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.