AuthorTopic: Demo Portrait (WIP) Update [4/13/2006]  (Read 12240 times)

Offline Dhaos

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 231
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Crystal Tech Studios

Demo Portrait (WIP) Update [4/13/2006]

on: April 12, 2006, 01:51:19 am
[PORTRAIT]
{<new-old>}


[STEPS]


[CONCEPT ART]

-this is a cg I quickly made to figure out what was wrong with my pallete...

[REFERENCES]
-numerous baldur's gate 1&2 and neverwinter nights portraits
-various images by cyclone, cougar, made, and typhoon from gfx-zone
« Last Edit: April 13, 2006, 04:47:50 pm by Dhaos »

Offline Tremulant

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 323
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Enfant Terrible
    • View Profile

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #1 on: April 12, 2006, 02:14:14 am
Good god, man... wow. I'm sorry I won't be able to give you any relevant crits on this... it's all so smooth and pretty :D
If you manage to do all of the hair as awesomely as you did the finished bit over the eye, I will marry you whether you like it or not.

Only thing I'd change is the colour of the tear duct (?) the... er... eye thing to more of a pinkish, natural colour. Something about the bottom of the nose seems a bit off, too... like maybe we should be able to see a bit more defined nostril or something ('cause, y'know, nostrils are sexy).  ;) You might have already mentioned the nose thing though.

I'm really digging the colours of the lips, and of the, uh, all of it.

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #2 on: April 12, 2006, 02:35:33 am
uh, honestly?

I'm gonna be dead honest here, hopefully you dont take it badly.


drop it.

I mean, very technical impressive and everything, maybe it'd skyrocket your portfolio or something (no clue, doubt it) but I see no point in this whatsoever, it'd look just as good or maybe better airbrushed in photoshop.

Offline Blick

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 573
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • I am not an eskimo.
    • pixeljoint.com/p/327.htm
    • View Profile

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #3 on: April 12, 2006, 02:47:47 am
I have to disagree with Camus on this. I'd like to see you finish this, just to see if you can. To push yourself to spend painful hour after painful hour [especially with the talk of ambience, good luck with that] to do something this complex would just be a rewarding experience for yourself, I'd think. An exhibition of your patience, artistic ability and you might even learn a few things to help you improve by finishing this.

Just one thing that irks me is the height of the eyebrow. I think it should be lowered somewhere from 4 to 10 pixels down, it looks strange to me with how high on her face it's placed. That might have something to do with her expression though. I can't really tell if she's just raising her eyebrow or if it's all just raised naturally. Either way, at least the inner side of the brow should be lowered.

Offline Tremulant

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 323
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Enfant Terrible
    • View Profile

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #4 on: April 12, 2006, 02:51:55 am
I have to disagree with you too, Camus. Would you say that something like  that red dragon piece by cougar is pointless? It would work just as well as an airbrushed, photoshop piece, too. I mean, if yes, that's cool, you're entitled to your opinion, but I think that the fact that, first, Dhaos seems to be having fun with it, second, it's, like you said technically impressive, and third, it's just a good piece of artwork, all make it far from a pointless excercise.

Offline Dhaos

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 231
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Crystal Tech Studios

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #5 on: April 12, 2006, 03:06:18 am
@camus: I do see your point, cging would be faster, more appealing, and all around more practical. I battled with the thought of not doing this piece, and even later on to just stop working on it. In the end I just decided that I want to push myself to see what I can do, this is more or less a study I suppose. Hopefully this won't be a disaster ^^U This is also being done after work to help keep my mind off of things, so perhaps its semmingly purposelessness is relaxing in a way haha.

@Tremulant: Indeed, the tearduct should be more pinkish, I'll need to lighten the area around it as well (the black is too thick there). I know exactly what you mean about the hose, the nostrils should be visible, and the ridge thing inbetween should be very thin (currently the nose is tilted down a bit...which is anatomically very just plain wrong)

@Blick: High eyebrows... my bad heh. I'll be sure to shift those down quite a ways in my next update. This is turning out to be quite a [painful] experience ^_______^ but I'm learning alot from it. I really wanted to understand how the demo dude's managed their huge palettes so well, so many tones x_x! And yes, the ambiance will be fun... I might cheat and fade to black then another tone on < side *or* use a complementary color like purple (best color hands down) or bright red, that way it should blend better.

