Challenge #742 Voting CLOSED

This week’s theme: Skulls

After 2 days of voting, a winner is declared: The voting will close on Wednesday.
The winner picks the theme for next week.

Having selected the theme, the winner will not be eligible to enter that week. They may however still submit an image, but it won’t be included in the voting.

Pure Entries

  • Anouar Art
    ff0
    https://blenderartists.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=497571&stc=1&thumb=1






















Non-competing Entries




Great entries as usual, and I have a feeling it gets better every week.

Could I have some feedback? It’s a little ironic, 'cause I thought this one were my best entry this far, yet it’s the one with no votes…

Great entries, lots of great skull modeling: Photox, Fulip, Kampus, RobProctor, OLG “Glue some gears on it and call it steampunk ;)”, and NadirP.

Alas Miatpi, seems like most people are voting for the good skull entries, and since there are a good number of them, your votes may suffer…

Love the piranha!

Hey Miatpi, I think your entry is really nice, but it’s lacking something. It’s hard to say specifically, but I think it has to do with composition. The angle of your skull seems off, and I think that makes for a big part of the image. Preferably you would use a more attractive angle. My other critique would be o remove the fairy dust effect, it doesn’t seem to fit the idea of the image. And for a well that would have a skull inside of it I would think the well would be old, your’s looks too clean. If you added some moss or dirt I think it would make a large improvement. I hope that helps.

I am also not too sure why image is getting votes, I am rather suprised. I actually redid the image and was hoping to get to submit it, but I was too late, again lol. I’ll post it here, but it’s more of a studio style and a lot less going on. Anyways, great entries this time. I am not too fond of skull artwork, a bit too morbid for me, but it was a good learning project. I learned a lot about modeling…


Hi Miatpi,

Your entry looks nice but there is something that botters me.
You used a lot of the ‘streak glare’ in the postproccessing, which does stress the moonlight reflection but also takes away the clearity of the image. All the waterdrops have streaks as well as the rocks, the sky and even the metal chain.
In addittion to the dark bucket this results in an overwelming image on which I don’t know where to look first.
If you would decrease he amount of streak glare, brighten up the bucket and maybe even add some DOF it would be clearer what is going on your image.

About the votes; Some of the work I had made I also expected more votes than I got, and the other way around. After working on a project for a while you might simply not have an objective view on it anymore because you’re in it so deep. Thats why I believe feedback is important. Also there are just may good entries

Well I guess I got one vote LOL wanted to add a couple rat skeletons and stuff as well but Irma didn’t let me. Just got power and internet back up. So would have been too late even if I did work on it in the hurricane and wanted to post it. Great entries you all!

Hi FlyingBanana, you live in Florida? Jeesh, at least you got your power back! That’s really good. I live in New Orleans, been here my whole life. I am so sick of hurricanes, and this probably isn’t the last one we will deal with this year. Anyways, glad your okay, hopefully things will get back to normal soon.

Yeah southwest Florida and initially up till the last projected path right in the center of the eye. But thank goodness it hit land earlier and put it on a path a little more east of me. Hope Photox is well too and not out of power. Two days of not having a hot meal sucks. They are saying about two weeks at most to restore power to all that lost it.

@Simeneta I love your concept, and actually I think is done very well. My only critique would be the teeth, they just don’t look right. I’m not sure what it is though, something about the way they are connected and their shape, but I do like the concept a lot since it’s a play on Blender.

@NATIVO I wanted to mention that I love the smoke effect on your piece. I don’t really think that cigarettes and astrays make for a good art piece, but I like the realism of the effect and also the little details on the cigarette like the ash at the end. My only critique other than not being a good subject, is that the astray is too clean. You should have put a bunch of ashes and old buts in there, i think that would have really filled it out well. Maybe some ashes spilling over onto the table too. I smoked for a long time and I know for sure no astray is that clean :slight_smile: been smoke free for around 5 years now (hooray!!!)

*EDIT: Nativo, how did you make that smoke? I am extremely new to Blender so looking at that blender screen shot you posted with your entry I couldn’t determine from that what you were doing. Is that actual volumetric effect, or just an image?

@kshaw cute piece… You stealing my concepts??? :slight_smile: I am just kidding, seeing as we both had similar concepts (flower growing out of the skull). Obviously there is a lack of realism there, but for a low poly mesh it looks pretty good, a somewhat simple yet effective skull.

Thanks. The teeth really don’t look right. I did them quickly and thought they were “good enough” at the time, but now that you said something about it, I can’t stop looking at them.

No open entries, cool beans.

