@Erek-T: I like the critique about the feet in your edit ErekT, I knew that they aren’t giving enough support, but you solved it quite good and in a way I like, also if I look at the intersection of the layers it looks quite nice. I can’t really agree what you did with the arms and the torso though.
I think that the shoulders are a touch to wide for a female. The corset underlines this in a visual really bad way and the form oft he skirt doesn’t provide enough volume to show where her ass is.
@Wex: The fur of the wolf is also something I thought about. I liked the waviness especially around his temple area but at the arms and shoulders it looks to boring.
@DrD: at first I wanted to add gore, later I decided to leave it away and show the moment how she rang the wolf down. I changed the blood colors oft he sword with another red to imply the reflection oft he hair in the blade, but I don’t removed the falling lines.
@Lachie: Working colors I used somewhere in the palette to seperate them from the rest.
@helm:
I obviously failed with this piece. It was something which heavily exceeded my knowledge of painting and building a picture due to various reasons. Thanks for your congratulations though.
I am pleased that you saw the blur. It took me quite some time to fiddle out and learn how to add a technique like this to pixel art.
By removing the effect you solve a big row of known issues, like the lack of depth, the weight oft he middleground and the biggest issue with the messed up horizont line, by simple obscuring/removing it. Like wex said I thought of adding some kind of lunar energy. Now I think that it would look best if only the inner layer of waves is visible (or the inner 2). I had a problem with adjusting the size relations between waves and moon. Maybe it would look better if the waves are smaller, also to show how big the moon is. Nonetheless I still think the moon is a touch too big and heavy for the sky.
I also had the idea with the shadows. Maybe you see the approach of the second light source from the front outside of the image I wanted to add. I already added it to her (skin, knee, swordcage, bracelets, corset…) and to the werewolves eyes. I don’t added it to the werewolf‘s fur and the rocks in the foreground. The bad part was that I had the idea of adding the light as I already roughed out the foreground rocks. HoweverI thought I had to redraw the werewolfs fur, but this was together with the lack of depth the main reasons why I lost motivation.
The dress was actually the last thing I worked on – or at least at the main planes. I don’t started with blending in the figure into the background with AA, I had in mind to add the same amount of detail everywhere at the figures. If you want I can show you the wip stand how it looked about 1 hour before this stand.
I think it would have looked great with an inversed lighting impression. Cold white light from the front and warm reflections of the red moon from behind – this would have added a lot of impression and feeling to the piece.
@Seiseki: the cleavage is a part I overdrew over and over, also in order to get her boobies in the corset right. Usually there is some kind of doily seam, I don’t added this so far, because it’s easier to work out the forms first and adding this detail in the end.
@Erek-T: the right arm has indeed a lot of anatomical issues, especially the length and form oft he bizeps is off. The fist also destroys the interfigural connection which is really bad. I think a opened hand, read to grab or cap the werewolf would have been a lot better. Although there is a chance that it also would look unnatural because she is looking directly at the camera.
However I posted it here to get some helpful critique, things I haven’t seen and things I have thought of, but I haven’t changed so far. After all I am really wondering that nobody brought up the real big issues, like: perspective is messed up (horizon line), that it lacks depth and that the perspective of both figures is slightly different too which are next to the vampire‘s pose the biggest problems to me. Those are also the points which are pretending me from finishing it.
The biggest problem with a big piece is that all workflow weaknesses take revenge to oneself. A sum of a huge amount of really small issues sums up to a bad result which maybe doesn’t look to bad at first glance. But the issues are there, and if you know of them you have to work on them.
I definitely overreached myself with this, but the good thing is for me that I think I know some things I did wrong as I started.
If I feel confident enough again and have some time, I’ll start another complicated thing – maybe this one will pay out in the end.
If somebody has something constructive left, feel free to post.
