Tentacles suck

[Fizz]

This is a early WIP of a cthulhu piece I'm working on. (The rest of the body is not shown)  My problem is that I can't figure out a way to shade the tentacles in a pleasing looking way.  Maybe thinning them would help, but I'm not aiming to draw the scary cthulhu.

[Tremulant]

I think part of the problem might stem from the fact that (in my eyes, anyway) the tentacles are a bit too thin or... something. Not... I dunno, chunky or tentacley enough. I did a quick edit:



I'm not really sure, and it's not a great edit. It's a suggestion, anyway.

[Fizz]

I can't get those high saturation blue and green colors.  Pixen has a different color profile or something.  It makes all the colors more washed out.  Does anyone know of a better pixel program for the mac?

[Fizz]

Yay! lots of progress.  It doesn't look so good still..  Any ideas on how to add intrest to the back of the head?

[JonathanOfDrain]

I don't really like the blue, it works fine but it's kind of ?boring?. I made a dumb edit, kind of a waste of time, hopefully you can use it.
I think a shell would be neat. It'd be like a helmet sort of dealy.

:\ I don't like the blue.

[rabidbaboy]

I like JoD's edit to the colors, except the brown could be less saturated.
I think a hunched pose would be fitting.

I like how this is turning out.

[bengo]

I actually disagree with JoD's color choice, to be completely honest, its more boring now than it was before, the blue was what made it interesting. I am in favor of an object of some sort behind the squid, right now the back of his head looks.... flat, there also seems to be a hint of pillow shading back there aswell.

[Fizz]

An extra shade of green smoothed the back of the head out..  I know the dithering looks out of place, but I'm going to dither the rest of the body too.  As for the back of the head, I will also wait until the body is done to see if anything would good back there.

[Arachne]

I wouldn't dither much on a small piece like this. You already have a lot of colors to work with, and since it's something that looks like a sea creature, it should be slimy. Desaturate. The darkest blues, especially, which I also brought a bit closer to purple to contrast more with the greens. I'd also go for something more like sel-out rather than solid, 1 pixel wide outlines.

[Fizz]

It's not that small, you haven't seen what's down below!   Thanks for the useful edit.

[Jericho]

It's not that small, you haven't seen what's down below!   Thanks for the useful edit.

the point is though that dithering is unneeded. The piece is small enough and there are enough colours, that dithering simply to smooth colours together ..well it doesnt need to be done . The only other use for dithering in this instance would be to add texture, but as arachne said it should probably be 'slimy' so no definitive texture, just shiny.

[Fizz]

I know your not supposed to dither on slimy stuff.  That was just an experiment to see how it looked.

...Sorry, I'm making too many excuses.  But the dithering really was one.

Here's another experiment.  I'm using desaturated purples and saturated greens together.  Does it hurt your eyes?

[Delgneith]

I feel as though you're missing the point of edits. You more or less copied Archane's edit exactly the way he added the spectral and all. It doesn't have to be so similar, I believe he was just showing you the idea was to get it looking more slimy. Mindlessly copying edits does a person no good. Suggestion is give spectrals a bit more saturation and perhaps luminance.

[Fizz]

Explain to me what a spectral is   . So, it's best to learn the concept, but not copy the person's style?  Is that what you mean?  I'll try not to do something like this again in the future.

[Fizz]

I'm losing my will to work this thing.  I want to get started on my game mockup already, but I'll try not to give up on this.    So here's the incomplete toroso, with the lower abs not done.  I'm having trouble getting the pecs right.

[MoD]

I really like the first image in the thread as a sketch, but the rest don't really do it for me. Part of it is that I like the original palette more, but that one is a bit contrast-lacking, seeing it next to the other one. The others lost some of the personality with the design change and also look really unfinished and sketchy, but AFAIK aren't just sketches. If they are and you're going to refine it at some point in the future already, ignore the rest of this post. But otherwise, I think the issue is that you have a lot of horizontal lines at the ends of things and areas where you have some 2px jumps. Basically it looks like the whole thing was made with a 2px brush. Adding some more 1-pixel wide lines in some places (especially the tentacles) would make it look a lot smoother. Also look at Arachne's edit for a great example of how to make transitions between areas of light and dark less jaggy.

[Fizz]

Ooh, yes MoD, you are so right about those lines.  I thought 2x would smooth things out but it did the opposite.

Slight edit:


Yeah, this is kinda like.. a half sketch.  There is A LOT more refinery to come, as I am hardly satisfied with it.  I am also not exactly pleased with the current design, what do you suggest to make the pallete more likable and give it back some personallity?

[Fizz]

Is it ok if I bump thrice?

So, I added an outline and a (WIP) red water background.  Everything is much more smoothed out.  I am going to add some twisting veins for some intrest as the design is bland right now.

[Arachne]

The shading makes it seem flat. I'd clean it up further and get rid of those dark lines. The colors are still much too saturated, and with the pink background, you can further desaturate the greens since they'll seem more green next to the pink. Pink water means more reflected light, so I'd also add some more pink light coming from behind him.

[Fizz]

More polish

[eck]

you have many wonderful edits above, and you choose to ignore then. 

pay attention to arachine's muscles.  especially in the shoulder, torso, and arms.  your colors are still to saturated, and lack unification.  you are pillowshading.  learn not to do that.  you need to fix the ambient lighting on his shoulder and head.  get a reference for that sort of thing.  also, i think this piece could benefit from some dithering.  either that or more colors.

[Fizz]

oh man   I was told not to dither, this is a slimy sea creature (cept maybe some of it on the edit above, and maybe I still don't get the gist of where I can safely dither).  I don't think Arachne's anatomy is the most correct, but the arms look more correct than mine ATM

A little tiny tiny bit more progress, are these pecs less pillowshaded?  How do I unify the pink to a sea green?