Teefury

Sorry for the image size. The first time I went to post them they were huge, but it seems I shrunk them a little too much.

Heya davidj8580, these are really cool! Especially loving the top one. You've got his face exactly right! The only thing I would point out (and this is a tiny thing) is that his hands look a tiny bit too small for the rest of him. Other than that, beautiful! Good job. :) ~G

Greetings, David. It does not look like you need any help at all, but I prefer the bottom image. Elegance in simplicity.

Thanks for the comments, I will update the hands.

Great work!
Keep them coming

May I ask what program you are using?

Illustrator CS6.

I've seen a lot of other people using Photoshop to make theirs, so I might look into that too. I want to try as many different ways of doing it as I can to try and keep things interesting.

Reminds me of my olf Iron Chef Iron man mash up... Yours is better though so good luck

Thank you. I tried googling to see if it had been done before, but I didn't find any results.

http://www.teefury.com/forum/9232/Iron_Chef__WIP/

if you scroll down you'll see the finished result you'll also be treated to an eyeseering horror show that is my drawing skill lol

for the record I wasn't claiming you took it or anything. Just nice seeing someone with a similar idea.

Oh, I know. Sorry if I seemed defensive.

No no I was trying to make sure I didn't offend you lol... so um enough emotions...

ahem. yes nice line work you have there mmmhmm.

Actually I would submit both that way if they like one more than the other they have that choice.

Wery Nice. I approve. Personally, I like the top one, but the bottom one would wear better over time.

Great design and execution. I'd suggest putting an outline around the design to make it pop more. Perhaps make the highlights and rendering on the logo more prominent to make it contrast with the knives more. There's a lot of grey on the bottom that's the same shade and rendering style.

Here's what I mean:



This is a great design that just needs a few more details to really make it shine.

I did a quick mock-up above of the changes I suggested. Use halftone patterns instead of solid colors to add texture.

Since the figure is such a prominent element, I added some more rendering to make him pop. Again, you can use halftone patterns for the highlights and shading. This also helps to stay within the color limit.

The logo is a nice nod to the original "Iron Giant" logo.

I like what you did with the knives and text at the bottom. It had been bothering me, but I didn't quite know what to do to fix it.

This might sound strange, but how do you do half tones in "solid" shapes (without converting a gradient to half tones)? Can you do it in Illustrator, or is that something I need to go to Photoshop for?

There are methods to do this in both Photoshop and Illustrator.

For Illustrator, the easiest way is to create a halftone swatch then set the fill color of your shape as that halftone swatch. This is if you want a uniform halftone pattern for your shape.

To make the pattern, make five circles in the size you want your halftone dots. Make a square with transparent fill and stroke color. The size of the square determines how fine your halftone pattern is. Turn on "Smart Guides" and "Snap to Point" under the "View" menu for the next step.

Select the center point of a circle and place it in the center of the square. Put the center of the other four circles on each corner of the square. You should have a pattern of five dots, two on top, one in the center, two on bottom, equally spaced. You can make the stroke color of the square black to help you align things. Just make it transparent before the next step.

Select the transparent square and all five dots and select "Define Pattern" from the "Edit" menu. Name the swatch, and it'll turn up in your swatch palette. Experiment with dot sizes and space between dots to get the desired halftone pattern.

If the explanation is hard to follow, try a Google search. Hope this helps.

Perfect, thank you for the explanation. I will try it out and see how it looks. I've been googling for a while but never found the right guide.

Personally just opinion but I don't like the outline it sort of draws the eye away from the design itself at least for me...

Watch out for tangents in your design, too. The bottom of the Giant's right arm is parallel with the knife blade and the bottom of his left arm runs on the inner edge of the circle element. The knives are also tangent to the circle.

The reason to avoid these is that they destroy the illusion of depth and create visual tension. Just have the arms overlap these edges to make the figure stand out. For the knives, you can overlap them with the circle or make a wider gap.

Looking at the design again, I'd agree with RiteGuyShirt. With the added contrast between the logo and knives, the bold, white outline may be too much. Try playing with a thinner outline or no outline.

I hope I don't sound nitpicky. I'm just trying to provide helpful feedback to make your great design better. Can't wait to see the finished result.

No, I appreciate the input.

This is a great design. I'd buy it definitely.

Thank you. I should be able to post a picture of the updated version some time this morning.

Okay, I don't know how to update the original post, but I accidentally deleted the images that were linked there forgetting that it would make broken links.

Anyway, here is the updated version:



I haven't done the gradient conversions yet as I am saving that until the very end, hence it has too many colours, but it will be 5 when it is done. What do you all think?

Yeah, I found out that you can't edit your original post on here. The changes look good, especially the added rendering on the Giant. Moving the "THE" up top works well, too. I see you made the circle smaller, which solved the issue of the tangents on his arms and the knives.

It doesn't look right to have a gap between the knife and one arm and not the other. I'd like to see his right shoulder overlap the edge of the circle more. There's a tangent there as is.



I changed the shape of the cloth on his right arm to fix the tangents there. I added space between his right arm and the knife. I also changed the color of the knife handles. When they were all black, it blended in with the line work on his hands.

The "Iron Chef" logo is a little off-center. You can see it where the bottom curve of "CHEF" isn't centered over the crossed knife handles. I'd suggest moving the logo a little up and to the right from the position in my mock-up.

Of course more little issues might crop up, so you'll have to play with the placement of the elements. Changing the angle of the knives might help to get the right symmetry.

And now that I look at it, I kinda like the stars, too. The stars could work if you render them with a halftone pattern instead of solid white, so they don't detract from the main design.

It's looking great, though. It may not seem like a huge difference from your original post, but getting the small details right makes a big difference.