A Tale Of Two Brothers - Portraits

Post by **West** » May 3rd, 2007, 7:07 pm

torangan wrote:I like the latest version more but I'm can't judge on artistic or realism based opinions. Just personal taste.

Thank you. I also like this version myself. Hopefully this style is acceptable for a mainline portrait since strict cel-shading isn't really my cup of tea (and my interest in learning it is therefore not great).

Post by **turin** » May 3rd, 2007, 7:12 pm

The only issue I have with it is, it looks sort of strange for the armor to have such a detailed texture and the skin to be plainly cell-shaded.

Post by **West** » May 3rd, 2007, 7:22 pm

turin wrote:The only issue I have with it is, it looks sort of strange for the armor to have such a detailed texture and the skin to be plainly cell-shaded.

The skin is not finished yet, I will add a bit more detail to the face at least (perhaps a few little wrinkles). As for texture... a rough, dented piece of metal has a much more defined and visible texture than human skin. Adding some texture to Arnes face would probably just look weird.

OTOH, I could always make the armor texture more subtle. But I'm aiming for neither photorealism nor a plain comic book style, so I wanted to be a little adventurous.

Post by **zookeeper** » May 3rd, 2007, 7:54 pm

West wrote:As for texture... a rough, dented piece of metal has a much more defined and visible texture than human skin. Adding some texture to Arnes face would probably just look weird.

I'd generally tend to agree, but considering that Arne might actually be someone in his fourties or more, showing some more age even in the form of a texture wouldn't hurt IMO. Not that I think it's particularly necessary, and he wouldn't need to exactly look like Edward James Olmos either. On the other hand, subtle skin texturing like that would probably indeed be very hard to do without it looking weird, or so I'd imagine.

Post by **West** » May 4th, 2007, 2:11 pm

Well, I dunno. I added a slight texture to his skin and I think it looks OK, it adds a bit of realism. Other than that, I'm starting to think that this image might be more or less finished now.

What do you think?

Post by **Sgt. Groovy** » May 4th, 2007, 2:29 pm

The skin texture is too uniform. It should reflect the differences in skin quality in different parts of the face, and follow the surface contours also.

The patina on the armour looks nice.

Post by **Darth Fool** » May 4th, 2007, 3:41 pm

To me, the hair still looks a little too flat. It needs some more thin shadows indicating how the hair sits on the head. Kind of like:

I also would probably blur the skin texture a bit more. The variation is a bit much. I would expect more variation from wrinkles and the like then the spottiness of the texture.

Overall, this is getting to look very good.

Post by **West** » May 4th, 2007, 5:06 pm

Mkay, some small changes to the hair, the skin texture and the sword hilt.

edit: hmm, the previous version had better contrast. But I can't remember what I did

Post by **turin** » May 4th, 2007, 5:13 pm

Sweet!

Only two comments -

1) The hair could still use some work - see Darth Fool's comment.

2) The sword's hilt looks like it is made out of stone, not metal. Maybe that's intentional, but it seems sort of strange to me.

Post by **West** » May 4th, 2007, 6:01 pm

turin wrote:Sweet!

Only two comments -

1) The hair could still use some work - see Darth Fool's comment.

2) The sword's hilt looks like it is made out of stone, not metal. Maybe that's intentional, but it seems sort of strange to me.

1) Personally I think the hair is fine. Using the same amount of contrast as in the example portrait will make Arne's hair look a lot darker -- and besides, my image is in a completely different style.

2) Stone huh? Hmm. I was thinking more like rough, pitted iron surface like this image. Now that you mention it though, the hilt could use a very slight green/blue hue to make it look more metallic. Right now it's just too gray.

Post by **Darth Fool** » May 4th, 2007, 7:34 pm

Ok, I just noticed something else. I thought his right hand looked a little flat and needs a little more shading (his left is quite good!), and then I started counting. Assuming he has a thumb that we can't see because it is behind the hilt, it looks like he has 6 fingers! Having not played this campaign, I don't know if that is part of the story, but well, I thought that I would point it out

Post by **West** » May 4th, 2007, 7:40 pm

Darth Fool wrote:Ok, I just noticed something else. I thought his right hand looked a little flat and needs a little more shading (his left is quite good!), and then I started counting. Assuming he has a thumb that we can't see because it is behind the hilt, it looks like he has 6 fingers! Having not played this campaign, I don't know if that is part of the story, but well, I thought that I would point it out

Oh shite... you're right :O

And no, he's not supposed to have six fingers... dammit. I need to fix that.

Post by **West** » May 4th, 2007, 8:24 pm

Ok, I removed a knuckle on the right hand, adjusted the others and redid the shading on the hands... oddly enough, it looks even more malformed than before.

Post by **Jetrel** » May 4th, 2007, 10:08 pm

Consult what I said to Sgt. Groovy about the knuckles "arching".

The individual fingers segments do this as well - the ones on the middle finger are longer than on the surrounding fingers.

This was a little trick I figured out recently in my "learn anatomy marathon" I've been quietly doing lately; it's had a transformative effect on my ability to draw hands.

Post by **irrevenant** » May 5th, 2007, 2:50 am

The lighting on his face looks oversaturated on my monitor. ie. He looks like he's sitting right next to a really bright spotlight.