Alphanaut's Skins: Patriots, Unite! July 10th

[Alphanaut]

Hey everybody! Haven't shown off anything in a while so here are a couple of skins/hexes I've been working on to revamp my superhero team, the Omega Squad.

Here's Blue Streak, which I previewed before the boards went down.Old one on the left, new one on the right.





And next, here is Plasma, a reimagining of a character I used to call Quantum Lass.





While Blue Steak is esentially finished, Plasma is still a WIP.

Comments, queries, concerns?

[AfghanAnt]

Plasma looks like Daryl Hannah :wub:. Blue Streak is a huge improvement. Good going on them both.

[UnkoMan]

I gotta say, good job on adding to the faces. They look good. However, you'll notice Blue Streak's nose is actually tonally different. It's much more noticable in the highlights. It's got a more orange hue to it. For the lips, this isn't so bad, but the nose ends up looking fake.
Also, you may want a hint of shadow from the goggle strap, and also a hint of highlighting on the top of the strap.

I like the subtle use of texture on the white though. Very nice. You're getting better and better.

[Carravaggio]

love the blue energy hands on plasma, what a simple and great idea. i know you said plasma was a WIP, but i'll still say her face is a bit soft, you need to tighten/strengthen the features. use stronger lines and colours.
still, nice designs and uniformity of costume, but the symbol lookd out of place, like you found an image of an omega symbol and slapped it on. i think it'd work better if it looked like it was made form the same colours/materials as the costume.

[Alphanaut]

Thanks for the comments. Here's another skin that has gone through a bit of a revamp. Another on of my originals, the Patriarch.

He is now on a skope made up of Renegade's Superman_Ren mesh on his Issiah_Bradley_Ren mesh, with the boots from his Master_Man_Ren mesh.


Check the spoilers to see how he's progressed.
[spoiler]
version 2:


version 3:


version 4:





I no longer have a picture of version 1.
[/spoiler]

He's still a work in progress, as I still have to finish the shield (the back is completely blank), and tinker with the highlights.



PS: Does anyone know how to do a displacement map similar to what Syn does in his cape tutorial, using PSP? The displacement mape function doesn't yield the same results.

[Alphanaut]

No comments? Come on!

[UnkoMan]

Sorry. I had looked at this, but was biding my time so as to not be the first commenter. I guess I will just go for it anyhow.

He's certainly been looking better and better. He could be improved though. I'll run through some things.

The face... it's pretty nice. Good mouth, eyes, good tone. The hair is a little bit ill defined, BUT, looks good with the rest of the style you've got going on. The only problem here is that I'm not quite sure what the mask is suppose to be. Right now it looks like facepaint under the eyes, and over the nose. But sparkly face paint. There doesn't seem to be any tonal definition in it, and no shadow on the face.

Okay, I'm writing way too much about this. I keep this up and I'll go on and on and not give any useful advice. Basically it's very flat and doesn't cover enough area to look like a mask. You may want to try referencing something like my avatar's mask or this. The second one is a lot smaller and seems more like what you are going for (but flipped).

Now the body here. I like how your highlighting is evolving. In version 3 it's not so much there, in version 4 it starts to wash out. Now you're in the middle, which is a good place to be. Keep playing with that and you should get it looking great real soon. Maybe brighten up the lower half of the red some. The hand looks good. Most people say add a bit of blue. It usually does look good. Once in a while you can get away with grey but you need way more contrast between light and dark. I've experimented with it and have got it looking decent but not great by any means. Still, even with blue, I'd say a go a bit darker on the dark parts in the white. And there looks like a spot of cream tone on the leg there... Actually, IPS did a really nice cream toned white for his Emma Frost skin. That could go off fairly well here, and you might want to search that out for reference.

The logo is also very flat. I have an old logo tut (that I should probably update, but it's still workable) here that might be of some help.

The shield? The shield actually looks great. Maybe change the highlight shape to go more with the shield shape, and... I don't know what sort of refl you are using but it doesn't look like anything in the screens. Might look a lot nicer moving, of course. Refl's are really really useful, I find. I use them all the time, subtly.

All in all, it's definately improving. Keep it up and you'll have this looking really great before too long.

[Alphanaut]

Thanks for the tips, Unko.

Here's a request I fufilled. This is Mach 3's avatar.



It's on a hex of one of Gni's meshes.

[MACH 3]

Yo man, that looks awesome! Way to go!

