Troll & Fairies WIP [small amount of nudity]

[coffee]

Hi!

Im working on this new piece. It's a troll and two fairies in a forest. It is not complete at all yet, some major things is still missing and the picture as a whole is not finished yet. Still going to add some things. However, I just want to know what you think about it, what I should change, remove, add, anything before I continue!

I wasnt able to decide if I want it to be normal size or x2, but here you go:

->

(One thing im changing at the moment actually is, the position of the small fairy, she is a bit malplaced on his shoulder, I found out when I uploaded the pic.   )

[boojiboy]

Love this!

One suggestion.
The lighting on the hand holding the lantern is a bit strange.
A. Make it wrap the forms a bit better.
B. The part of the fingers that's closest to the light seems to be the darkest. I think you've got it all the wrong way around. I'm not extremely fond of that yellow either but that's just me.

[coffee]

I made some changes:

old one: New one:

1. Changed the place of the blue-haried fairy to a better position on his shoulder.
2. Changed shading from a lot of AA to Dithering. Thought it rewarded some kind of dept to the picture.
3. changed the light on HIS right hand. You where right boojiboy, I did a stupid misstake on that one
4. a few things with his hair

is it better? : )

[artisan]

Personally i like 2x better, but maybe thats me.

Im not a massive fan of the dithering on the ligt doesnt seem to work for me, and the hand shading looks a bit dodgy, i think i liked the non dithered version more too.

just my 2 cents mainy opinion based.

Also i think the butterfly could use some looking at, the blue haired fairys position works much beter though.

[Atnas]

I have to say, I really liked most everything about the old version! The hair is better on the new one, I think.

I'm not sure if I should be speaking because I'm not fond of dithering in the first place... But if you're going to dither, don't lose the details of your solid shading. For example, the hair of the fairy on the bottom right had some horizontal lines I thought lent well to defining the hair as NOT just a solid mass. Bring things like that back in. Since the addition of the dither you've lost a lot of form because you aren't keeping the solid boundaries between shades, and the definition was something I thought this piece was strong in. The troll's nose lost a lot of depth.

I think if you selectively dither in fewer places it will be an improvement over the old, but the old one is much stronger than your current new one.

For some reason I think of dither heavy pieces as the equivalent of digital paintings made by people who primarily use a soft airbrush. If it's done right, it's amazing. Naming one artist who uses dithering extremely heavily but extremely effectively, look at Arachne's work. But see, that's because she keeps the dithering at a lower priority than she does the clarity of the render. The dithering is merely a technique used in order to blend and smooth, it shouldn't obstruct important information.

[coffee]

Indeed I think I lost some of the necessary linings, tho I think the picture went better with the dithered style. Especially when it is a picture with such a obvious light source.

To get my dept back I added a stronger light in the lantern and I also put it on the lit places. Also put some of the "hairlines" back on the purple fairy.
I also removed some of the dithering on a coupple of places, on is forhead and nose for example and changed some of the colouring.

About the  butterfly.. I dont know what to do with it really, Ive always been thinking that it is something odd about it.. I thought of making it bigger so I could more easely add some texture on the wings and stuff. Right now the small fellow is a bit messy. have you got any idea? S: Im Also thinking about changing its colours. Right now it melt in to the background too much I think.

Newest edit:

[Jad]

Yeah, i went with the no-dither-version

.. when I opened this file in GG I saw it had .. 60+ colours? crazy! I got it down to 32, but it still looks somewhat bad. But if you rework it just a little you can make it as pretty (or prettier) than your original with less colours, so I urge you to try.

Mostly some highlights stood out for me - they seemed to just be in the wrong place, some on the edge where they should be in the middle, etc! So well .. I edited it! Heh.

Oh yeah and the feet on the lowermost fairy reads weirdly

If there are any questions, just ask  : D

[coffee]

Your edit cleared some things for me : ) thank you, I think I know now what is wrong and my lightsources was really strange now that I see it

Yeah, about the colours, I tend to change the palett all the time (:,

The circle around the butterfly was a good thing! I think that was one of things that was missing.

About the fact that you choose the non-dither-version, was it that it was better or just because it was easier to show the changes without sitting all day?
Just want to know.. I cant decide really.allthough everyone thinks the non-dither is better I think it went with the style. ARGH, im going crazy

Anyway..I think I wanna try make the dither-one.. Its a new kind of style for me. And I want to try it out so I'll consider all your advices and try to put something together with everything you said in mind!

I must say one more thing.. The shading you added on the fingers on the latern hand, really made it much better, I will just rip that off, haha

Thank you! Now I need to eat then im going inside this picture again

[big brother]

I like the direction of this. The lantern looks a bit flat; it's hard to read at first since it looks like it's on the same plane as the troll's face. Also, I would consider putting wings on the fairies.

[coffee]

This is the latest edit:



1. Ive changed some lightsources that was in the wrong place.
2. New butterfly, wiho!
3. I gave the blue fairy a hand, it looked like she had her arm cut away before.
4. Removed one of the legs on the purple fairy, will be doing a new one later on, can't seem to get it right atm.
5. I also removed some of the colours to make it more clear, tho I think I probably left some of the old somewere without knowing.
6. I can't really think of anything to do with the lantern, I changed colours. Tho, I have thoughts of remaking it compleatly, we will see.

I went with the dither-one. As I said before, id like to try out something new , now I just need to get it right