Manly Sun God

[Yngar]

I think if you want to get that polished gold look you can really crank up the saturation and contrast.

Here is a quick color edit I did, its not perfect but I think it gives it more of the glow that gold has.

It could probably use a hair more orange in there.
Oh also I figured since the eyes and beard are already a different color than the metal would be with that lighting, might as well put a darker color on the iris to give it more definition.

[Anarkhya]

In addition to what Mathias has already said, I think you 3D mockup uses some dark shades that may be difficult to reproduce with pixels, without introducing several buffer shade to give the darker areas the smoothness your 3D ref has..

[Pizza Tom]

I think if you want to get that polished gold look you can really crank up the saturation and contrast.

I see what you mean, but that's a bit too shiny. I guess it would be more accurate to say I'm going for an aged/tarnished metal (bronze or brass maybe?), something like this.

In addition to what Mathias has already said, I think you 3D mockup uses some dark shades that may be difficult to reproduce with pixels, without introducing several buffer shade to give the darker areas the smoothness your 3D ref has..

In that case I won't worry too much about it, after all I can only rely so much on direct reference.

I think I'm approaching the point where I've learned what I can on this piece and need to move on. Thanks for your help everyone!

[Charlieton]

This turned out really well! Not sure if the text placement works compositionally for the best (it creates a V shape, which has been distracting for me). But I'm not good with these things anyway, so I'm probably wrong.

Another self-portrait from me... kind of. (Hope I don't seem narcissistic by now, haha)

Don't worry about that! Artists have to draw faces, and what better reference than your own, which you always carry with you anyway. I assume. Now, superimposing your face on THE SUN which shines upon all creatures of the earth and brings both life and destruction might raise a few eyebrows.

Seriously though, great progress!

[Jeremy]

The forehead specular in particular is pretty pillow shaded.


I added some warmth and smoothed out the speculars a bit.

[Pizza Tom]

Haha, I keep wanting to call this done and you guys drag me back in! In a good way, of course.



You may notice the border got much bigger; as it turns out tumblr resizes avatars to 128 so I had to compensate. Not big on the huge border lines, but eh, could be worse.

I tried to take all the points of your edit into account, Jeremy, at least partially. You actually seem to hit on all my problem areas, so thanks! Though your version looks a little more angry with the stronger highlights near the mouth, so I kept mine toned down a bit (not sure if they work though ).

This turned out really well! Not sure if the text placement works compositionally for the best (it creates a V shape, which has been distracting for me). But I'm not good with these things anyway, so I'm probably wrong.

Thanks! I'm glad for the encouragement, I can never tell if my improvements only look better to me or if I'm actually getting any better at this stuff.

And I mean hey, if the V shape is distracting then you're effectively not looking at it, right? >>

edit:
Made some more tweaks