Queen of spades

[FrostPumpkin]

Hi guys.
Started a piece the other day, it still wip but I would appreciate some advice and critics



Neck and arms are intentionnaly long, adds to the creepy atmosphere me thinks.
Still don't know how to shade the skin (It's quite different from the face as it's a larger surface). Also, I like the furr like that, but maybe some highlight could make it look better ?
The snake will be hard the figure out too but I think i'll be able to.

Thanks in advance !

[EvilEye]

Neat concept. Great background too, but I think you added it too early, it helps to focus solely on the sprite first.

Neck and arms are intentionnaly long, adds to the creepy atmosphere me thinks.

The arms ok, but the neck is more like giraffe long ( or like those women in Africa who stretch their necks out with rings ). I think at that length the effect is more goofy then scary.

What's going on with that right jaw? The upper skull looks a bit small too. I think I understand the look you're going for, but you should still at least get close to the correct proportions.

I did an edit that took me way too long and I got carried away with some of the detail, but here it is:



I read your character as having a slight smirk on her face so I had to sift through tons of reference photos to find one with a woman smirking ( tough very tough ).

And.... I spent so much time working on this I forgot what else I was going to say... but I like your work so far, keep it up.

[Tourist]

I agree that the neck of the original was too long, but I like the original face better than the edit.  It looks like an Italian carnevale costume, which is rather cool.  Like this (picture from http://www.briargate.org/carnevale/, which has a slew of examples)



I'm not sure how you can integrate the snake with the collar though.  The both take up a lot of space around the neck and shoulders.  Maybe change the collar shape so it flows down over the shoulders (instead of up in a ruff) so the whole thing provides a platform for the snake?

The costume is unique enough that you don't need the elongated body parts unless you elongate the whole thing into a very stylized figure, IMO.

Tourist

[Helm]

I like where this is going.

The problem however, is that the snake around the neck is confusing the shape of the shoulders/neck area by sharing its contour with them. The neck is hugely overlong but the snake isn't helping the shape of the body by implying it's this rounded bottleneck that ends on a head.

Move the snake *behind* the clavicle bones and behind the chest area generally, it will solve almost all your problems in this regard. Small edit.



General construction tips:

1. use line tool, don't scribble.
2. use 2x2 pixel brushes or bigger, if you want finer lines, subtract from their shapes, don't go around with a single pixel line brush
3. consider flow and composition together when it comes to body language

[FrostPumpkin]

Eyecraft : Thanks for spending time on this but my point isn't really to have the face anatomy correct. I wanted to have it kind of stylized with a "doll" feeling, I'm happy with it so far. Thought you made a good point about the upper skull being to small, hope it's fixed now.

Helm : Thanks a bunch ! Helps me a lot to figure out the overall look of it. Good point about the snake, worked on it but not sure it fits on her right arm.
Also I planed to give her a dress, but those fantastic hips of yours ! Will think about it.

Here's what i've got so far :



Still rough on some parts.
Thought this is not really what I was going for when starting it. Wanted it more stylized, like those Mashpotato's creepy women * * *
It's way more effective, strong and creepy. I'm far from it now...

[Helm]

but those fantastic hips of yours

Thanks. I get a lot of compliments  


I say keep the dress but keep the hips also, solution: slight translucency!

As for the mashpotato type of woman, I guess my edit pushed for a more anatomic direction because that's my interest, sorry if it's derailing what you're trying to do. I just find stuff like clavicles and how fat folds under an arm or how the belly is lit much more interesting than other styles which rely on abstraction more.