[Podmark]

Hey man, sorry for the lack of replies, I have a habit to just zip through things sometimes. You got some good stuff here. I particularly like Blue Streak, he's got the streamlined type of design that I like.

I'm not really good at critiquing skins. Truth be told I barely know what I'm doing most of the time in my own work. However, you have a kind of muted colour style going on in most of these. If this is purposely then great, otherwise I'd try to get a more vibrant look from your colours. Greater contrast, and more highlighting can help achieve this.

Also on the Mach 3 skin, the green looks kinda dirty, I think the shadow has the wrong hue, but I'm not personally sure what needs to be done.

Anyway some really nice work. Your designs are pretty good and your faces have alot of personality in them. Good work.

[The Hitman]

For Mach 3, my only beef is the yellow part of the leg. More specifically, the waist. It looks like you just stopped the yellow at the waist/torso connection. It's really an unnatural line. I'd bring it up onto the troso, even if just a little bit. Everything else looks great, though!

[UnkoMan]

I'll agree with these here... The only time stopping at the waist line really works is with belts. It took a while for me to figure that out, but it's true. It also holds true for the neck and torso. Having a colour change in those cut places is just really weird.

And the yellow DOES look a bit dirty. What I usually do on yellow is shade with a bit of orange, actually. It tends to look very nice.

The hair looks great, and yeah unique looking faces. Maybe some shadow where costume hits skin?

[Alphanaut]

Thanks for all the comments.
I know where you're coming from with the skin critiquing. I still need to put more forethought in my skins.
I've update the Mach 3 skin.


And also a couple shots of my updated Patriarch skin, showing off the improved logo and  shield.

[The Pwime]

Mach 3 is SO much better now.  Good job, Alpha.  :thumbup:

[Alphanaut]

Here are a couple of avatars requests I fulfilled, which incidentally were both on male_heavy_Giant (Sorry for taking so long!):

M-man (not 100% if that the real name, but oh well...)


Lord Humon-Gus


Comments, queries, concerns?

[UnkoMan]

Oh! I really dig Patriarch's shield. I never even saw it up close. Nice face, and the mask looks better, too. The star logo could use a bit of a shadow underneith. You could just use a drop shadow for now, until you are comfortable enough to do it from skratch. HOWEVER, a really easy way? Select the outline of that layer, make a layer under it, fill that with a solid colour (your darkest red, I'd say), blur that colour say 2 maybe 3, and move it down a few pixels. Then, you could recolour just whatever part is on the blue to your darkest blue, but it shouldn't be that big a hassle.

I'd also work on his seams a bit...

Lord Humon-Gus? Seams are very nice. Actually, this whole skin is really good. The only thing that stands out is the solid black HG. It just ends up looking flat. My old avatar had that, and when I did the new one it had to go. If you look, my new one has the blurred grey line in the middle. Also, a bit of seams and a bit of shadow again. Almost always a good thing for logos. I'd suggest the exact same thing for M-Man.

The subtle texture on LHG is nice. I don't think M-Man's works quite as well. Actually, the honeycomb style makes me see a giant bee when I look at him. Anyhow, it doesn't look so much like texture there, as it looks like just a grid pattern on the costume. Actually, I wonder if he wouldn't look better with a simple "quilt" pattern, like the Shocker? That's pretty easy to do, once I realized what was going on. You can see an example in my MicroCosm skin or probably C6's Shocker skins. Or whoever else has skinned the Shocker. Basically it's just a series of criss crossed light lines. Then you make a new layer, with that selection, but fill it with dark lines. Move that layer up a bit. Done. Actually, you could do the same thing with the honey comb shape and it might work.

Seams on M-Man appear to be the same technique... however it doesn't show up so well. I'd say just make all black pieces leave a shadow on the underlying pieces, for this one. Fingers and yellow. I'd also suggest bringing the trunks up a tiny bit onto the stomach, since having that hard edge always looks a bit strange.

Design wise... the mask is very odd. It's good to try things out, though, but I'm not sure it works. Perhaps if you skinned the nose piece to look more like an armor piece coming down, rather than a little piece of cloth on his actual nose. That'd probably be pretty sweet. And remember shadows for masks. LHG seems to be missing that.

Hopefully this was helpful, and understandable. You've got some really neat designs, and continue to improve.

EDIT: Wow! This post is friggin' huge!