Some comments to the entries.

Anouar Art: Meeting this guy in the middle of the night would be quite unpleasant. I liked how the skeleton is yellowish, looking old. The blood texture looks a bit strange, specially on the teeth.

LeoBlenderToon: Nice toon effect. The emptiness seems to play an important role here, almost telling a story.

astiero: Very good use of empty space and greyscale. I have no idea how you managed to achieve this drawing effect with blender.

joshwinkler3d: That’s a cute one. Even though skeletons have no skin or muscles, I can totally see his expression of surprise and panic as he discovers that hair is growing out of his skull. I also found the idea of a skeleton taking a shower to be quite funny.

Photox: That’s a cool old skull. It looks like some archaeological finding. I have no idea what that ground is, but it looks cool and that’s all that matters. I just don’t understand why there are two images glued in one. This kind of forces me to compare left and right instead of just looking at one of them.

Hiryuusan: Interesting concept. I wonder what kind of creature would have such a huge skull. I liked the way you used the camp to give us an idea of the size of the skull. I just think this could use some more contrast either in colours or in brightness. There is one bright spot on the top left, but there is actually not much happening there (except for that thing hanging in there which I don’t know what it is. A balloon perhaps?).

Fulip: A very nice, detailed skull. I like how it is old and dirty, and also the way you made the scene to look like an archaeological finding. I’m just curious about that plate on the skull. I suppose it is part of the archaeology secrets :wink:

Simeneta: For some reason, this makes me think of Monkey Island, and not only because this is the skull of a monkey. I think the shading and lighting give it a friendly look.

fcharr: This is a nice model of a skull, but it seems to be missing the back part. And it is also missing a scene/some environment :wink:

robproctor83: Nice contrast between life and death. I like how the skull is broken, being almost consumed by the earth. The dirt was a nice addition, and the plants growing out of it are very well made. The grass on the middleground looks a bit strange, but I think making a close-up of grass is pretty hard. Also, the blurring bothers me a bit. It prevents me from seeing the grave which is almost in the foreground. It is also too obvious where the blurred region begins.

fdo: I don’t know what that guy did in life, but in death he is still useful! Though I suppose bone is not the best material for pinning things…

DM9: A nice interpretation of what a skull is. It is also funny how it looks like a bird.

Miatpi: I liked the metallic teeth on the skull. The light/shadow contrast given by the well is also cool. I just think that the bump texture(?) on the bricks has a rather low resolution. The glitter effect is also a bit strange. It gives the scene a “magical” feeling, but the rest doesn’t, making it look kind of lost there.

OLG: That looks like a nice, friendly skeleton! He is also very classy. I just think the bone material is a bit strange. It looks like some really glossy plastic. The eyes are cool though.

Helge: Really nice use of lighting. The details of the bones are very nice, and I also like how the bones in the front look like swords. Pretty cool idea!

Hi, thanks for your critique. The truth I am not very satisfied with the result, I made it hurried in a day. The smoke is made in blender has a bit of blur effect because it is the first time I use smoke and the truth I was getting a little noise in the render. (google translation:no:)


@Fulip: I love the brown dirt (?) on the skull. You mentioned earlier you only used procedural textures, so I how did you blend it in (pointiness?)? Also, is the bump a true displacement, 'cause it’s very realistic?

Thank you everyone for the feedback, it’s VERY appreciated.

I pretty much agree on everything you said, but I want to say that simpleness of the well (too clean, low resolution etc.) were intentional - I slightly aimed for an animated style.

I changed it after your critique and well, here it is.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]498120[/ATTACH]

Better? (I definitely think so)

Attachments


@Miatpi yea I like that a lot better, I can see the water now at the bottom, I didn’t even notice it before. I’m not sure about the brightness at the top of it though, it adds competition with the skull which should be your central focus. But, I think it’s much better.

Thanks for feedback!

@fcharr Thanks :smiley:

@Millani Thanks! The plate is some kind of sci-fi brain implant for hybrid humans, it’s about lost advanced civilizations or time travel. I like this kind a stuff.

@Miatpi Yes, it’s pointiness with high contrast, node setup for skull below. I haven’t used tru displacement because the skull is sculpted with dyntopo so I don’t think it could work fine.


Fulip, thanks a lot for that node setup I will definitely take advantage of your techniques here, your skull looks very good especially since it’s just a procedural material.

Thanks for the nodes!

Dang that’s gonna be funny if I lose by a single vote again.

Yep, it’s going to be a close one. If it’s any consolation, if you placed your entry in the finished work section, you’d have a shot at the top row :wink: