Some advice and critique please

Bandersnatch

[03] Disciple
Hello everyone,

I've found this site after looking for some nice CAS to get some ideas about sticker and SpecEq usage. After looking at all the awesome and gorgeous creations for weeks I finally decided to ask for some advice, even though my picture's quality is pretty bad as xBox player.

As the thread says, I'm looking for some advice/constructive citisism to get better because I always feel like a little child playing with finger paint when seeing all those beautiful and creative CAS.
I don't have that much creations yet, so I thought about showing 3 of them now and the rest depending on the reactions.

The first one is Nina, a western headhunter looking for easy money:

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Next is my fencer who is pretty plain (that's why she should get some rework) but still one of my favourite (that's why I want her to get even better):

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I just love her face <3

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Third and last one is my dryad, inspired by brucege's whose just looks awesome:

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Alright, done after 2 hours of looking for a way to get the pictures in here... I'm really bad at dealing with computers xD
Nevertheless, I hope some of you liked these customs and, even more, that you have some advice for me how to get at least a little better, because I just love the creation mode of SCV (especially because I always try to recreate some of the chars from animes I watched before ^^" ).

Guess that's it, thanks for reading :)
 
OK so apparently I have like nothing to teach you lol. You've got some serious skills, kid.

Nina: Simple and beautiful. Reminds me of "Onechanbara." The work you did on the bikini top is really cool. I see you also a fan of the raven wing sticker. The detail on that sticker gets you some serious mileage. I love the whole badass cowgirl thing she's got goin' on.

If you think you're up to the challenge, try using the zipper sticker to give her some like arm or leg bracelets or something. For example, select the zipper sticker. Hit the RESET POSITION on the menu, and you'll see that the stretching goes away. Now the zipper sticker will wrap almost completely around the arm. I don't know if this trick works on the legs, but you can also attach some random special equipment to your new bracelet/anklet for extra bling, like a custom SpecEq dagger (horn + screw) or whatever. She already has enough guns anyways. You can see an example of the leg bracelet here: https://8wayrun.com/threads/most-esteemed-one-shot-contest-thread.15703/page-55#post-703202

Fencer: Amazing work on the head region. The fancy makeup echoes Pyrrha's hair ornament, and the green jewelry really brings out her green eyes. Very dark and gothic, especially with the black and white color scheme. I really like the little chest decorations you made with the antlers too. I would recommend blending in some fancy white stickers with the breast antlers for an even more unique look. For me, the sleeves are a little too flashy compared to the rest of the design. I think she'd look better with just solid black sleeves. Maybe another set of white roses or something for fun.

Dryad: Jesus Christ. Your dryad is waaay cooler than mine. I love that subtle green pattern combo with the random green stickers. It creates a very natural, organic, messy look. As if she's actually sprouting out from the ground. If you have extra branches, you could always stick them out of the preexisting branches for a tree-like effect. Or you could put some kind of ornament on her chest to fill up that space over there. Like a gold ornament to match the bling on her waist wrap. Or whatever. Beautiful.

Going forward, you could always venture into super out-of-place creations like cyberpunk, gothic lolita, or mystical creatures, or you could just stick to tried-and-true basics like knights and sorcerers. I personally don't have the creativity to make the basics look interesting like some of the other great artists around here like VilArcane, Gatsu, and ThePascuzzi, so I end up creating quite a weird cast of characters that don't blend with SCV's world at all. Anyways, keep up the good work!
 
