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martinhoulden — :: At the edge of Edge ::
Published: 2006-03-22 23:51:47 +0000 UTC; Views: 4416; Favourites: 143; Downloads: 661
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[::: At the edge of Edge ::: Final Fantasy VII : Advent Children ::: Cloud Strife ::: FANART :::]It's Cloud! ... frikkin ... again. But wrot, colour and a background? Madness.
Such an exhausting picture to do ... but enjoyable all the same. It's no secret that i'm not used to digital stuff, painting, or even colour, so this is all new to me! Of course, with it being a new thing for me, i had to choose to do something i was at least somewhat comfortable with on my first "big" pic ie, something iactually but a bit of time into.
BUT, as much as its cloud and im comfortable with it, if you took away the hair and the sword it could be anything really. So on that basis i figured it didnt matter too much - i dont specialise in colour and backgrounds so i didnt want to make it TOO hard a challenge by having to design something competent at the same time. I'd have lost interest and faith in it and never finished it.
But all the same, i'm pleased with it, if not primarily because at many points i thought "bah, thatll do" but i kept going on it. And with a lot of help and input from my wonderful partner !Tifasjk i kept going with it!
In a lot of ways, i prefer the original sketch that i did, which can be found here : [link] , If not primarily because it only took about 30 - 40 mins, whereas this took more like ... 8 hours. But i learnt a lot doing this, and itll mean ill be sticking to digital a lot more now i feel comfortable with it. I cant promise an end to FFVII stuff (as much as it annoys me), and as much as it seems like an excuse, its not blind fandom, i do actually try and study the universe and its graphical terminlogy and so forth.
Enough prattling! hope you like, please, any positive or negative feedback is welcomed and desired! I'm new to this so, bear that in mind! All comments welcome and appreciated!
(ps, Edge is the name of the reforming Midgar in Advent Children. And also i know that the bike isnt 100% accurate, but the whole pic is unreferenced! I did a lot of studies in the days previous of the bike and the sword in AC)
[::: Data Trash :::]
Medium: Photoshop
Duration: Approx 9 hours
[::: FFVII, Advent Children, Cloud Strife, Fenrir, Edge, First Tsurugi © SquareEnix, At the edge of Edge © Martin Houlden 2006 :::]
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Comments: 43
Beautiful work ! I like the darkness of the background...
Faved it for my "Cloud Strife museum" !
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yay! you know it's name! everyone i've talked too has no CLUE what Edge is!
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heh, glad to hear that you worked away on this one untill the bitter end since it really shows that alotta time and effort's gone into this one. the jagged, black background's framed nicly by the pale slate sky and the fact that the twisted, mettalic structures are so exposed gives the scenery a somewhat industrial and deralict feel... which is totaly fitting considereing that pretty much sums up midgar.
the heavyblack of the background is reflected by the darkness of cloud's torso and the obscured bike. the fact that you show minimal details in these parts really helps assentuate the areas that have been worked out, such as his head and the sword. this heavy use of black is also carefully broken up by the occational detail such as the lights on the bike and the wires on the building. this really helps to build up a sense of what these darkened shpes are, giving them an identity. the collection of coloured wires on the buiilding behinde him are a really striking feature yet they don't claxsh with the over all look of the peice.
is the smoke rising up some kind of mist or exhaust from the bike. i'm guessing the lzatter but it really adds to the industrial feel.
only thing i would sy is that his trademark hair lacks it's normal attitude.
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thankyou for the always kind words again
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no problimo. i just wisshi i could find the time to go through your gallery a little faster.
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lol, id rather the nice comments over time than rushed ones! always appreciative 
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fantastic i love the way youve done the background
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ah .. to be honest I prefer the sketch as well I'd say, this is still very nice. With the colour it just seems a whole lot ... bleaker, if that makes sense. Exactly how Edge really is in the film. His expression matches nicely too. I do like the monotone grey shades in this and then the colour of his hair, makes it stand out. And were you opting for an oil/paint texture? (I have no sense of medium =_
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I liked how you used less brush strokes to show more details, it's very effective
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Very good for the first picture of the kind (at least the first I've seen 
Cloud's face looks a little odd, and not only odd like "notlikeinthemovie"...
and the picture is a little dark overall
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yes, the pic is dark! congrats on noticing that
thankyou!
