Activity #2 2D - Aven

Rough colours and lighting. I'm thinking of desaturating her blue top just a little more.

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au//mlanham/2D/dnd_portraits/cleric_lighting.j…]

Coming along really nice !!

This looks like Photoshop, youre not using Painter!?!?!
I was actually thinking of doing mine in PS, simply becuase I think I can work faster in it.
Anyway, looking good, maybe give that skintone some more warmth.

Haha. Wrong Makk :) Painter 8.

Thanks for the advice. At that stage I thought I wanted her skin to be fairly pale and slightly desaturated to match that of Hades (and she would be either Neutral Evil or Lawful Evil). I have since made her skin warmer. I've also made her shirt more desaturated, and am thinking of toning down her gold. Not sure yet :)

EDIT: Done for today. I know I'm putting a little more effort into this than what HazarD probably intended. Meh :p

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au//mlanham/2D/dnd_portraits/ClericWIP_01.jpg[…]

Still have to add more highlights into the left hand side of her head (her left hand side). Any crits welcome :)

Looks awesome so far Aven , but I should have mentioned earlier, doesnt her hairline look a tad high on her head, or has she shaven the first inch back for.... err.. hades devotion purposes [:p]

And as far as the amount of effort going into it, I intend to do a pretty decent job on the avatar - to the best of my current abilities anyhoo, it's an area I've never ventured into all that much, and decided it's high time to flex the portrait muscle.

There is a suprisingly small number of penises in this one Mattt
:D

HazarD - Thanks. lol, I'll make sure I bring her receding hairline forward a bit. Either that or give her a nice Vampire like triangle of hair at the front :p It's just that you said spend about five hours on it. I have have spent about five hours so far on it. Oh my painting is way too slow.

Bob - If your gonna spell my name, at least get it right. There are only four letters in it :p I'll make sure I just take one in on the right hand side rubbing her cheek (no not that cheek... mainly as it isn't visible). Happy? :D

Hah! It looked PS to me, what brushes?
I think she could use some more contrast (stronger lighting) and more colours in the skintone, at the moment it looks all pink.
The ponytail at the back looks really good, paint the hair like that it will look really good. :)

I'm using some custom varients of the Fine Camel 30 Oil Brush. I just created two varients. One that is just opaque, and one that is used to smear and blend the colours. I changed them to turn off pressure size (always frustrates me :) )and have pressure opacity.

I will bring some more colours into her skin. Maybe give her some redish rouge on her cheeks (without going for the whore look ;) ). When I add in the backlights, i will bring in some yellow/taned tones from the bg :) Thanks for the advice :)

Just to be a pain, i think she looks better with much whiter skin. Seems to off set the strong colours of the clothes. comming along nice but :)

She looks great but i second john on the whiter skin comment.
right now with her warm skin she just looks like a female paladin or something (not sure about D&D or NWN character classes)

Damn. I thinking that she was looking a little less... evil than I hoped, and that she was starting to look more like a Paladin or a Fighter. At the moment, I have teo options. Change the colour balance of her skin in PS and then try to get the new skin tones in Painter, or i could keep on going, and just make her a Paladin. I'm thinking of going with the second option. I will just change her blue lips and kill the eyeliner. Change the colour of her armour and go from there.

If this turns out well, I wouldn't mind doing a second one to try to speed myself up a little. Maybe the Cleric can come out and play then :) Besides, I really should have put her in a nice dark gown ;)

Thanks for the honesty though John and MoonUnit :)

no worries, as a paladin shes a damn good one :D

the colour is a very minor crit. Not worth spending time fussing over unless you are planning this to be a portfolio piece. Just forge ahead I think, time better spent on other aspects.

awesome work aven. i really like the fece on her. and the armour is very stylish :)
i like how you have made the skin look so soft altho more contrast may be needed (as mentioned above)
cant wait to see more

John - Yeah. I have this thing where I like to try to make it as polished as I can. Should time permit though :)

Anuxinamoon - Thanks. I guess it is just my style. I prefer really soft shadows. Unless it is on something that I am trying to make really evil looking :)

I didn't have time to work on her over the weekend, but had time today. Fixed up her hair, armour and skin tones. Problen is that in fixing up her face, there is now something about it that doesn't sit right with me. I will finish everything off first and then probably go back to the face. I know that the dark purple armour may not be the most suitable colour for a Paladin, but it looks cool :p Crits welcome again :)

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au//mlanham/2D/dnd_portraits/ClericWIP_02.jpg[…]

damn, thats extremely good.
no crits at all really o.o i mean youve got all the texures perfect like the metal skin and hair as far as im concerned, looks a hell of a lot like a real avatar (well a mostly finished one) from baulders gate or something.

The colour values have changed quite dramatically! Must have taken some tweeking!! I like the 'brushed Steel' look on the armour. Are you planning the gold trim to be ultra-shiney to off set the matte armour? that would look good me thinks.

The whole pic has an unsusal feminie feel with its soft focus 'airbrush style' contours, soft colour selection and rounded forms. I could imagine it as box art for a game pitched at young teenage girls... hope that's not an off putting comment, its not meant to be.

MoonUnit - Thanks. That's some nice comment :)

John - Yeah. The colour changes on her skin did take a bit. Not too much though. I wanted to make the Gold trim really smooth and shiny. I guess that lack of patience and lack of knowledge made it end up not quite as shiny as I would have liked :) No offense taken at all. made me laugh :D

Final version, unless anyone sees anything majorly wrong. Fixed her face up a bit. I have spent enough time on it (16 hours or so), so I don't want to spend any more on it. It was fun to do and pushed me a little further than what I have done before. Thanks to all who provided feedback, and thanks to HazarD for suggesting it :D

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au//mlanham/2D/dnd_portraits/Paladin_Final.jpg…]

that is fantastic [:D] I love the airbrushiness of it. And the metal looks great to. Good job.

great work Aven, thats a top piece :)

Awesome work Aven, I do have something of note though, when I compare the final work and the pencil sketch - I notice that the hair looks pulled alot tighter across the head in the pencil sketch, where as the final piece is looks really fluffy almost animal like fur, a squirrels coat for instance.

Hair is definately not the easiest of things to paint, I know [:D] but i just thought I'd point that out :)

Very diffused lighting, nice work, my only niggle is her ear maybe but thats about it! Cool sort of burnished metal feel for her armour too!