Teefury

You're definitely getting much better at your artwork, chewietoo. :)

If you are going to stick with this pose, I would lose the red towel. It doesn't add anything to the design but another ink color. I'd try to get those hands looking a bit dirty too.

Unfortunately I don't know if this character has strong enough fan recognition to make the design work. I watched Knight Rider avidly back in the day and I only have the vaguest of recollections of her. I remembered KITT had a female mechanic and that's about it.

That's probably kind of annoying to hear, because I expect this took a while to draw. Sorry, just trying to give feedback as helpfully and honestly as I can.

Maybe calling it Knight Industries, rather than Bonnie's, can save the design and you can still feature some sort of image of her in the piece. Perhaps add the Knight Industries logo somewhere in the design too.

I'll try losing the shop rag and re-post to for feedback. In my world, Bonnie is very well known, but I am surrounded by a punch of die hard Pontiac owners and I belong to a few Pontiac and Firebird owners clubs so my POV might be slanted. There is however the Knight Nationals every year in Dayton that coincides with the Trans Am Nationals. Also, I've noticed a large contingent of KR-TOS fans in Europe where Hasselhoff is a mega star. Maybe Qw**tee would be a good place for this.
As for my design, I think it's a matter of leaving a lot of what I've been stylistically skewed towards after 15 years doing corporate graphic art and returning to more of what I learned in art school. Looking back I remember not licking much of what I had to do working for hire. My only purpose being to please my clients and their lack of sensibilities. I'm learning to trust my own instincts again.
Chuffy, I always appreciate your candor. I didn't get through 6 years of art school without learning to take an honest critique. You're one of the artists I've found inspiration in. Please, continue to offer your thoughts.

So here's an update following one of Chuffy's Suggestions.
Thoughts?

chewietoo said: Chuffy, I always appreciate your candor. I didn't get through 6 years of art school without learning to take an honest critique. You're one of the artists I've found inspiration in. Please, continue to offer your thoughts.

If I had a dollar for every artist I'd inspired, I'd probably have like 3 bucks. And 2 of those bucks would be from the parents of the kid I told to stop licking their fingers after finger painting. But it's very kind of you to say so. :)

If you feel Bonny makes the design you should stick with her. I've seen a few designs here taken in the wrong direction because of feedback.

On the subject of the illustration, I find vectorizing a person from a photo one of the hardest things to do. I have several design ideas on my list that I'm avoiding because they rely heavily on a decent looking image of an actual person. So far you're doing miles better than one of my works in progress. I'm ashamed to even post on the forums just yet it really is that bad.

I had a thought about your design here and I wondered if there was something you could do to it that would make it seem more Eighties. I don't know what that would be exactly, but if it was more Eighties, that might be cool. The most obvious style I can think of is the Album cover of Duran Duran's Rio. But this might be a terrible idea.

I think your red text works better as it reminds me of KITTs front chaser light.

Never watched the show, so I can't comment about that, but my opinion is that the character isn't interacting with the space properly. Why is she in an unnatural leaning pose if she's not leaning up against something?

I love the Rio album cover. It was created by one of favorite artists Patrick Nagel. He himself took inspiration from old Chinese wood block prints and paintings. I have several of his prints hanging in my house. "Shades" "Shang-Hi" and " Montana" are among my favorites of his. I actually got to do a report on him in college. He always said exercise would kill him and in the end, it did. He was everywhere in the eighties and spawned a lot of copy cats. It's great that you mentioned his work.

I've felt the same way about trying to go more eighties with this. Nagel's work might be a good place to start. Thanks for the suggestion. The font at the bottom is the exact typeface used by Pontiac back then so that's authentic 80's. I think upper typface might be to 60's speed shop for this. I keep going back to some of the Buckaroo Banzai artwork as a possibility.

I agree with the floating arms. I was originally going in a slightly different direction with the lower copy but then I changed from a custom font to a factory font. I haven't fixed the upper font but how do these revisions strike every one?

You would have 4 bucks chuffy.... You inspired me to be a better artist and a better business man!

I hate to say it but the arms bother me.... I feel like you need to try and fake what her arms would look like if they weren't resting on a car door. I know you got this as a direct reference but the picture shows her forearm being smushed by the car door. So naturally when you drew this your reference was skewed by an object you decided to leave out. Try and fake a little more meat to and roundness to those forearms. Or draw in the car door but fad it out before the text. It's up to you really.

I know you worked hard on this but you always have to be extremely mindful of your reference. If there is part of a picture left out be prepared to fill that gap yourself. That's the best advice I could give. Otherwise listen to Chuffy. He knows his stuff.

a few more revisions. I've done some work on her arms, changed the right hand a bit, and built a new font for the top. I know i need to adjust the tracking a bit as the letter forms are too close once the shadow and highlight is added. I tried to create a font that complimented the style of the Pontiac typeface while still being distinct. Other than that what are every ones thoughts at this point?

Text altered.

bump. Looking for feedback or interest.

Here's my final revisions. I've added some grunge as suggested.

final revisions before submittal, I hope. Should I go with A


or B

I'm leaning towards submitting version "A" as the text on top compliments the lower copy better.

While I understand your preference for "A", I think the text for "B" looks more appropriate because it's more like what you would see in a phone book for a garage. More importantly, though, your dirt smudges look too added on, if you know what I mean. They don't see to flow. I can't exactly picture how I would do them, but I suggest trying to treat them like your shadows and smooth them out and fill them out.

Good luck!

I like the type for Bonnie in "B"-I agree with phrebh that it looks more like a garage type face.

If possible, could you lower her left arm? The elbow doesn't appear to be resting on the bar like her right arm is. Other than that, I love the design! It's nice to see Knight Rider getting some love too! :D

bump

bump

What if the pendant on the necklace was a tiny KITT? or as a logo on her shirt? Work shirts have logo's. I'm reaching for something that would give me another hint to the show and who she is AND something to make me want the shirt. I watched the show. LOVED her, but it's been soooo long I had forgotten her name. The solid semi tractor is a good hint that helps me "get it". I'm not so sure you need the dirt. I don't recall her getting dirty. Dirty is my image of Cooter from Dukes of Hazzard not Bonnie from Knight Rider.

Maybe I'm just dumber than most but I find myself often searching the comments of a shirt to find out what it is because the hints are so subtle and so few.

I know what you mean about the dirt. This is actually based on an early first season episode, and Bonnie is dirty in that episode. The dirt was a toss up. Some people asked for dirt so... I think a small Trans Am pendant wouild be too difficult to make out at that size. However, possibly using the Fflag chess piece or the the Knight helmet logo. I'll look into it.