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oh this one!
frikkin....WOW!!! this is awesome!! i know it's dgital paint but is it liek oil or something. there is his defining hair and sword, but then theres that door knocker thing on his shoulder/chest, what's with that? XD
yeah, i think i like the other one, well i liek this one too, ah! nah, me likey the other one 
great job
p.s: Smile Cloud Smile!!! *pulls cheeks*
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good job! Your painting skills are coming along nicely!
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Brilliant, jsut brilliant. A beautiful picture from a great movie. excellent work
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looks pretty awesome to me! especially for being new at that kinda thing ^^
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Very cool indeed. I can see you added some light fog/smoke to highlight the character some. That's pretty good. Yea, some textures could help out a lot. The darkness of the color scheme adds a kind of eerie feeling, maybe? I'm not sure if you were going for that, but I'm no good with colors myself, especially in digital works, heheh. But I guess we all must practice.
Excellent work for your first serious try at digital. Very impressive, and keep it up (^-^)!
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This is very well done and has a great likeness to the movie; well done. 
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yup its good to have input, points of views! i appreciate them all.
hrm! the sky ... i actuallytried a lot of different things ... clouds, grey sky, grey sky with white clouds, blue sky etc. Then i remembered the opening sequence to the film, where cloud is on the ridge in front of midgar, and the sky is actually pretty much pure white - overcast. of course it wouldnt have been PURE white (i didnt look at the picture reference, i wanted to be able to say i did the picuture unreferenced!). looking at the picture now, theres quite a few clouds! But hrm well, you live and learn!
I found the more i did on this pic, the more i wanted to do! To make it complete. But, theres so many things im not happy about it with it, i could have sat and tweaked them and so on, but i didnt really do this picture for pictures sake ... just so that id actually done an at least MOSTly complete pic!
Thankyou for the input! I shall definately bear it in mind next time!
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I think most people find mistakes or changes they wish they had made with their artwork. Sometimes it's also hard to portray exactly what you want when drawing... but completing an piece is always a hard task. I tend to start a lot of things but never finish most of them. Either I step away and never return to it or I just crumple it halfway through. This is still a wonderful piece.
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yeah, i mean its all a matter of opinionin the end. What one person likes another wont be so fond of.
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Exaclty, people perceive things in different ways.
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Very nice buddy!
Ok, heres some things to think about :
1) The bike seems to be lost in the shadows, its way too dark and just looks flat. If it was me i would have added another light source hitting the front of the bike...maybe a mediteranian blue or something. (yes,i make my own words for colours)
2)The background looks a bit too smudgy. To solve this i would have added some textures so it looks more solid. I know your new to this and believe me, i was a smudge master a few years ago when i started.
3) hmmm, no actually i think thats about it. Just keep working at it constantly...day and night and youll get there in the end.
Well hope that was helpfull for ya mate, need any advice just gimme a call.
Sean D
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lol, indeed.
a blue light source ... hrm, i'd have to make that up though! there arent too many ambiguous floating blue light sources in the world of AC! I did add a twinge of uplight from the floor, but basically i did deliberately choose to make the bike look as much like a silhouette as possible. Looks like a rocket propelled PSP! So, thats a problem with my choice rather than my technique i guess XD
the background ... yes. I think its pretty obvious that i couldnt be bothered with that. I actually scrapped the entire background at one point and was going to start again, but then decided id get halfway through redoing it and never finish it. And, i dont use smudge at all! I do however change the hardness on my brushes which might give that impression ... If i had to redo this picture, i could redo it in a third of the time, and id probably spend some of the time saved on the background.
But yes ... scattering, that is indeed helpful! Anything short of bringing in a scanned texture, inverting it, selectign the area you want to apply it to and then applying a multiply layer blend mode to it has left me wondering what a quick way of making texture would be ... so yes, i'll have a fiddle! Texturing i know is something i definately need to work and look into next time ... i just need to know the right way into it!
thanks for the input! Now that ive got some confidence with digital stuff ... i'll be using it a LOT more. Which means ill be practicing more, uploading more and so on. id like to do most of my work, even sketching, in digital, its just feeling comfortable and in control with it!
Thanks again!