[kylepacker]

Loving my Humon-Gus. You could put this in the centre of his chest on the middle black stripe:



Just an idea I came up with :)

But loving him. A lot.

[XLR8er]

mach 3's belt seems to bother me
like it don't fit in well with the suit


great work al

[Alphanaut]

Thanks for the tips, Unko and kylepacker. Yeah, those two are not 100% finished, but I wanted to show these guys that I had done *something* with regards to their avatar skins before leaving on my vacation. I'll try checking out a quilt pattern when I get back home.

[Alphanaut]

Hey everybody! Long time since I've posted a WIP, so here is what I've been working on as of late, an original from the Alphaverse, The Human Rocket II:

Taking up the mantle of the Human Rocket in the 70s, Raheem Jones faced a lot of adversity from those he was supposed to protect, due to his colour. In the later years of his career, due to mounting uneasiness with the Middle East, he changed his name to Richard and took on the title The American Bullet in order to remain a patriotic symbol in the public's eye, a fact he is ashamed to admit to.

As you can see, it's still very much a WIP: I still need to fix the shading, the borders need more work, and I'm having troubles with the refl layer (ie the skope is not working out for me, atm). Right now, The Human Rocket II is on a skope of Beyonder's Bulletman on Syn's Nova mesh. Comments, queries?

[Alphanaut]

Bump. Come on, guys. Somebody's got to have an opinion on my skin.

[style]

It's dope! Just gotta make the helmet look more yellowish golden andd more metalicy! :thumbup:

[HumanTon]

Nice use of the Bulletman mesh! Like Style says, just make the helmet a bit more metallic and you're good to go.

[UnkoMan]

Yeah, the helmet is just one huge flat colour. Even if you added a simple gradient (and some refl, if you can) that would really allow it to stand out more. The stars look a bit pasted on. There's no tonal difference. Again, a gradient to even a light blue on the bottom, and then maybe seams around the edges. I usually use a blue when I shade whites. Grey tends to look muddy. Shadows on seems would also work well, and be sure to keep in mind which seams would be light and which would be dark. For example, I'd make the thumb seam dark. Also, where the white side stripe cuts is a bit awkward. Maybe make it run down the leg some.

I just read your comments on the post. You pretty much mentioned everything I just said, but with way less words. The costume design is pretty funky, but seems a bit more sixties than seventies to me. Maybe just add a huge disco collar for no reason.

[catastrophe]

your skins remind me of HQ's skins in a way, i really like your realistic style on the skins.

[GGiant]

your skins remind me of HQ's skins in a way, i really like your realistic style on the skins.

If I'm right, he used HQ's bases on that skin.
It looks great.

[Alphanaut]

your skins remind me of HQ's skins in a way, i really like your realistic style on the skins.

If I'm right, he used HQ's bases on that skin.
It looks great.

I did, GGiant, but only for the actual body, not the costume. And even that part has been greatly altered.

Thanks, Catastrophe. I'm a big fan of the semi-realist style.

Yeah, the helmet is just one huge flat colour. Even if you added a simple gradient (and some refl, if you can) that would really allow it to stand out more. The stars look a bit pasted on. There's no tonal difference. Again, a gradient to even a light blue on the bottom, and then maybe seams around the edges. I usually use a blue when I shade whites. Grey tends to look muddy. Shadows on seems would also work well, and be sure to keep in mind which seams would be light and which would be dark. For example, I'd make the thumb seam dark. Also, where the white side stripe cuts is a bit awkward. Maybe make it run down the leg some.

I just read your comments on the post. You pretty much mentioned everything I just said, but with way less words. The costume design is pretty funky, but seems a bit more sixties than seventies to me. Maybe just add a huge disco collar for no reason.

Thanks for the tips Unko. I'll try and fix up the stars, but as I said before, I'm having some troubles with the refl layer, so I can't fix the helmet just yet.

EDIT: Thanks to GGiant, I finally got the refl layer to work, so now here's the updated version:

[Alphanaut]

Hey Everybody!

So this is the skin I've been working on on and off for a while. It's Ice Angel, one of Lunarman's Defenders of Democracy. The only things left to work on are the wings and hair.

[Lunarman]

Nice!, what a surprise :)

That that has really made my day, somebody reskinning one of my originals.

Thankyou

[Alphanaut]

Here's my WIP for Odysseus from the Liberty Bay mod. Obviously it's not finished.

Any Suggestions?