what I've been working on...

[CelestialBadger]

Sketched and painted in PS. I know the edges of the arms need to be sharpened. Those streaks on the arms are supposed to be veins. I'm curious as to what people think about them. I still have a lot of detail stuff to work out.

[SouLess]

Mustache + Gotee thing arnt working for me on this pic. And the veins on the arms are a bit...weird looking. Kinda also looks like you just mirrored one side, and shrunk it a bit. Thats either a good thing (if you didn't, you did amazingly well copying the image almost exact) or it's a bad thing (you took the cheap way out)


Either way, I like it. Keep up the work.

[Vadriel]

I see small differences between the sides of the face (eg: the wrinkles beneath the eyes) that lead me to believe that he didn't just mirror it, so I commend him on the symmetry.

I personally like the mustache/goatee. It suits the character and gives a better sense of personality to a face that would otherwise have less maturity to it. The facial hair conveys a better sense of age than the face would have in spite of the wrinkles, should he be clean-shaven.

The veins are intriguing, although I don't think they look like veins. They look more like some oddly-placed wrinkles, but they do also give a little more to the character. I'm the kind of person who likes to cover every part in detail, as you can see by the knight I posted, and while this picture doesn't need large amounts of detail to flow, the wrinkles don't hurt it any.

A tip, CB, for drawing veins in the future: they generally aren't so straight and parallel to each other. They spiderweb a lot more, and when just a few show, it looks more like an "x" or a "y", which is why a lot of time in animes a strained character will have a little "x" pop out on their forehead to represent veins. As a reference, try looking at an internal anatomy book that shows the veins and arteries of the human body, or if you don't want to get THAT in-depth and true-to-life, try looking at insect wings. The vein pattern in the wings is similar to our own.

All things considered, this is the first picture of yours I have seen, and I now feel a little more willing to accept your opinion as something coming from someone who really sort of knows what he's talking about. I like the picture a lot, and have attempted similar things much to no avail. I also am PHOTOSHOP-ILLITERATE, so I admire the way you touched up the picture and gave it so much more life than a black and white sketch would have had.

All in all, very nice job! I now again have a slightly better opinion of you. Let's see how long it lasts this time! :hop

9.3 out of 10. The only gripe I have at ALL, is the monotonous color scheme. I do like it and believe that it wouldn't have the same impact were it more vivid, but...I tend to err on the side of a little vibrance to a colored piece.

[Hot Action Akule]

like i said on VDC, try something with the hair. Look at the eyebrows and mustache you did. The hair looks too much like its sculpted, it looks a lot like clay i guess. Other than that it looks great, and if you were going for that sculpted clay look, then i wouldnt change a thing.

[jd-inflames]

Wow...I think that looks great period. Are his eyes supposed to be closed or is he just supposed to have blank eyes? Either effect would be good, but I'm almost hoping that they are just blank.

[Vadriel]

I'm pretty sure that they are closed. If you look closely, I think you can see eyelashes on the bottom. I realize the human body DOES have lower eyelashes, but not that long, so...I am almost positive that they are closed eyes.

But yeah, blank would be cool. I do like it this way, however, a bit more than blank would have been. Perhaps that is just the opinion of someone who FREQUENTLY draws blank eyes and cannot for the life of me draw closed eyes.

[CelestialBadger]

like i said on VDC, try something with the hair. Look at the eyebrows and mustache you did. The hair looks too much like its sculpted, it looks a lot like clay i guess. Other than that it looks great, and if you were going for that sculpted clay look, then i wouldnt change a thing.

Heh, yeah. I actually did change it some since then but I definitely agree that it still doesn't look right. Maybe I'll ask macman about that one too...

[MacMan]

Heh, yeah. I actually did change it some since then but I definitely agree that it still doesn't look right. Maybe I'll ask macman about that one too...

Don't ask me about hair, it's the bane of my existance. There's just so much volume and intricacy that goes into it, I find it impossible to do it any justice without a tablet. My advice: try to fake it as good as you can.

[Vadriel]

All I can think of that would do the hair better in the pic above would perhaps a little more randomness, and a lot more individual strands. What makes it so claylike is the large, ropelike strands that areperfectly sculpted to the shape of his head. A little more disorder, the tips splayed more, would likely give it a more realistic feel. Also, the way you had it shaded and textured makes it look a lot like a relief sculpture. The strands look like raised strips so to speak. I'm having a hard time putting it precisely into words...