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Hey man, theres nothing wrong with sketching in reall life. I still do it mainly because i feel more comfortable with it, then just scan it in. Allthough some people prefer the quickness and easy 'undo' option like Feng Zhu has grown to admirer. (shit speller i know
Oh and theres no right way of texturing, or painting for that matter (in my eyes). I just do what seems most comfortable and thats making most the textures from brushes in the library and tweaking them.
As for the background, i wasent sure if you used smudge or the technique you said. but yeah you have the basic lighting down usng the smudge look, all you needed to do was add in texture over the top.
I dont think you should do your sketching in digital to be honest...i think there your strong point, you got really nice lines going on in them, which would be sweet when you paint over themin photoshop and still have the peaking through if you know what i mean.
I think by the time you leave uni you should be making me shiver in my boots with your photoshop skills. So lik i said, just keep working at it for the next few years and youll be laughing.
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well i intend to be working on it all for a long time yet! as well as ... 3d ... and ... just about everything else!
Ill still stay sketching in pencil/pen, of course. I mean you cant sit around a bed at your mates place drawing wired to a computer! But, i guess what i meant was that id like to "sketch" sometimes in a painterly fashion, like craig mullins etc. working from block tones and building it up, rather than starting in a linear process! Theres a lot of options, a lot of styles i like! A lot of aspects from different styles that i like ... just gotta find what is right!
I'll eventually find a balance of the two mediums etc ... i'll keep fiddling! I dont want to get tied down to a certain method or technique that i apply to every picture i do ... id imagine youve come across him by now, but *Artgerm is a good example of what i mean, taking the same character that hes designed, yet making it look like its done by a different artist with every pic he does. Impressive stuff!
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oh yeah hs faved on my list.
and yeah the dreaded 3D work is looking over my head too, gotta start cracking that open fast or mightget left behind. ha, shit drawing and composition in 8 hourstime...hmmm shall i stay or should i go lol...well i know what imdoing so ill probably stay. Yougoing in today?
Sean D
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mines at 11 ... hrm, well! my body clock is totally screwed lately, going to bed at 6am, getting up at 3 in the afternoon. madness. It doesnt really make any difference to me though haha, its not like im frikkin missing anything lately -_- another week of cancelled studio tools.
i dont know how long i'll stay up. At the moment i feel as though ill be staying up through the night without sleep, its no big deal. But i might end up feeling braindead at about 8 in the morning and fall asleep on my desk. Its a gamble! At this moment in time i intend on going in but ... depends if my face hits the desk first!
3D ... haha. Well, ive got a couple of models done and about half of the low poly ones done. So im half way through really. Hrm but then i have to have texturing on top of that ...
I tried that jitter thing! Woot, its great
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Ha yeah, your in the same boat as me...my sleep patterns screwed since i moved up here. I woke up around 8 hours ago haha!
Oh and i havent even really started the modelling yet...for uni anyway, but it looks kind of easy so shouldent be too much of a problem.
Sean D
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sawweeeeet. But isnt everything you do?
Cloud is ... frikkin... AWESOME
The hair to the left of his face is a little too big in my opinion. VERY WELL done since it is unreferenced however.
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Wow, you've got a lot of talent in this field. I relaly don't ahve very many suggestions, seeing as how this is better than anything I could do!
Keep up the great work.
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*hugs* well! what can i say that i haven't already said to you!
it's very hard for me to comment when i've basically done so on msn!
I really like this picture and it has come out very well!, the background really looks great, and I really like how you've done the sword! (and the whole picture too of course!), you've managed to put in so much detail too! even adding little bits such as the red cable right at the top of the picture and things (that bit actually reminds me of a bit in FF7 where you see the big AVALANCHE thing and have to climb that pole!)
Great picture cutie!, *huggles*, very proud of you!, really like the skin tones you've used as well, I find skin tone to be the hardest thing ever
how can drawing FF stuff annoy you!, FF is just..great!
*hugs* Love you
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thankyou dear, as always! I'm pleased with how the sword came out too, having that diagram to study before hand was a big help!
Skin tone ... hrm! I dunno i just chose what looked right! *huggles*
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Awesome. It's nice to see the extra effort employed also. Looks like it turned out well. The heavy contrast suits it, in my opinion. ^^
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