Thanks for your input everybody.

Offline Froli

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 293
  • Karma: +1/-0
  • Dragon Highlord
    • View Profile

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #6 on: April 12, 2006, 03:31:57 am
I'm a bit bothered by the sides of the lips so I made a very small edit. I'm probably not the right person to make a suggestion since I'm new and all so I apologize in advance xD


Other than that and what others has pointed out, you are doing an awesome job :D a piece that will give you more experience
« Last Edit: April 12, 2006, 04:40:40 am by Froli »

Offline Alex

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 254
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • clrclrclrclr
    • View Profile

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #7 on: April 12, 2006, 04:17:31 am
uh, honestly?

I'm gonna be dead honest here, hopefully you dont take it badly.


drop it.

I mean, very technical impressive and everything, maybe it'd skyrocket your portfolio or something (no clue, doubt it) but I see no point in this whatsoever, it'd look just as good or maybe better airbrushed in photoshop.

I know you are being honest Camus, but that is by far the most disrespectful remark I have ever seen from you. Yes he could do it faster if airbrushing but hes not airbrushing now is he. He took on a very daunting task and came here to show it and see what we think. Basically what you are saying is that its useless to finish this piece and thats just not needed.

Now in my opinion this is looking very nice, very smooth and precise as well. The ramping with your colours must be so large though, considering it does look like it could be CG. I like this though, and i respect that you are actually taking on such a feat. I would love to see this finished.
alexander

Offline AlexHW

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1037
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • AlexHW

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #8 on: April 12, 2006, 05:26:30 am
looks pretty nice so far :), obviously alot of work you've done.
like has been said, the eyebrow seems too high. I would also say that the eyebrow starts too close to the center of the forehead(horizontally, if you mirrored the eyebrow, the space between the brows would be slim).
I'd also look at the lips, and keep in mind the lipstick would be layered onto the lips, and probably would not have such a dark line at the top edge next to the highlight(it would make more sense if it blended more i think). Basically at the moment its making the lipstick look really thick.
Also something strange is going on at the corner of the mouth, it seems too dark, but i'm not sure.
As for the eye, a general rule of thumb is that it is no brighter than the highlights of the face. At the moment, the eyewhite is not white, its skin color, and probably would look better if it was more white, and you can probably do that by adjusting the darker tones towards a blue or grey I think.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2006, 05:28:06 am by Alex Hanson-White »

Offline Dhaos

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 231
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Crystal Tech Studios

Re: Demo portrait (WIP)

Reply #9 on: April 12, 2006, 11:25:02 am
@froil: I suppose that dip by the corner the mouth is too dark after all, I'll probably need to lighten it then.

@alex: Thanks for the support, right now the color ramp has two 16 color rows for skin, 1 row for highlights, 1 row for lips. The palette isn't optimized either just yet unfortunately since I'm still not too sure what I wish to do.

@Alex Hanson-White: Hmm, you're definately right about the eyebrows. I think I get what your saying about the lips, about the the dark line, not too sure about the dip in the corner though, I *think* that depends on the expression a bit, however I will look into it *pulls up a bunch of model photos*...hmmmmmmmm. Regarding the eye(s) I will need to give it its own color ramp, probably only 8 colors though, using unsaturated/gray tones then fading to a purply color...just because we all love purple

I'm still being irked by some of my tones currently: the main tones seem fine (first 10 or so), but after that they have a dirty look (the orange to dark brown) It may be a lighting error thats screwing things up a bit. I was going for a contrasted/brilliant feel (I'll try posting some of my ref pics later on), but it ended up being light and kinda dirty lol. Looking at my pallete I think I need to raise the hue on a few more tones, since the transition to light to dark isn't half and half in this image. Oh well, I'll be experimenting more later this week.

Thanks again for the comments ^-^
« Last Edit: April 12, 2006, 02:36:44 pm by Dhaos »