Paradigm Shift concept art

[Perihelion]

So I've been drawing concept art for my game, Paradigm Shift, in the past couple days.

Spoiler: Agata

The glasses are red, and she wears them 'cause she's an albino and bright light hurts her eyes. The proportions are off somehow.

This one is old, but it relates to the last one, so I'll toss it up for reference.

Spoiler: node

Cyborg. The helmet houses a liquid cooling system for the supercomputer integrated with her brain, whose waste heat would otherwise kill her, and the flexible tentacle arms telescope.

Then there's this one, which is supposed to sort of match the above one:

Spoiler: soldier

Another cyborg, except this one is a soldier. I'm not really happy with his design and am looking for feedback on it--it's sorta bland--which is why I haven't cleaned it up yet. The arms are supposed to be freakishly long--he can run on all fours--and, yes, those are claws. The things on his feet are pneumatic pistons or something that let him jump really high.

Spoiler: soldier augmentation details

 

[Jason]

I'm really loving the Agata one, I don't think there's anything wrong with the proportions at all, it looks really stylish, and I'd love to see it with some colour (Although it'd have to be pale, since too colourful would spoil it in my opinion... although it DOES look nice as it is in black and white)

 

[Admiral David]

nice work, I was checkin out your soldier concept and for some odd reason i had flashback of a design for megaman they featured as coverart for the mega man 2 cartridge ha man i can't believe i remember that.
On the 1st character, Agata's right shoe seems to be just a little too high. Node is simply lookin good especially her face, i'm interested how she'll turn out. as for soldier, if i saw that mofo runnin on all fours toward me i'd be scared shitless lol but as for his design 1 thing i can spot out is that his neck seems to be too short.

 

[Venetia]

Well Agata, if she lifts her head up, her neck would be like that African tribe's who extend their necks with gold rings. Really long.

The right (her right) forearm is crazy thin. When you bend your arm drastically at the elbow like that, the flesh widens. Her left (her left) forearm is also a little too curvy toward the wrist.

The feet are obv too big for the body but that might be a stylistic thing, I know how people love doing that.

The folds in the clothes seem like they need more detail; right now they kind of just look jaggy. Her hair looks a little sloppily done around the ear area. And IDK if this was the intent but most of the body below the neck looks like it was done in vectors, or exported to illustrator and converted to vectors--I say that because Illustrator typically turns little details and fine curves into bunches and jagginess.

Despite the crits though it's pretty neat, and a hard pose to get right and look natural without looking crazy stiff, and you pulled that off.

 

[Perihelion]

I'm really loving the Agata one, I don't think there's anything wrong with the proportions at all, it looks really stylish, and I'd love to see it with some colour (Although it'd have to be pale, since too colourful would spoil it in my opinion... although it DOES look nice as it is in black and white)

I'm probably not gonna color it; it has a lot of problems 'cause I didn't use a reference like I normally do. Thanks, though!

nice work, I was checkin out your soldier concept and for some odd reason i had flashback of a design for megaman they featured as coverart for the mega man 2 cartridge ha man i can't believe i remember that.
On the 1st character, Agata's right shoe seems to be just a little too high. Node is simply lookin good especially her face, i'm interested how she'll turn out. as for soldier, if i saw that mofo runnin on all fours toward me i'd be scared shitless lol but as for his design 1 thing i can spot out is that his neck seems to be too short.

The neck being short is just the angle. Thanks, anyway. And yeah, you probably wouldn't wanna be in a dark alley with that guy. >_>

Yay, art critiques from Ventia! :3

Well Agata, if she lifts her head up, her neck would be like that African tribe's who extend their necks with gold rings. Really long.

That one I did actually notice, but unfortunately not soon enough to fix it. :x

The right (her right) forearm is crazy thin. When you bend your arm drastically at the elbow like that, the flesh widens. Her left (her left) forearm is also a little too curvy toward the wrist.

Oh, yeah, good point! That escaped my notice.

The feet are obv too big for the body but that might be a stylistic thing, I know how people love doing that.

Yeah, that was stylistic. I just felt like drawing...huge feet for some reason... @_@

The folds in the clothes seem like they need more detail; right now they kind of just look jaggy.

I'm really bad at clothes folds. I'm working on it, but I'm not sure how to fix them.

Her hair looks a little sloppily done around the ear area.