Oh brucege, you're too nice for this world... ;)
I really appreciate your comment, even more because I'm meeting one of the legendary artists of this bord who inspired me sooo much about sticker and SpecEq usage. But as I said above, you're giving me too much credit (dunno if that word fits, just looks good lol), I even loked though you whole gallery again before answering and had that feeling of exitement the... guess it was the fourth time already. ^^
However, I'll try to upgrade Nina with you ideas, the zipper-trick is definitely awesome as the stretching always annoys me.
I already thought about adding some white stickers to my fencer aswell, I just have to try out what'll fit, but trying to make them look good together with the horns is really something I should keep in mind.
About the dryad, trying to add some branches to the existing ones is something I never would've thought of, but it sounds great and I hope that I can pull off something nice with that. Btw she isn't my only dryad, I also nearly copied yours when trying to make one - just to underline that yours looks awesome (as nearly everyone on your threat wrote ;) ).
I also already created some creatures like dragon and phoenix before, but as I'm not this good at using SpecEq yet they're more antropomorph than actually "beasts". Since I'm currently out of ideas about what to create, I'll give gothic-lolita a try, I just hesitated until now because I have no idea how to create something special that could even halfway compete with the ones in the competition thread (read it all, great ideas, would've loved to compete with you all ^^ ).
One last thing to mention: I actually tried out cyberpunk yesterday but I'm not quite satisfied with her, guess I'll have to steal some other's ideas here ^^"
Okay, that answer of mine was way too long, but to sum it up: thank you really much brucege, some great advice and too much honor by a great creator (and person, as far as I can tell). You encouraged me to keep on posting, some better and some worse work. :)
 
Soo... it's been one week since I created this thread and due to brucege's nice words I feel encouraged to post some more of my creations - some of the ones I'm not satisfied with, of course (and also my most recent creations).

First comes R3v-tp, inspired by brucege's Cyberpunk contest (https://8wayrun.com/threads/most-esteemed-one-shot-contest-thread.15703/page-37):

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... She unfortunately didn't turn out as I hoped, the colors didn't do what I wanted and the back looks pretty bad, also I have no idea what to add to make her look better.

The next Lady has to be introduced properly:
Her name is Violett, she is only 70 years old and as an Elf, she's still only a teenager.
Likes: Metal, butterflys, putting nails through people's eyes
Dislikes: Liars, bugs (spiders are ok), the color yellow
In her world, most of history proceeded the same as ours, exept of the fact that humans, demihumans hope that wasn't racist) and other mythical creatures exist together in harmony - most of the time at least.
At some point, Elfs were suddenly blamed to steal secret documents and relics all over the world due to their natural sneakines and dexterity.
That's where the tale of our heroine began - she took her dadys boots and precious gloves, both leftover from World War 4, and after some time painting them - cause brown and silver ain't goth, ya know?? - she startet to wander through the nights, the shadow being her only friend, punshing liars and helping those who are oppressed - only until midnight, of course, because her dad won't let her stay outside any longer, young girls still need their sleep.

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Phew, done for today/ this week. I hope that some of you reading this actually liked some of the CAS or - even better - have ideas how I could improve (them).
However, thanks for reading and... yeah, feel free to leave some critique. ^^
 
Hi young...girl ?
Your BS (means background story, not bullshit !) for the elf made me smile, soo funny and eerie, so very Terry Pratchett :)
My advice would be not to overuse textures or clothes or make them smaller and in general refine placement / alignment / rotation of textures / stickers, and add a bit more variety to colors (ie. elf is too violett for her own good) or gradients (ie. on the fur)
ie. using the snake bumpmap on pieces on armor usually looks...plain bad in game (dryad shoulder pad, if i am seeing correctly).

Solid start, have fun !
 
Most important things first: thank you very much for commenting my threat, VILARCANE, your CAS are awesome and so very inovative! (nearly as good as your drawings ;) )
That being said, thanks for your nice words on my creations, the advices are quite usefull and - exept of the variety of colors - things I personally apreciate aswell. I prefer using quite small patterns only creating a slight difference between the colors I choose, but when I see the creations posted here, I'm feeling like there're too few patterns and different colors (as I'm not skilled at using stickers). My favorite pattern has always been the very first one as I'm using it to adjust the color s used slightly eg. for creating shades.
Unfortunately I'm not good at using different colors for one CAS because I can't find the fitting ones for those used, so I merely stick with one color, but I'll try to change this.
Speaking about patterns, the one used on the dryad's shoulder pad isn't one of the ethno group but I can't remember which one it was. ^^"
Las but not least, one question: did you mean one of my creatons when saying "young girl" or were you referring to me? Cause in the second case neither of the words you used would be right. Just wondering. ;)
 
