Manly Sun God

[Pizza Tom]

Another self-portrait from me... kind of. (Hope I don't seem narcissistic by now, haha)


I'd say it's about 80% done, but it still looks "muddy" to me. I think I oversimplified the shading in some places and overcomplicated others, and I've been looking at it too long to tell which is which. Also I'm not sure if the outline on the face is flattening the image too much. :/

For my face I used a mirror for reference, and for the sun-tentacle-rays I mocked this up in 3ds max.

[Mathias]

Needs speculars.

[Pizza Tom]

Any better? I admit I'm a bit fuzzy on where the strongest speculars usually are, especially around the cheeks in this case.

Also played with the rays' shapes a bit and softened the face outline, which helps a lot to bring out the depth, in my opinion anyway.

[Mathias]

Yeah that's better. More depth, more contrasty. More interesting.

Are you going for a metallic gold look? You'll need sharper speculars (smaller/brighter). More saturation. And even darker shadows to complement the stronger highlights.

[Pizza Tom]

Yeah, definitely going for metallic, thanks for the tips! Adjusted saturation/value and messed with speculars. I'd be ready to call it done, but that top sun ray and those cheeks are still bugging me. 

[Anarkhya]

Just wanted to try some gold colors, I also felt the need to AA some of your curves (while resisting to not introduce any 50% dither )

[Mathias]

I don't think the slight glow emitted from the bottom of the inner circular part onto the lower tapered points is working. Just muddies up their definition.

[Anarkhya]

I agree on this, the narrow space makes it risky to pixel a faked gradient.

[Yngar]

What kind of material are you going for on this thing? I have seen those type of things made out of metal, polished wood, and stone. Each of those would reflect light very differently.

[Pizza Tom]

Thanks for the edit, Anarkhya! I thought I was pushing contrast and saturation before, but you really showed me how flat it was. And I never would've thought of green for the shadows, but it works perfectly. Plus it gives me a nice shade for AA!

This is what I came up with based on your edit:


and this is where I'm at after reading over the latest comments:


I feel like something gets lost between the two, but that's probably just because I'm struggling to get any definition with just the darkest shades in there.

@Yngar I'm going for a gold-ish metal.

[Yngar]

I think if you want to get that polished gold look you can really crank up the saturation and contrast.

Here is a quick color edit I did, its not perfect but I think it gives it more of the glow that gold has.

It could probably use a hair more orange in there.
Oh also I figured since the eyes and beard are already a different color than the metal would be with that lighting, might as well put a darker color on the iris to give it more definition.

[Anarkhya]

In addition to what Mathias has already said, I think you 3D mockup uses some dark shades that may be difficult to reproduce with pixels, without introducing several buffer shade to give the darker areas the smoothness your 3D ref has..

[Pizza Tom]

I think if you want to get that polished gold look you can really crank up the saturation and contrast.

I see what you mean, but that's a bit too shiny. I guess it would be more accurate to say I'm going for an aged/tarnished metal (bronze or brass maybe?), something like this.

In addition to what Mathias has already said, I think you 3D mockup uses some dark shades that may be difficult to reproduce with pixels, without introducing several buffer shade to give the darker areas the smoothness your 3D ref has..

In that case I won't worry too much about it, after all I can only rely so much on direct reference.

I think I'm approaching the point where I've learned what I can on this piece and need to move on. Thanks for your help everyone!

[Charlieton]

This turned out really well! Not sure if the text placement works compositionally for the best (it creates a V shape, which has been distracting for me). But I'm not good with these things anyway, so I'm probably wrong.

Another self-portrait from me... kind of. (Hope I don't seem narcissistic by now, haha)

Don't worry about that! Artists have to draw faces, and what better reference than your own, which you always carry with you anyway. I assume. Now, superimposing your face on THE SUN which shines upon all creatures of the earth and brings both life and destruction might raise a few eyebrows.

Seriously though, great progress!

[Jeremy]

The forehead specular in particular is pretty pillow shaded.


I added some warmth and smoothed out the speculars a bit.

[Pizza Tom]

Haha, I keep wanting to call this done and you guys drag me back in! In a good way, of course.



You may notice the border got much bigger; as it turns out tumblr resizes avatars to 128 so I had to compensate. Not big on the huge border lines, but eh, could be worse.

I tried to take all the points of your edit into account, Jeremy, at least partially. You actually seem to hit on all my problem areas, so thanks! Though your version looks a little more angry with the stronger highlights near the mouth, so I kept mine toned down a bit (not sure if they work though ).

This turned out really well! Not sure if the text placement works compositionally for the best (it creates a V shape, which has been distracting for me). But I'm not good with these things anyway, so I'm probably wrong.

Thanks! I'm glad for the encouragement, I can never tell if my improvements only look better to me or if I'm actually getting any better at this stuff.

And I mean hey, if the V shape is distracting then you're effectively not looking at it, right? >>

edit:
Made some more tweaks