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Puppetcancer — Eclipse Phase Arachnoid
#arachnoid #character #eclipse #phase #rpg #spider
Published: 2015-11-22 03:37:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 842; Favourites: 3; Downloads: 1
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Description
Edited on 12-22-2015 with a redrawn side view and better positioning of the text.___________________________________________________
I've been reading the Eclipse Phase rulebook for the past several weeks, and one of the first aspects that appealed to me was that a character could have himself/herself placed into what was basically a human-sized mechanical spider.
The color scheme is based on my girlfriend's sneakers.
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Comments: 4
Hey, those ARE my sneakers! Thanks, Babe, I love the fact you used my shoes as inspiration in your color choice. Now that? The fact that I inspired, even with just my casual everyday footwear, my favorite artist? That's awesome! Thank you!
I gushed about this with you over the phone, and I'm going to do it again... so please forgive the repeats, but I really wanted to post my thoughts about your work here, too.
This is such a detail rich piece; as you know, I am smitten with anything with lots of detail work. Look at the legs alone, that had to take a long time to draw those hairs individually, and you did it several times in several different poses! That's really cool, I really admire that about you as an artist -- you never scrimp on details, and the details you do put in are always really well thought out, deliberate and meaningful. What I'm trying to say is, "you do not bombard your audience with a slew of unnecessary details, but you do give us lots of details that really matter/represent something/add depth and dimension to your already really interesting character/work. I think it's amazing that you seem to instinctively know what belongs where, what needs to be in there and what can be omitted. I use too many details, often times details that I could have opted to leave out to make my work more visually pleasing, but you never do that. There is a reasoning for all of your details, if not an outright explanation entirely, as shown here in your text bubbles providing interesting facts and info on this character. (By the way, does he have a name yet?)
There is a lot of depth to the drawing in the middle, the side view of the arachnid morph. I could see it before, but the color makes it even more evidence and even more visually appealing and clear cut of what you're trying to portray to your audience. (I'm still wild about the hologram of the character's human head; what a really smart way to show people right away, "I'm human, not a gigantic spider," to attempt to put people at ease with his morph. I also really love how you chose to portray and color it with a different color of lineart. That made it very apparent that we're dealing with a human, but not the human himself directly). I'm also very impressed with all of the proportions; they work! I know nothing about spider anatomy, (and being petrified of them in real life, that would stand to reason!), but this looks plausible even to me, who knows very little about the physical makeup of an arachnid. Your art is very accessible to those of us who don't understand spider anatomy and explains the layout for us so we don't have to go run and research a spider's body in order to appreciate your art.
The piston in the leg joint is a cool touch; it's even cooler that I can look at the mechanical setup of the joints and see how it would theoretically work. It IS possible, I CAN see how the parts move together, work together, expand and retract... my imagination can fill in those gaps where movement isn't portrayed in your work, I can still see how you meant for the legs/joints to work. THAT is the mark of serious talent, where your work is so clear, concise and makes so much sense that I can put the rest of its movements together in my own mind. Great work, JHB!
Great work indeed! I'm so impressed with how much thought, effort and planning went into this piece. I appreciate your thoroughness , especially in our phone conversation last night where you broke down the basic anatomy of a Daddy Long Legs for me. You are such a fantastic artist, I'm always super excited to see what you have cooking next!
MLP
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BTW, I apologize if the color scheme doesn't look as much like your shoes did anymore. I'm still experimenting with the colors. The tiny bit of orange and the primary light tan/gray is definitely still from the shoes, but I wanted to see what the design would look like without the use of so much brown.
The heavy use of brown accidentally made the spider look more like a cyborg body rather than like a robotic body, and having a cyborg body was taking the overall impression in another direction than what I wanted.
Now if I could find a way to draw the setae (sensory hairs) in a white or a clear transparent color, I'd be all set, but light colors vanish into the white background too easily. On a photo of a 1:1 scale 3-D sculpture, I'll bet transparent hairs would look good, though.
(Also, fishing line is cheap enough to use in a sculpture. Although, I'm wondering if buying unsanded curvy table legs at Lowe's would make for good leg segments. I like the price and versatility of PVC pipes, but there's just something boring about straight tubes. I've been drawing the legs with slight concavity towards the middle of most legs' segments already, and it dawned on me that table legs would be much easier than me buying all the power tools necessary to shape umpteen legs, y'know?)
Still, I really like how this design is moving forward. Instead of being flustered by mistakes in the design, I'm finding that I'm enjoying the problem-solving aspect of noticing and finding ways around the mistakes. Each problem-and-solution propel and motivate me further forward with renewed momentum, and I'm enjoying that.
ex. Could adding a low-horsepower internal abdominal propeller and alternating stiff setae with flexible setae allow the spider to swim? (The thought of being unable to use locomotion while submerged kinda bugs me on a visceral level, and I don't think the rulebook's use of thrusters seems right for this variant of arachnoid morph.)
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I remain thoroughly impressed as usual, John. You did a fantastic job!
Still find it super awesome that the coloring job you applied was inspired by my sneakers you said you liked. Do you know how cool it is to know that something you have/wear/do/etc. inspired your favorite artist? That's pretty dang flattering!
We talked about this update on the phone, but I'll say it here again, as it bears repeating, but you did a fantastic job with those litte gently C shaped individual hairs on the legs. I like how each one is unique, hand drawn and doesn't quite look identical to the hair beside it. That's a very hard task to accomplish, but you did it beautifully. Although, to be fair, I didn't see, as you said, "the piece being flustered with mistakes." I greatly enjoyed both versions.
I agree that too much brown, as appears on my inspirational sneakers, would render the spider differently than as the robotic arachnid you intended. I like the silvery cream color you picked this time around, it works really well for your color scheme and does kind of resemble my sneakers still, despite that change.
Great work as always, JHB! Love it, love you!
Merry Christmas!
Mandi
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