Most important things first: thank you very much for commenting my threat, VILARCANE, your CAS are awesome and so very inovative! (nearly as good as your drawings ;) )
That being said, thanks for your nice words on my creations, the advices are quite usefull and - exept of the variety of colors - things I personally apreciate aswell. I prefer using quite small patterns only creating a slight difference between the colors I choose, but when I see the creations posted here, I'm feeling like there're too few patterns and different colors (as I'm not skilled at using stickers). My favorite pattern has always been the very first one as I'm using it to adjust the color s used slightly eg. for creating shades.
Unfortunately I'm not good at using different colors for one CAS because I can't find the fitting ones for those used, so I merely stick with one color, but I'll try to change this.
Speaking about patterns, the one used on the dryad's shoulder pad isn't one of the ethno group but I can't remember which one it was. ^^"
Las but not least, one question: did you mean one of my creatons when saying "young girl" or were you referring to me? Cause in the second case neither of the words you used would be right. Just wondering. ;)

Yup referring to Violett your star CAS. To find fitting colors think of your cas concept refer to my post for potader in his thread for more details. Sure you will impress us if you follow those advice and learn a few tricks from the trick thread bruce can point you to. Cheers
 
Two weeks have passed now since creating this threat and brucege and VILARCANE have posted so far in here, so I guess I got nothing more to accomplish xD
However, even though I didn't have the time to create some new CAS, there are still some I can show - starting with one of my favorites:

Let us begin with a little story once again, called
"The Tale of an Immortal Being"
Our story has its start somewhere in Japan, a small village colored in every color the rainbow knows and even more. It's New Year's Eve and the firework is about to start. The village is filled with people from far and wide, eagerly expecting the famous "Phoenix Fire", an explosion so bright and colorful that the whole village looses it's colors for for weeks, so it's said.
One young girl is sitting on a hill, having the best view over the entire valley. It's her secret place where the stars can be counted one by one and noone other than her ever goes. As the firework begins, she stares at it like the first time she saw it, being consumed by the sheer vastness of colors and the brightness that even surpasses the moon's.
As the festivities are growing towards their climax, the girl turns around, running down the hill, away from the moment everyone else was waiting for. She's seen it once, the all-devouring colors of the Phoenix Fire, leaving the village behind as nothing more than a trist and lonely place noone ever wants to visit. She was about to cry when she first saw it, not understanding why anyone would want to do this to her beloved and colorful hometown.
On her way down, holding back her tears, thinking of the village loosing all its precious colors again, the sky in front of her suddenly turns white. Blinded but unable to turn her head away she watches the shooting star, bigger and brighter than any she's seen before. But as this is a story, it isn't a shooting star. She realizes that it had some kind of... wings? And more important, shooting stars do not only have no wings - they don't fly straight at you! Unable to move her feet she just keeps on watching. The vast amount of colors, the brightness, the countles feathers... Nothing matters anymore. And as the Phoenix Fire starts to burn, the body is reborn from ashes...

I wanted to add a little more to the end, but it turned out pretty nice and I couldn't go on writing. If you want to read a little more, just go on, if not, the pics are below ;)
... As the flames fade as fast as they came, the girl awakens again. She knew she had changed. She knew how she looked now, and she new how endles others before her did. The clothes burnt and still glowing, half of the hair burnt down and having lost all it's colors, but still far from being colorless - rather having all colors than none.
And there was still one thing that was clearer in her mind than anything of the wide range of knowledge she suddenly had: she was nothing human anymore - not only, to be precise - she was the reincarnation, a vessel rather, of the immortal Phoenix. END (finally xD )
Hope you enjoyed it, if not, kudos for reading it anyways. So here she is, Xinophe the Phoenix:

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She might be too bright but I like bright colors and really wanted to make a rainbow CAS.
Oh, and she uses Natsu's style - rainbow is the new black, you know? ;)
P.S. I hope I didn't wrote too much wrong about Japan, I barely know anything about the culture etc but it suited her and her story perfectly. ^^"

After taking so unexpectedly long for Xinophe, I'm trying to keep this one (or two) a little shorter:
Echrad was the leader Baal's legion before she began a life as mercenary after the war between heaven and hell became crueler. When an angel hired her to fight against her former unit and she refused, he sacrificed himself to seal away her demonic abilities, including her wings (even though I don't know why he did that - if you want revenge, killing youself doesn't quite serve the purpose).

