AuthorTopic: Snakes and Ravens  (Read 5814 times)

Offline leroy

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Snakes and Ravens

on: June 22, 2012, 07:55:52 pm
This is a copy of the post at PixelJoint because I'm lazy.  :P

Heyoo it's still at a quite early stage but I wanted to post what I got.



Used only this ref so far, the cow skull is a pretty blatant rip of it I know.
Probably going to check out A TON of refs for ravens and snakes tomorrow, this piece could take a while.
Click
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 07:57:53 pm by leroy »

Offline JonasO

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #1 on: June 22, 2012, 09:10:43 pm
Haha reminds me of the Diablo intro.
The legs of the raven look like they are on the same plane. Are you sure you need two pixel outlines on the raven?
On the left horn of the skull, there is a curve of light pixels at the lower left side that I don't understand. Neither do I understand the black directly above it. I guess that is because the raven is lightened from top left, while the skull is lighted from the left. And even then there's some light missing to the left of the horn.
I'm only going to mention the many dents in the horn because you're probably work on these anyway.
One more thing I do not understand: Do the horns point towards the viewer or towards the background? The legs of the raven seem to make no sense.

The skull looks great but the right eye (the bright one) deserves some attention. There are two occurrences of parallel jagged lines: white/black at the otside and lighy grey/white at the inside, to left part of the eye each. I believe you should work on these regions. And then I'm not sure whether I agree to the shading of the inner of that eye... To me it looks like there's a pillow-shaded sphere in there popping out of the eyeshell (?).
Other than that, great jaw, great raven, great nosething, great horns.

PS: I believe the snake is too much. Can't be such a cruel world if it's so full of animals that two different kinds gather at one random skull.

EDIT: The longer I look at it, the more it seems that the main problem are the legs of the raven. Make the raven sit on the horn correctly and it will already improve by a huge shot. Then shade the legs correctly and we'll see how that works out. (plus the other things I mentioned beside the shading).
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 09:13:54 pm by JonasO »

Offline leroy

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #2 on: June 22, 2012, 09:30:04 pm
Man those are some good points, the position of the horn didn't even occur to my tired brain when I was drawing the raven.  :-[ They are indeed pointed towards the viewer. Outline on the raven hasn't been cleaned up yet but it looks like I'll be turning the whole bird around to match the horns.
Some parts of the shading are still in a state where I just prefer to call them 'notes'. They will be addressed.
I'll look into this more tomorrow.

It is a cruel world.  :ouch:
« Last Edit: June 22, 2012, 09:33:45 pm by leroy »

Offline leroy

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #3 on: June 23, 2012, 08:06:27 pm
Just a small update
Removed the bird at least for now. I was thinking of having it swoop down on the snake from the distance.




Went quite far



Guess it'll turn out a bit more positive than even I was expecting.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2012, 10:47:17 pm by leroy »

Offline JonasO

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #4 on: June 23, 2012, 11:31:04 pm
EDIT: this post only refers to the first variant. I didn't see the update when I posted this.

:O http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86MY-quTiJs

There is one thing I can comment on though: There are some pixels on the outline of the snake that seem strange... One example would be at the lowest part of the snake, where you antialias and there is this dent...
And out of curiosity, why do you antialias the snake? The skull looks awesome without antialias.

EDIT: You should stick with the first variant. (even though the outline of the snake is better in the third variant).
« Last Edit: June 23, 2012, 11:33:17 pm by JonasO »

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #5 on: June 23, 2012, 11:44:28 pm
Snakes appears like the best part of it to me. The colors and the shape of the head especially.

Offline leroy

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #6 on: June 24, 2012, 10:33:02 am
experimenting.

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #7 on: June 24, 2012, 10:10:10 pm
personally I find the dry desert scene on the left more logical and suitable for the context of the snake and skull, the depth added to the bird in the right variation might be worth pushing in the left one, might be worth making a low hanging dust storm on the left too to make the horizon more interesting, and possibly help reinforce the depth if approached right, kinda preferred the darker neutral toned snake too personally but that's probably just my tastes, although at the moment the underbelly doesn't blend very well might at least want to tone it down or make sure you eventually add another colour to reinforce a flow of belly scales, the darker one you got away with monotone belly and mightn't even need to texture, but the brighter makes it stand out far more

Offline leroy

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #8 on: June 25, 2012, 06:18:32 am
New direction. This is going all over the place.


 Going to try to pursue sand ripples like these http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc14/tuaarita/ref.png

But now I'm taking a teeny tiny break as I dabble on Blender and lowpoly
« Last Edit: June 25, 2012, 07:58:50 am by leroy »

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Snakes and Ravens

Reply #9 on: June 25, 2012, 08:43:22 am


the blue in your palette isn't used, you had that AA tone, and the actual rogue tone is highlighted in magenta, didn't take long at all, what program are you using? my method is to use GIMP's colour map and to swap every similar colour one by one to say magenta and see which are barely used. Liking the new comp btw

and cool be sure to share what you make if it's any good ;D (in the 'low spec art' sub forum I 'spose)