Friday, October 29, 2010

SEVEN SAMURAI

4 comments :

Cognoman said...

I'm assuming by the tags that you made this?!
Holy crap. This is frickin' awesome. The textures and the way you used your materials is amazing. Those hatchy black shade lines, blending in to the blue-tinted shadows, it all kinda reminds me a bit of Simon Bisley's stuff...this is solid stuff, man!

My personal opinion: The actual structures of the characters' faces seem to be at some half-way point between 'realistic rendering' and 'simplified cartoons', not fully embracing either extreme. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing because it's a totally subjective style choice, but, personally, the faces that are resonating strongest with me are the 2 bottom guys (Asian dude and Sunglasses dude), and I think that's partly because they seem to be the most cartoony/graphic. The sunglasses are a strong graphic element which help hide the character's eyes - which is a good thing because eyes are so difficult to get write and, honestly, if eyes aren't drawn well, the characters don't feel as "alive". So by hiding the eyes, I can imagine in my mind that they're drawn realistically and it makes the drawing feel stronger. Plus, of course, the sunglasses are such a strong design element and thus add a kind of "iconic strength" to the image. The Asian dude works well because, since his shapes are so simple, he feels like a "well-rendered cartoon" as opposed to a "not-as-well-rendered realistic" image.

The top 3 guys (Scowling Dude, Bald Dude, Bearded Dude) feel like they were intended to look realistic but...they don't look completely realistic, so it feels like that goal wasn't obtained. That imperfection isn't necessarily a bad thing, though...it gives the drawing a human feel, making me aware that a human being drew the image, and so makes the image feel warmer/homey in a way - although at the same time, it also gives the image an amateurish feel (and even though that sounds bad, it isn't necessarily a bad thing!!! The word "amateurish" is a description of the way the image FEELS, its STYLE - not in any way a description of the quality of the image).
I have no opinion on the 2 other characters (Long-Faced Squinty Dude and Woman Dude); they're just kinda "there"/blank to me.

But yeah - maybe I'm rambling. I dunno, I just felt I had to comment because like I said, the use of materials here and how they blended with the drawing style kinda blew me away. I really like this image.


...You had better have drawn this pic, otherwise I'm going to look like a complete tool here, haha.
Although maybe I'm gonna sound like that anyway, heh, but know that I tried not to!

Cognoman said...

Curses...I wrote "get write" instead of "get RIGHT". Not sure how my brain inserted that typo in to my typing.

Looks like I got it "wrong" instead!
(chortle - that joke just sruck me right now, couldn't resist)

Derek said...

Missing the crits, huh?

Cognoman said...

Haha, or maybe I'm just slowly going insane. It's so hard to tell.

8D <--(crazy face)