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CURRENT [June 9]
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Id appreciate any comments and crits you may have.
See the post below for process.
(Original post, for reference)
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PRE-RAMBLE
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I looked through the lineart thread, and 1 particular image caught my attention. Im on my christmas break from university, and thought it might be fun to do up a quick doodle. Unfortunately that changed for me very fast. As I began working and getting back into pixeling I realized I havent posted any original pixelart since sometime 2007. As I was working on this, I kept changing my mind, and my approach and direction. I generally save most of my steps, and figured this might be an interesting project to share.
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PURPOSE OF THREAD
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Currently the purpose of this thread is for me to share and show my progress through this piece. I will post my previous steps and give some explanations as to why and what I did, and to where I am headed. Right now there may not be much technical discussion, but hopefully within my later steps that will come. Its been interesting for me in the past to look at other peoples approaches, and thus I figured I would share this. I have a long way to go, and alot more to work on.
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PREVIOUS STEPS
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-MSpaint
-using mouse
-no references
Originally I stumbled upon the lineart on the left by sohashu. It intrigued me and I was just going to make it a quick doodle. The original lineart was blown up to 3X, and therefor I shrunk it down to work on it. Before I ever work on something, I like to have very clean lines. As can be seen by the face in red, I quickly cleaned up the lines, defined the face before I would begin to color. If I have clean and clearly defined lines, then I find it easier to block in colors (discussed later) before I add my texture and blending.
Since this was supposed to be a quick and easy project, more for personal fun than to show, I chose arbitrary colors from a previous unfinished piece of mine. Which is why she has green hair, and poor skin color (this will be fixed later). As I completed the little face, I realized it just didnt have that same flair that the initial lineart grabbed me with. I recognized that one of the attractions of the original lines was the size. This is when I knew that this project was going to turn into something much much larger. I blew up my small doodle to 3X, and began to sit and think of how could I approach this at the new size.
**NOTE: for some reason this isnt at full size? photobucket shrunk it. Im not going to change it, you get the idea**
One of my initial approaches I took to the resized image was just seeing if I could smooth out the original pixels I blew up. By going back and adding small curves between each. This proved to be a horrible failure. At such an increased size, the amount of detail and control I have over the face is much more than the small version. This meant I would need to completely redraw and revamp the face. I got rid of all the previous shading and just left the key features of the face such as the eyes, nose and mouth. I felt I had alright placements in the small version for these, and therefore I used them as guidlines when re-drawing the face. The eyes, nose and mouth are essentially the same as before.
Once I got the lines cleaned up to a decent point, I needed to start blocking in my colors. As can be seen by the centre image, I start by defining where the highlighted and shadowed areas of the face will be. At this point I have it very angular and very harsh. From past projects I have done, when I go for the final blending and texturing, it will naturally smoothen out. The third image just illustrates the continuation of the process by layering more and more colors onto the face.
After a while of playing I feel at this point I have blocked out the face well enough, to put it on hold for now. I quickly roughed in the neck and ear within 3 mins just to get a feel for them. Like my lines, I like my block colors to very clean, with nice curves. When they are tidy, there is then no noise to deal with for texturing and blending later on. The lines and block colors are important steps for me as they give me a base concept of the direction I am going.
Much Like the face, I knew the hair needed to be redone completely as well. I therefore deleted all the previous hair, and will have to create new lines for it from scratch.
The face is not done. Just on hold, so I can work on the hair.
***If you are interested in further detail of any of the steps just ask. I have more images on development of hair, and block shading, but I chose these as they were most significant.
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CURRENT STAGE
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I have now just finished defining the hair through lines. Looking at the silhouette of the hair, I tried to imagine and visualize what kind of hair could fit that shape. I decided that a bit of curly hair would be great. The top portion over her forehead is more flat, and the hair behind her neck would be a thick curly mess. I then just tried to sweep the hair into such a shape that it would fit the black space. I found this to be a long process, as I wasn't sure exactly where I was going with it. For nearly every strand I drew I zoomed out to see if it did what I wanted it to. Within the thick mess, I went back after and added more strands to interweave in between the curls. For areas like this, this is where clean lineart proves to be very very helpful. Now when going back to block in colors I will know where and what shapes to use.
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WHERE NEXT / WHAT NOW
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Currently I am blocking in the hair, and should hopefully have an update soon.
Once I have finished blocking in the hair, then 'stage 1' will be done. I consider this stage to be very very rough. Alot of flaws with anatomy, lighting, volume/depth, colors (I know, I have used probably more colors than you would have. thats okay for me right now), etc. Pretty well every aspect of it has flaws, and there would be alot of C+C for this right now. But thats fine, as there is still quite a ways before I am finished. I see alot of the issues, and will come back to them later. Anything that has been done, is not finalized and will be changed. This is fleshing out the concept, so I can get a grasp of what I want as a finished product.
I will probably do 2 more 'stages'. A rendering stage which include texturing, color refinement, volume defining, and blending. This stage should correct alot of the larger flaws, and during this time I will be more interested in C+C. This stage will bring the image closer to completion.
The final stage will come down to nit-picky refinement, where I will play with each pixel individually till I have exactly what I want, or to the best of my abilities. there should not be any large changes I will be making during this point, rather this is putting on the final touches.
As mentioned above currently I am just sharing my progress, and not too worried about C+C at this point. Shortly within a few edits, that will change.
Hopefully by sharing my progress through this thread, a few others may find it beneficial.
I know my techniques are slow, and some not needed, but this is also a learning project for me as well.
Hopefully I will have an update soon.