As always, getting her exactly how I hoped was impossible, especially the wings, but her mask looks preety cool - tried to make it look like a mouth, but that was the closest I could get.

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However, after traveling through serveral kingdoms, unable to fight either angel or demon on the way with anything but her bare fists, she finally finds a former witch who could lift the curse - in a tavern of course.
Now that her true powers are unleashed, her tails and wings grow back, her horns as source of magic power lit her dragonc fire once again and she is able to summon her mighty sword Fragarach to slice through whichever army she meets in order to get her revenge and have them lay down their weapons.

I unfortunately had to use the unadjustable wings because I needed all the SpecEq slots, but she doesn't look that bad.

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As most of you might have realized, I made her (adjusted her) as Xinophe's counterpart, symbolized by the dragon/phoenix across their clothes.

This always takes waaay longer than expected... As before, please tell me what you think and what I could change, hopefully there will be some free time soon so that I can do some new creations - even though I don't dislike showing some more of the chars I'm... kinda proud of (at least some).

Thanks for reading and have a nice, merry Christmas. ^^
 
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Heeello everyone ^^
I really didn't expect this thread to die this fast, but ... yeah, sometimes real life is just taking your time. ^^"
Since I found SCCV again and realized how nice the creation mode is, I just wanted to add something here again - but since I'm not really into it anymore, I'll just show two of my chars created a while ago, hoping for some good advice.

First one is my attempt to use the drums (wanted to use em since I saw them first, but they never fit well - and always are in the way) and to create a beard - so I decided to create a personification of Saturn, based on the god and the planet:

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Key:
Drums - Moons
Ring - Rings (totally not obvious, I know)
Symbol on the back (scythe) - Sign of the roman god
Clothe's color - Storms (surface), magma and metal (core)

Not sure if it was necessary, but I would like you to understand what I though at least a little. ^^"

Second one was oughta be a steampunk character, roughly inspired by Gaige from Borderlands 2
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But since I really wanted to use the rainbow-pattern at that time she ended up kinda punkish and weird...
Hoping for some advice especially for her, if you can see enough on my low-quality pics. ^^"

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So, hoping you could enjoy something of what you saw an that you have some constructive critique.
Wish you all a nice day and hope to see some more great creations here - especially since you seem to be one of the few lost souls still wandering around here (just like me xD).

Thanks for your time ^^
 
Saturn is interesting. The pale yellow color scheme and the rings is definitely reminiscent of the planet itself. The scythe does tie the design back to its mythological origins. Good work with that subtle sticker on his shirt. I think you could try to work in a little bit more detail with the design. Possibly give him a bit more armor and using that third SpecEq slot, but overall a well-designed character.

Steampunk girl is a bit too chaotic for my tastes. The large skull pattern just doesn't flow well. The purple, green, and rainbow just kinda exhaust the eyes. You notice that steampunk designs (like Gaige) feature a kind of simple, subdued grunge to go with the steampunk theme. You might be able to convert this girl into a neon-colored cyberpunk chick with some tweaks though. This design does have a lot of potential though. Her arm looks really cool. Interesting idea to shove a gear in her arm like that. It doesn't blend terribly well with the purple arm sleeves, but with a difference piece of equipment and some clever sticker work, you can definitely turn this design around.

Good luck, Bandersnatch!
 
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Hey brucege,
thanks for another one of your reviews, I still hope that they'll help me getting better at this.
For Saturn I don't want to change much, giving him more armor would definately make sense, gotta try it while keeping his amount of armor low like on Mitsurugi as that'd fit better in my head.
What's great to hear is that you had some nice words for my steampunk's arm, even though just like you I'm not this satisfied yet. Gonna try to reduce the overflow of colors and thy to adjust some parts as soon as I get some time and creativity - hoping that this time it'll turn out as it should. ^^"
 
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