AuthorTopic: [wip] Prowling backstabbing knight  (Read 2743 times)

Offline Alevice

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[wip] Prowling backstabbing knight

on: February 06, 2008, 09:08:13 pm
Don't ask the reasoning behind it, I just felt like drawing it, despite the whole concept being like an oxymoron.  :P I really want some critiques on this one, though.


so far:
->


I really want to pull a semi-realistic reflective metal texture on the armor, but my mind fails to find a way to pull it off somewhat credibly; everytime I tend to add it, I just end up doing an incredibly mess that shows even less volume in the shape as well. Certainly adding/hacking up a backlight source doesn't fix that issue.
« Last Edit: February 08, 2008, 04:53:15 am by Alevice »

Offline mobichan

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Re: [wip] Prowling backstabbing knight

Reply #1 on: February 06, 2008, 10:56:17 pm
If you want more realistic, reflective metal, you need to establish what the environment around the knight is, since metal acts like a dull mirror of sorts.  Of course, depending on the metal, you will have more or less detail in the reflected image (polished metal has a more detailed image, dull metal just reflects shapes and color).  Once you know what colors/shapes are in your reflections, then you need to figure out how to conform those shapes to the shape of your armor.  At the moment, your image is very cartoony, so I am assuming you aren't going to make this too realistic.



I've done a very quick overpainting to show you what I am talking about.  I cleaned up some of the lighting and then added another lightsource (a torch behind the knight) and a blueish floor.  The right leg (knight's left leg) is the only place I worked out any finalized detail.  I worked blue into the under sides of the metal since the floor colors would be present in any surface facing it.  I also added a rim light of orange to the rear surfaces that would be facing the torch.  This is just one approach and my sketch is pretty unrefined, so I hope you can learn something from it.  And there are also a bagillion ways to do metal, so please don't think that my approach is the only way.

Nice start so far.   :)

Offline Alevice

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Re: [wip] Prowling backstabbing knight

Reply #2 on: February 08, 2008, 05:00:59 am
Thanks a lot for the pointers - they make sense, and the references I have checked (none of them remotedly similar to my current design :/) make it even clearer; right know I really need to think where would the knight be so i can try to more or less pull it off. I wanted it to be a generic character that I can put anywhere, but it would help me understand this principles better to pick a real bg and mold the reflection around the environment.

Thus, right now I have made a quick edit adderssing the base lighting and a little of added contrast. I didn't touch the legs much.