Elf Portrait art thread: Archer by Ranger M

Post by **Thrawn** » March 17th, 2006, 6:39 pm

I'm not sure how to make it "lively--the pose has almost no action, but thats becasue it's a lvl. 1 rather meek seeming unit...

I've fixed the nose and ears--ish

toms · Post by **toms** » March 17th, 2006, 6:42 pm

DonÃ‚Â´t be afraid of outlining the nose.

SheÃ‚Â´s looking so sad...Why? Because she is not centered in the portrait?

And the buckle looks...a bit odd.

ThatÃ‚Â´s enough for the moment.

Post by **Thrawn** » March 17th, 2006, 6:51 pm

toms wrote:DonÃ‚Â´t be afraid of outlining the nose.

SheÃ‚Â´s looking so sad...Why? Because she is not centered in the portrait?

And the buckle looks...a bit odd.

ThatÃ‚Â´s enough for the moment.

1. OUtlining the nose makes it look worse...

2. Symetry is for heathens...

3. The buckle is a clasp, and its hemispherical, which is why it goes out some, which is why it has the circle of shine, deep shadow...

I've fixed point two, and added some more shadow to nose, more defined

mre critique is fine, I thrive on it

Post by **Jetrel** » March 17th, 2006, 10:12 pm

/me grabs Thrawn, shakes vigorously... Yells:

"You're still not antialiasing those!"

I ... really don't know how I can explain that more clearly. You *have* to do that. Let's review the checklist.

Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Use the brush tool, never the pencil tool.
Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Set the interpolation method in the preferences to "Cubic"
Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ if it ever asks for interpolation on any image operation (like scaling), set that to cubic

And as a general suggestion, draw your images at something considerably higher than the final resolution you're drawing at, and scale down a final copy when you're done.

I feel as though I have made myself clear on this point. Several times.

If you don't do this, these images will never be good enough for us to put in-game.

Post by **Thrawn** » March 17th, 2006, 11:03 pm

Jetryl wrote:/me grabs Thrawn, shakes vigorously... Yells:

"You're still not antialiasing those!"

leading to my reply of, how exactly then is it done, as I'm using the brush, going over outline, and when I shrink things I use cubic....

I ... really don't know how I can explain that more clearly. You *have* to do that. Let's review the checklist.

Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Use the brush tool, never the pencil tool.
Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ Set the interpolation method in the preferences to "Cubic"
Ã¢â‚¬Â¢ if it ever asks for interpolation on any image operation (like scaling), set that to cubic

I do this...

And as a general suggestion, draw your images at something considerably higher than the final resolution you're drawing at, and scale down a final copy when you're done.

for scanningthings I do this, but when I try to draw at large resolutions with GIMP itjust doen't work.

I feel as though I have made myself clear on this point. Several times.

If I try to do what you say, and it's wrong, maybe you are not making yourself clear...

I'm sorry if this sounds defensive, put I know what you've told me to do, and I've been tryng to do it. Instead of thinking of a different way to further tell me what to do, you repeat the sma e thing the same way (though this time oyu included a Darth Vader picture ...) and I never quite see how it's supposed to be.

TBS, I'll try once again to A-A it to your preference, whatever that is...

Post by **Zebulon** » March 17th, 2006, 11:29 pm

It should be antialiased like this.

Post by **Jetrel** » March 18th, 2006, 1:55 am

Zebulon wrote:It should be antialiased like this.

Yes. That's correct, and any of your, or Ranger M's advice might help on this point - you might use some different words than I would.

Let's try "me saying something different". Look at the following workflow - the foot from my Konrad drawing:

Post by **Jetrel** » March 18th, 2006, 2:19 am

Etc.

Most important in this demonstrative edit, is the reshaping of the face. The eyes were in the correct horizontal position, something you've never had trouble with and which I always have trouble with, but their vertical position and the position of several other facial features were rather off.

The devil is in details like these. They draw the line between beautiful and ugly; one the faces of real people, and on the faces of cartoon drawings. I've had some miserable failures, myself, don't get me wrong.

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » March 18th, 2006, 7:57 am

Thrawn, look at the lines in your origional, they look much more graney, and has a few bumps and inconsistancies, most of what has been edited has been fixing this (apart from the new areas and shading in Jetryl's edit), for a example,look at the right arm where it connects to the body, on yours there are inconsistant thinknesses and a few single pixels which detract from the image quality, but in Zebulons edit they get phased out into new, smoother lines.

don't worry about it though, It's a problem that I got when I made both of my portraits so far (I should really start another one soon, although I'll probably finish the Halstead story frame first) and just needs a small bit of editing to fix it.

Post by **Thrawn** » March 20th, 2006, 1:33 am

except for maybe the hand, is this A-Aed properly?

Website · Post by **Sapient** » March 20th, 2006, 2:27 am

She looks a little manly with those (in the previous) beefy right arm, and (in the latest) large hands and chin. The previous pic looks great as long as you scroll up to the dark green hooded part. Overall though, I think I like the happy butterfly pic better.

Ranger M · Post by **Ranger M** » March 20th, 2006, 3:38 pm

it is still a bit pixelated on the chin and her left arm, but apart from that it seems (at first glance at least, I haven't looked close up) to be much better than the other one.

Post by **turin** » March 21st, 2006, 2:16 am

Yeah... At first I thought she was male, then I saw that it was supposed to be a shaman (which are female), and I got really confused...

Post by **Jetrel** » March 21st, 2006, 3:35 am

Ranger M wrote:it is still a bit pixelated on the chin and her left arm, but apart from that it seems (at first glance at least, I haven't looked close up) to be much better than the other one.

YES!!!

WE DID IT!

Ranger M's comments are correct - you've solved about 90% of the problem. Take that just a smidge further, and you'll be one huge step further towards being game-worthy.

Post by **Thrawn** » March 21st, 2006, 12:39 pm

Jetryl wrote:
Ranger M wrote:it is still a bit pixelated on the chin and her left arm, but apart from that it seems (at first glance at least, I haven't looked close up) to be much better than the other one.
YES!!!

WE DID IT!

Ranger M's comments are correct - you've solved about 90% of the problem. Take that just a smidge further, and you'll be one huge step further towards being game-worthy.

It seems I need to blow up my sketches and go over them... glad to know that I seem to have it now. I'll fix the chin, but help on the hand and "manliness" of the chin would be usefull... I can't seem to get them right.

EDIT: sketch for new thing, finally a working scanner, so inked from a sketch, and resized (cubic interpolation

)