Character: AD&D: Oiramar: Culare Belethil

[Ebola0001]

i think that yes the glow should also eminate from her hand in fromt of her hip

and im not sure i like the white to orange glow you got going on there...

anyway great sketch man

[kuragari]

The red glow is the primary glow and is a result of her following of a Fire diety. The white glow is the secondary glow and signifies her alignment as a result of Divine Devotee (prestige class from Forgotten Realms(tm) used in this setting).

Good point though.

[kuragari]

Perhaps some more comments and/or criticisms? I would like to better my style and image some more.

Also, I have the tablet now and seem to have difficultly (in Photoshop) blending between two shades of color just using the paint brush. From the massive amount of experience others may have in this area, what is the best way to go about doing so? I can block in the areas just fine, but the transitioning is killing me. I can get smoother effects through Layer Effects, than I can with hours of messing with brushes, opacities, smugging, blurring, etc.

There has to be a better way. Tutorials are nice and mentioning them is nice, but I tend to be an engineer and like details when it comes to things like this. Skipping steps or simply saying, "brush in" doesn't cut it. I need facts, figures, sizes, amounts, colors, etc. In order to build a house, you need a solid foundation, not just vague notions of a foundation.

I know this calls upon others to give up their time, for I know they are most certain busy. But I appreciate your time and your advice.

[kuragari]

I have added the latest version of the image thus far. This is my first attempt at digital painting. I have included a detail of the face. The cycling image at the start of the post has the full version.

http://www.eng.uah.edu/~kuragari/art/2003/Culare_Belethil_Face_Detail01.jpg

[mintyfreshdoom]

Hey J, I thought I'd check out your work after all.

You are using the airbrush tool for this smooth blending that you're looking for, right? And making use of the opacity and flow settings? Other than that, art is intuitive. Even when using a computer to make it, it's all about your instinct. You just have to experiment until you find what works for you. I've seen many different tutorials for many different things, and everyone has their own methods of working in photoshop, which helps give them a pronounced style, or styles, as well.

As far as anything else goes, her eye does need to come towards the nose a little, but her eyes are also tilted a little funny, or maybe it's the lower part of her face, anyway, they don't seem to align properly. Keep a watch on those eyebrows as well, because her right one seems to be trying to escape from her face at the moment. Her face is taking on a hardcore Lion Lady look, betweent the exaggerated roundness of cheeks and chin, and the itty bitty nose. Remember that there is bone, cartilage, and muscle under there somewhere. The perspective on her body seems a bit wonky, but I'm terrible when it comes to perspective myself, so I'll shut up about that. ;)
When you're painting, you have to take into account the most important factor in colour, light. What kind of light is on her? If you're not going to give her a back ground, and just make her a cheesecake girl, at least figure out for yourself where she would be and what the light would be like. Sunlight, firelight, her own magic glows? Light affects the perception of colour, both on her skin, and in shadows. Clearly defining your source, and it's direction would help give the image some sense of the dynamic. Highlights aren't white, and shadows aren't black, unless you're world is all ink.

And as every painting teacher, and message board master, has drilled into my head, don't colour on white backgrounds, or the art gestapo will come beat you with your own brushes/stylus. ;)

Anything else?

-Wendy

[kuragari]

Wendy,

I appreciate your effort and time into looking into this. I do realize that you could have spent your time doing something else. You are right about the eyes and to a certain extent, the nose. The eyes seem to just not sit right in my mind. Even when I look at them. I have used a reference for placing them, but things just don't seem to look quite right. Her nose is a bit small to begin with, the problem, in my mind, lies with the bridge where it meets the brow.

As for the lighting, I took into account the type /general/ lighting source for her skin tones and used those as the base set. Also, I am actually painting on black it is just covered up by all of the paint. I think I am also still in the habbit of using layers a lot because I hate something being 10 pixels off and having to re-paint the entire thing (or something along those lines). So I end up placing the item on its own layer (such as the eyes), thus allowing me to move them if they are just not quite right. As for the background, this image will be placed into a document and the background in the document is white. Otherwise, I know what you mean.

If you look at the last of the layer effects versions, she has an inner most white glow, which will result in somewhat intense white hightlights on some part of overlapping areas. The outter red glow will cause some slight changes but should be washed out somewhat by the white glow. Not _fully_ certain about that, but any additional ideas along those lines are welcomed.

I plan on adding the highlights and such as I progress more with the base layer of coloring. Just want to lay the foundation so I can make the house so to speak.

I added the brush types, opacities, etc only for technical sake so others who are looking into it will get a better idea of how to manipulate the software to recreate a similar effect. Also, I think it is the engineer in me.

For the tutorials, someone in here actually, pointed me into the right direction. What I needed was more technical (software wise) than artistic. You are right about the feel of something. I do think that there is an inherent technical and artistic aspect to everything. Finding the balance is the best path.

Once again, thanks for your time and your input. It is very much appreciated. Now you just need to start posting your stuff in here. *wink*

-k

[SirRon]

Keep up the good work, but I must say on frame 7 and 8 it starts to be distractingly real if you know what I mean ;)

If you haven't already, I recommend going to www.conceptart.org for some crits. I consider it more focused on 2d than cgtalk.

As for my crit, I find some of the body parts doesn't look like it's correctly in perspective. Her left leg for example. When I get the time I'll do an overlay.

I'm not sure if this tutorial will help, but it's worth checking out.
http://www.concult.com/bm/index_tutorial001.htm
Looking over it again it's not as technical as you'd like. Sorry.

Keep it up.

[kuragari]

SirRon,

Thanks for the input. Hrm. I am curious and looking forward to your overlay. I have somewhat of an idea of what you are referring to. I am trying to acquire that top-down look.

-k

P.S. *eye* Distracting? I know not what you speak of.

[SirRon]

Ok, thanks for waiting kuragari

I didn't mean distracting in a bad way. What I'm trying to say is that you know how a beautiful woman just walks in the room and you notice her. Then you start taking glances at her more often than you should. That kind of distracting ;)

After doing these drawings I just realized how much more I need to work on my skills. So pardon the quality.

First I traced your original drawing to just show the basic shapes of the drawing.
http://home.comcast.net/~viridium/wsb/media/56259/site1120.jpg
Hmm.... I just realized I should have made them more basic...

Here I'm just showing how the left leg would look like if you were facing her rather than looking down.
http://home.comcast.net/~viridium/wsb/media/56259/site1121.JPG
I'm not sure if you wanted her toe bent from touching the ground or on her tip. The box with lines is to show that her right knee is lower than her left knee.

http://home.comcast.net/~viridium/wsb/media/56259/site1122.jpg
So here's the new drawing looking down. Basically there's more space between the legs.

Your gif motivated me to make one of my own. This is my first animated gif using adobe imageready :D
http://home.comcast.net/~viridium/wsb/media/56259/site1124.gif

If you didn't want her toes bent then just draw the foot a bit more vertical and without bent toes. I really hope that helps.

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