AuthorTopic: Portrait: Ewout Genemans  (Read 10051 times)

Offline Facet

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #10 on: January 20, 2013, 09:47:39 pm
No problem :)

 If you squint at it a bit hopefully it's clearer what I mean about the benefits of treating the hair a bit more broadly. The guy's hair is very striated but with more deliberate grouping and arrangement it should be easier to read nicely as a whole; it's finding a sweet spot though.

The likeness: Yeah, flipping between them just now I might have lost something there; I was looking at the second ref more. If this is someone you know of from outside of those photos you'd have a better idea than me too :D.

Offline Erik Leppen

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #11 on: January 22, 2013, 10:49:02 pm


So I tried out Facet's hair idea. I think it's an interesting way to do it. I'm kind of in doubt whether I like it. It's more abstract than the rest of the sprite, but it's much easier on the eye.

Also I made some other tiny changes on multiple places, most importantly removing the darkest skin colors, adjusting the skin colors a little bit again, and adding the shadows of the collar.

And of course, I'm still looking for comments ;D

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #12 on: January 22, 2013, 11:08:49 pm
The new hair is really no more abstract then the rest of the piece. It's a vast improvement.  :y:

The shape is still off though.... It's very round on the sides giving the impression of a short afro.

But my main critique: why the fuzzy edges everywhere?

Offline st0ven

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #13 on: January 24, 2013, 04:48:14 am


I took some time to just do a facial simplification to give perhaps some ideas about shading the skin, i probably should have checked out the actual reference pic though because now i fear this is totally pointless.

I was just going for a younger, generic dude look, but i think perhaps some points about the narrowing of lips and some other shading examples might still be useful.

essentially if i had any advice to give, it would be to block out the likeness and shape of the face first in flat color areas, you can attempt to shade and smooth after youve solidified a more coarse image that youre satisfied with.

no reason why pixels cant behave in certain ways like working in any other medium, starting rough, layering in details ontop of basics, etc. looking at the progress pic it looks like you really went for shading first. i think its really hard with pixels to shade, capture human form and likeness ontop of that.

Offline Erik Leppen

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #14 on: January 26, 2013, 10:10:57 pm

I played around with the colors and tried doing someting to the shading similar to st0ven, but I'm not sure anything actually improved (except the shading on the shirt, which is now more to my liking :) )...

thewexxl0rz, what exactly do you mean with "fuzzy edges everywhere"? Do you mean, in the hair? Do you mean the actual edge of the sprite (between hair and background)? Do you mean the anti-alias? I'm not sure what you want to know... If you mean the edges of the hair, I want to give the impression of curly hair and this seemed a good way. I don't see anything wrong really...
(haven't really paid much attention to the hair since previous iteration though).

st0ven, nice edit! No worries, it's absolutely not useless, because it's different which means I can learn from this. I like the dimmed colors idea, but it looks like you removed the ambient light by strengthening the contrast. It's not what I want for the final image, but it's great as a learning tool, so thanks! Is there any specific reason for the "reddish" and "greenish" hues of two of the colors in the skin ramp? Are they to imply a second light source? I'm asking because I'm not an artist... :sry:

About your tips, I'm willing to start over using a more proper methodology, after all I'm here to learn and not to produce sprites quickly. So I might just do that, just to compare.

Offline Cage

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #15 on: January 26, 2013, 10:31:46 pm
Stoven's version defines the face and the neck a bit better.



Notice how the shading separates the frontal planes of the face from the sides. In yours, the head/face seem kinda eggy ;)

Here's a quick ref for the planes of the face, something I have to work on myself too!

Also, the neck could use some darker colours - the values you used suggest that his throat is in the same z space as his face 

Offline Dr D

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #16 on: January 26, 2013, 10:59:15 pm
About the reddish and greenish shades in St0ven's edit:

The reddish look comes from sub-surface scattering, which is basically light going through the skin and bouncing off the red blood cells, causing the skin to look more red. You can usually see this in midtones in skin.

The greenish I think is just reflected lighting, and also contrasts with the brown of the background/shadow of the skin.

Offline Erik Leppen

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #17 on: March 09, 2013, 04:35:46 pm
Huge bump :o

Also I notice that I forgot to thank Dr D and Cage for their replies. But it's not too late, so thanks :)

Anyhow, as I said earlier I was willing to try again from scratch, just because I can, but also because I still wasn't really happy and also to see if the new knowledge/experience would help me create a better sprite, so, armed with a new reference picture I did just that.

The result:


The progress, again:
Progress image

Again, opinions (also on the workflow) and comparisons are welcome, if there's anything you would change (except the background color :P) feel free to let know :D

I do have to admit that I used the reference picture quite intensively, by laying progress images over the reference transparently, looking at the differences and make adaptations, and using helplines. Not sure if it's considered cheating or would stand in the way of learning, but if I may say so myself it at least creates a much better likeness. Also I used the same light source as the reference.

Offline YellowLime

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Re: Portrait: Ewout Genemans

Reply #18 on: March 09, 2013, 05:40:57 pm
Looks pretty nice :o

The thing I could say is that there are some weird lines, like the ones on the neck. I guess they'd look worse if the lines were "continuous", but then again they still look weird like this :blind: I'd consider removing them, unless you don't mind using a lighter shade (also you missed the leftmost pixel on the lowest line of the chin!)

In my opinion, the right ear looks as if attached to the front part of the face, and would need some darker line in the upper part to help distinguish it.

And also, the upper lip seems too dark and flat-colored, especially compared to the rest of the face. It's like he just had chocolate milk :crazy: