[middle finger][C+C] RPG Portraits

[Bissle]

UPDATE: 8/21/2009:




Hey guys--just got my external HD with all my stuff working again after half a year, and it got me in the mood to pixel again!

Here are a couple of portraits I've been working on for a while for an RPG.



edit 2 years ago ---> last Wednesday


edit--> 2 weeks ago

             
3 years ago --> edit from Portrait Illustrator 2 years ago --> yesterday

And some sprites, with the same time range:



It's hard working on stuff all alone... I'm looking for any and all comments and criticisms that I can get.

[EvilEye]

1st one - good, huge improvement over the original. The lighting is confusing ( side of the face highlighted, then all around the front of the hair, and the nose ). Something strange going on with the lower neck on the right side.

2nd one - looks worse then the original to me. Lines aren't as sharp. Right eyebrow is lower then the left indicating there was an attempt at some kind of perspective but was never followed through. Nose doesn't seem to be at the right angle and I think is too close to the mouth. The mouth is also at the wrong angle compared to the rest of the features. It should be farther to the right.

3rd one - This one looks good ( the rightmost one ). Great expression with the mouth. Lines look good. There are a few problems though:

The left side of the nose should pull a bit when his mouth is like that.

Speaking of the nose, I don't think you can see that much of the bottom of the nose when his head is at that angle.

The neck is too big at the bottom, necks don't fan out like that the farther you go down. If anything it's the reverse.

The bottom of the ears just disappear into the head, why no earlobes?

The right eye should not be open more then the left eye considering he is raising his left eyebrow.

Some of the shadows are conflicting, like the one under his chin and the one on his left cheek.

Some of what I see here makes me wonder how you are making this. For instance the eyebrow looks like its been clipped and moved. Same with the nose.

[Bissle]

Heey, thanks! All valuable points made!

--> : Shading of the hair and neck is more realistic--dunno what to do with the nose.

--> : The facial anatomy is fixed, but... I think it's even worse... umm, the shading... I was going for a Topher Grace look, (flat-ish face, big eyes, doughy facial structure) and got a Jonas Brother on meth. xD

--> : Neck reduced, earlobes emphasized, eye and nose fixed, awkward shading played around with.

Some of what I see here makes me wonder how you are making this. For instance the eyebrow looks like its been clipped and moved. Same with the nose.

100% custom, using GraphicsGale--here's the original face I made Saturday before I added the hair and everything else. You'll see that the ears were HUGE and the left eyebrow was c+ped lower. The nose... well, I dunno how it looks c+ped. Could you explain?




EDIT: The second one really bothered me, I kept toying around with it until I got this:

[Bissle]

Started working on another one last night:

-->-->   
        2006                   2007 (PI edit)                2009

I wanted her skin to be so pale as to have a bluish cast, but I ended up with this:

... which I didn't like, so I went with fleshier colors (but kept the purple colors).

Also made up minor tweaks to the purple-haired guy:

Any ideas or crits? 

[ndchristie]

Woops!  each of these show a difficulty in understanding the face in 3/4 view.

dang though, i try to post more than a half-baked crit and i run out of time again.  wanted to turn this diagram into 3/4ths and then put skin over but this will have to do for now...:



hopefully what you'll get from this is that the forms of the greater face are not smooth and round like a football, even with flesh.  I have a feeling you're pushing the outlines of the frontal face over slightly and then drawing the features at an angle, but in reality when you turn the head the whole form must properly rotate with it.  Wish i had time for a practical demo...

[Helm]

be careful with how necks actually work, also work on ears a bit from reference (I should follow my own advice here) and you have a bad case of michael jackson nose here :/ Eyebrows need integration with the face, and generally, study life more!

[Bissle]

@ndchristie: For the blonde girl, the perspective is somewhere between front and 3/4 (though the crit still applies a bit. The two that are 3/4, yeah they look a little out of perspective.

@Helm: Michael Jackson nose, gah! Good catch with the ears and neck-- my anatomy isn't this bad, I swear! Pixel art is a whole different area I guess... yeah, that's it!

A tentative update on the last one. The others are gonna be worked on throughout the next week. 

[Helm]

most problems persist, though good neck schange! Michael Jackson nose, what do I mean: when the tip of the nose is much higher than the nosetrills, like in your case, see what I mean? Still there, but not as problematic, you could just say that's how you want her to look.

Lips, why is there no upper lip? It looks kinda strange to me but then again most anime-ish art looks strange to me!

Ears: still invented. A lot of artists just invent ears and are done with it, I don't begrudge them, they're a pain. But learn to do ears and then if you still want, abstract them to a couple of lines, nobody's going to complain.

That left eyebrow, goes too low, close to the eye, on its left edge. Keep in mind eyebrows are on the brow bone! They don't travel lower than it.

[r1k]

I did an edit of the pink haired girl, mainly to make her look more feminin.  I wasnt sure if thats what you were going for but based on the 2007 version it seemed you wanted her to look more feminin.

mainly took out the widdows peak, made the chin a little smaller and less squarish, and made the neck just a little smaller, among some other minor things.

[Bissle]

I was aiming for a slightly turned up nose before, but I tried a straighter one, and... I like it. Though I think I want it to be thinner, I dunno.


@Helm: Haha, nah, I knew exactly what you were talking about, though I was thinking the really thin bridge + large wings were what gave that impression. Top lip was there, but only only colored light pink instead of outlined, otherwise they'd be more full than what I'm going for.  Still gotta study up on those ears--they can be as aggravating as hands!

@r1k: Heeey, nice edit! Thanks! I took some of your fixes into account (reduced the widow's peak, softened the jaw slightly, rounded the scalp, etc). The 2007 version just was due to... well, me having no clue what I was doing, but she wasn't supposed to be especially feminine. Still, glad for the edit!

A bald redo from scratch of the brown-haired guy:



... meh.