HOME | DD
esapesa ā Car Slide
Published: 2010-04-30 18:26:27 +0000 UTC; Views: 3896; Favourites: 51; Downloads: 60
Redirect to original
Description
Still inspired by "Mirrors Edge"...This time with a bit more action in the picture.
Rendered in DAZ
Post work in Gimp
Related content
Comments: 36
Sometimes it's easiest to critique and be critiqued by strangers. Also, I've seen that you've submitted this to our May 2010 gallery at #Dazzled . While we have a gallery specifically for the artworks the artists would like us to critique, I wanted to critique this anyway. So let's see how this goes.
First of all, I'll let you know now that I've never played Mirror's Edge but I have seen the case and that alone nabs my attention. For the game to have had THIS kind of impact on you to create such wonderful fan art, it must truly rock!
I'll start with the negative, as I find is usually best to do, so the critique can end on a happy note.
I really only have three quarrels with this piece and honestly, they're pretty minor.
First: You have great use of the shadows here, but I have to say this - Even light leaves shadow. In other words, the discharge from her gun should be leaving a faint shadow, I would think. See? Minor.
Second: I'm not too sure about the blur effect... and by that I mean the camera movement it suggests may be a tad off. The Character seems to blur in places that suggest she's moving into the center of the hood, rather than back and away from her assailant, but that seems to be a side-effect of the central focus. You truly do get the feeling that the car is still coming at you, full force.
Third: Eh, this one's extremely minor, but I'll make reference to such things as movie posters as an example. When a movie poster tries to catch your attention with an action shot, they try to make sure no goofy faces are made in the shot... and the way her overbite looks here reminds me a bit of a cheezy 80s movie I just watched the other day, called "No Retreat, No Surrender 2" in which the main character, a martial artist, would look buck-toothed when in a position of extreme strain. I wound up calling him "The Ninja Chipmunk". Now, she's no where near as extreme as he was, but the form of the mouth tells me she's really focused on her shot, but I think we all know, since she just slid off the hood of the car, it's pretty much covering fire. Firing an accurate shot in this condition is next to impossible.
And now for the good.
The driver's expression, what you can see of it, anyway, is priceless! Bewilderment coupled with horror, I love it! "I just ran her over, and she just killed that guy! And she's still going!" hehe.
I love the detail on the car. While I hate white as a car color, it allows detail to be spotted. Such as the peeling paint above the passenger side headlight. Very nice. In fact, that headlight is imperfect enough, one could think that she was "hit" by the car there and proceeded to slide.
Her pose is perfect. I love it. It screams "Parkourt" to me. Which is what Mirror's Edge is, is it not? A lot of running and jumping from place to place, using whatever surface you can? She looks as though she anticipated having to slide across the car so well in advance that she was able to look and fire behind her.
While the camera angle and view don't allow for much other than her and the car to be seen, you don't need any more than that to know what's going on here. Someone's in hot pursuit of her and she's trying to cover herself.
All in all, a beautiful piece, and I'd like to thank you for letting us showcase it in #Dazzled 's May 2010 gallery e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/sā¦ " width="15" height="15" alt="
š: 0 ā©: 1
Thank you so much for the very constructive critique!
Sorry about the mixup with submitting to the wrong gallery. I'm still kinda new to the Groups and, sadly, have a slow learning curve.
I'm greatfull that that you took the time to review my artwork despite that fact!
Now to the reply:
Mirrors Edge isn't actually all that great a game, but the atmosphere in it is awesome and when you do a level correct (takes about 15 tries) the flow is like a high, so it deserves a couple of fan art images from me.
Replies to the "negative":
#1: You are absolutely correct. The flames from the gun should cast shadows as well. I'll see what I can do. Hopefully I'll be able to correct it in Gimp so I don't have to do a new render.
#2: The motion blur worked really well to get the feeling of motion from the car and overall "snapshot of extreme motion" feel, but, as you point out, the girl moves to the side. She could benefit from a motionblur to the side. I'll give it a look-at and see what I can do.
#3: You actually sat through the whole No Retreat No Surrender 2?? I'm most impressed! It was very very bad even when Jean Claude was in it
"Ninja Chipmunk" was a great nick! Something I will have to find an excuse to use sometime.
About the overbite; It never occurred to me that there was an overbite. I've looked really carefully and found that it is a shadow/light issue.
I had a bit of a headache over lighting the scene and settled on this in the end. I thought it gave it the best effect and "gritty" feel. More realistic perhaps?
About her expression of confidence and concentration I was going for what you've described in the "positive" part of your critique.
As I said earlier separate levels of the game (or even segments of levels) takes about 15 tries before you get it right, but when you do you are king of the world. You are awesome and can do these kinds of stunts. You know where everything are and your timing is perfect.
This was what I was going for.
Impossible is something that happens to other people...
Thank you so much for the positive critique (and the "negative"). I have a hard time responding to positive reactions about my art (could be a common ailment among artists, I don't know), but I'm working on it. Mostly I get embarrassed
Thank you again for the wonderful critique and for posting the piece in the May 2010 Gallery!!
Working on my next piece right now. We'll see how it turns out
Thank you
/Erik Winbo
š: 0 ā©: 0
really great work on this just amazing job on this
š: 0 ā©: 1
your welcome you did a really amazing job on it
š: 0 ā©: 0
this is Dynamic, I like this image as I like your character and their are a lot of little details to keep me looking, the occupants of the car. the pose itself, and the overall blurring effect. I really like this one!
š: 0 ā©: 1
I loved it as soon as I saw the thumbnail; girl, guns and car in a dynamic composition. Great!
But I have three points which I think could improve the render even more;
firstly, her left arm and gun completely overlap her right. This, and it's angle, mean you can hardly pick out the submachinegun she's holding and so it doesn't add anything to the picture.
In a perfect world all elements in a scene should enhance the composition. Moving her arm a bit lower and changing the angle slightly would also add more diagonals to the composition.
The second point I think would help realism would be to add reflections. There would definitely be some sky and surrounding visible in the windshield but also on the bonnet. Ideally, the girl should be slightly reflected in it as well.
Thirdly, laying on a white bonnet under the sun would mean a lot of light would reflect back from the bonnet on the girl. But I don't use DAZ so I don't know if it is capable of doing that (or of faking it with additional lights).
I hope you don't mind my critique, I just had to vent because I like it so much. Most poser renders -even action stuff- is so terribly static. Yours isn't.
š: 0 ā©: 1
Thank you so much for your accurate critique!
You are right about the submachinegun. I should move it a bit. It has been bothering me as well when I looked at it (after letting it "rest" a while).
The windshield does reflect its surroundings. Not as much though because its transparent glass. The girl doesn't reflect because she isn't in a "reflecting" angle. But i agree that it could use a bit more reflective qualities.
The white should highlight her. Hadn't thought about that and makes me wonder why it doesn't. It could be a DAZ thing. Must check controls for something like that.
And lastly, thank you so much for appreciating it!!
š: 0 ā©: 0
Woah! I love the action in this piece--it feels like a still from a movie!
š: 0 ā©: 1
Thank you very much. It was what I was going for so it really pleases me that you think so
š: 0 ā©: 0
I'm very glad you liked it!
š: 0 ā©: 0
Tremendous sense of motion and action , really high class work.
š: 0 ā©: 1
AMAZING!!!! Love the pose and the action!!! 
š: 0 ā©: 1
Thank you very very much! 
š: 0 ā©: 1