Yeah, it is. I should clean it up if I go back to this.

And IDK if this was the intent but most of the body below the neck looks like it was done in vectors, or exported to illustrator and converted to vectors--I say that because Illustrator typically turns little details and fine curves into bunches and jagginess.

Actually, that was more me drawing over my lines bunches of times and erasing them and stuff. It's a bad habit, but oh well. I didn't clean it up very much since it's just a concept.

Despite the crits though it's pretty neat, and a hard pose to get right and look natural without looking crazy stiff, and you pulled that off.

Thanks! :3

 

[Glitchfinder]

For some reason, when I was reading about the node, I was imagining her in a sleek, shiny, smooth tech kind of way. Specifically, her functions seemed to call less for modifications that would be difficult to give aesthetic appeal, and more for things that could be given the newer modern look.

On the other hand, I was thinking of the soldier as a postmodern piece of tech. In essence, he would be the one with all the apparent hardware, armor that may or may not be appealing, and a more rugged durability.

Edit: I just had a funny thought. You had mentioned in the development thread that the node had a helmet surgically grafted to her head to include components and cooling systems. Considering the fact that she wasn't intended as a combat weapon, but instead as a piece of processing hardware (the motherboard instead of the mouse or keyboard), it would make sense that she might have something that wouldn't make sense in combat, like a clear polymer for the surface of the helmet, containing a visible bit of her hardware and filled with a bubbly liquid cooling system. Still, that's just a thought, and I'd hate to impose my own views on you.

 

[Perihelion]

Woo, feedback on the designs! I like your ideas. And, yeah, I agree with the aesthetic--my original idea was that the soldier was less human in body, and the node was less human in mind. Not sure if that really carried over when I sat down to draw it out, though. I admit I'm pretty fond of my design for the node, but I really only tried like one thing, so I might go back and doodle a few alternatives. Mainly around the head, I think. Maybe the helmet should have loops of clear tubing full of mineral oil or whatever coolant I'm using sticking out of it. Keeping it sleek is also nice, though. Hmmm.

As far as the cooling systems go, yeah, I was intending to have them housed in the thingies you see on her head, but I haven't really detailed exactly what they consist of. Clear polymer with tech junk inside would be pretty cool! The neck wires are part of the cooling system too, I think (hi I like neck wires they are cool :3).

Btw, if it's at all illuminating, here's a sprite sheet I did of her a while ago:



I want to add more tech stuff to the soldier, but I'm not really sure what to add. He can't have tons of wires and stuff sticking out, because that's impractical for combat. The node can have more of that kind of thing since she has to worry less about it getting damaged. Any ideas for hardware for the soldier? The only things I really came up with were the pistons on the feet and the mounting holes for weapons. Then of course there are the claws and the huge arms and the hidden knives and the dermal impact armor under the skin, but those are less visibly cyborg-y.

 

[Glitchfinder]

I want to add more tech stuff to the soldier, but I'm not really sure what to add. He can't have tons of wires and stuff sticking out, because that's impractical for combat. The node can have more of that kind of thing since she has to worry less about it getting damaged. Any ideas for hardware for the soldier? The only things I really came up with were the pistons on the feet and the mounting holes for weapons. Then of course there are the claws and the huge arms and the hidden knives and the dermal impact armor under the skin, but those are less visibly cyborg-y.

My best suggestion for the soldier is to look at concept art for post apocalyptic combat machinery. Lots of moving parts, very rugged, and usually somewhat worse for wear. My suggestion, if you can't think of something, is to armor plate the guy. Give the armor moving joints too. (Not in the style of Ironman. More in the style of the behemoth that his subordinate created in the movie, or the original prototype)

 

[Perihelion]

I thought about that, but I like the idea of his armor being actually built into his skin--it's atypical. I wanna shy away from making him a walking tank, I think, which rules out bits of armor permanently grafted on. While you might get access to a power armor type deal at some point, I conceived of him being an incredibly fast, fluid ball of death. I mean, his dermal impact armor lets him take hits too, but his raison d'etre is mainly wrecking shit. Which I guess will be interesting considering that he has to protect the node, but we'll see how that works out.

I can actually see him being pretty sleek--maybe even shiny; his skin is weird--so I might not have lots of stuff grafted on. It's worked out such that most of his augmentations are under the skin.