would be quite a bit 'rougher' (more diffuse) and would not pick up that much color.
in reality, do you think the first reflection is just more diffuse and therefor doesn't pick up the source color (or it just doesn't show that much) or is it because of this 'metallicity' effect?

eetu.

sorry for the offtopic blabbering.

[Lukias]

You guys should write a book.....

thats some heavy shit, I'd add my own conclusions from my extensive knowledge base of art.....but well, you guys might find it a little hard going. Maybe one day I'll let you novices into a few secrets.....till then, keep learning.....I think you guys maybe able to take your art somewhere.

Spooge- Please stop taking your idea's from my site....I'll let it slip this time....

.....immkayyy

[Liquid!]

CHAPEL- Here's what I think Craig is saying, however I might be wrong...





FROST: Water and glass are not perfectly reflective surfaces, they are semi-translucent. Thus they relect a little, and also allow you to see through them.

I think mirrors, or extremely highly polished chrome would be considered perfectly reflective and thus their form is not described by their own shadows, however by the behavior of the environment reflected within them.

Again, this is what I got out of it. If someone can correct me please feel free!

-c

[Liquid!]

FROST - you lost me there a bit.

I think that the top right green ball would actually reflect the black wall with its reflections upon it and thus also discolor the green of the ball. Obviously it would not change the color of the ball on the side that is facing away from the black wall. Not sure if I'm following you on the last two spheres on the bottom. Help?

-c



[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited November 14, 2000).]

[spooge demon]

lukias-??? wha???

[Chapel]

Frost: I'm with Liquid! on your explanation. Seems to me the difference in the top two pics is the lighting. The bottom left pic I don't understand. If it was that transparent there should be no reflection. I just don't know about the last ball.

[Frost]

I'm just saying that reflections (in my observations and understanding) are not simply overlaying the environment image at a certain opacity on the reflective object, but rather that reflective object will only reflect that which is lighter than its diffuse color. Otherwise, think of a polished white car... while rolling on the street, there are many 'near-black' values in the environment, but the car does not reflect those as 'near-black', but rather brings the specular (environmental light) more see-thru... if there is a darker color on the car, than that is simply the lighting on the diffuse color (like a matte object would be lit).

A white glossy ball will not reflect black, or else, it would become black itself, although the specular highlights are very pure and bright -- which brings me to my point of reflections. The only pure (pure enough at least=) reflections that I've seen came from mirrors and polished chrome... both having very specific material properties, both having a mid-range grey value as their base... but I don't understand those beyond that point.

Liquid!: Hey dude. =) (REALLY sorry for destroying your thread!!) Yeah I know it's weird, and I'm seriously starting to doubt myself with all or lack of responses I get.. everyone seems to disagree but no one has said anything to clear their point. =)

A reflective object will always reflect the environment because that's what it does. Now imagine a black and white marble chessboard reflecting another... the reflections of white onto black will be quite apparent as the white will override the black base color, but the other way around isn't true, as the reflection of black will not darken the white (it will SEEM to only relative to the rest)... my understanding is that it is the lack of light which makes it see thru, and not darken.

argh. I will try to post more meaningful images when I get home tonight.

[This message has been edited by Frost (edited November 14, 2000).]