Majors Art

[Major]

Some random magician guy modeled on the main character from DiD.

[thespaceinvader]

Good - the head seems a little small, however, and could do with coming forward just a bit.

[A-Red]

I think it's not so much that the head is small (though it may be a little)--the rest of the body is very tall by mainline standards.

[Major]

I have been watching all of the amazing portrait artists at work, and have become a little bit jelous, so I tried my hand at portraiting (is that even a word?).

I've posted my second and third tries, although neither of them is completed, the first try would make your eyes bleed to see it so I'm not going to post it.

Can anyone help me pull myself out of this morass of unskilledness?

[Iris]

The anatomy needs a lot of work, for starters.

(Random art contribs, back me up here.)

[thespaceinvader]

Anatomy studies. Do them. Lots. And lots. And lots. ANd in the interim, use reference material, copiously. You only need yourself, a digitial camera, and a self-timer.

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm should get you started on some other important areas.

[boru]

I have been watching all of the amazing portrait artists at work, and have become a little bit jelous, so I tried my hand at portraiting (is that even a word?).

I can't help too much with the art, but the word is portraiture.

[Midnight_Carnival]

I have been watching all of the amazing portrait artists at work, and have become a little bit jelous, so I tried my hand at portraiting (is that even a word?).
Can anyone help me pull myself out of this morass of unskilledness?

Stop complaining! you make really great sprites. I can't do sprites or portraits!
But the only advice I can give you in this regard is to not judge your work by what you see being posted. Just try to make the next portrait you draw better than the last one in some way, get distracted, but don't give up. I do know exactly how it feels when you draw something that is in your opinon 100% better than the last portrait you drew and then somebody come and posts a thread called somthing like "I'm a noob, please help" and the portraits they post are unbelievbly hardcore and beautiful, like you can't even compare what you are doing. Like if you devoted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to improving your skill you'd never be able to get that good in your lifetime! Don't compare it, because when you follow someone you can only hope to become as good as them, never better.

That came across like one of those stupid "you can!" motivational things, but actually it's the kind of thing I tell myself to stop myself from smashing my head into the walls out of frustration.

[Major]

That came across like one of those stupid "you can!" motivational things, but actually it's the kind of thing I tell myself to stop myself from smashing my head into the walls out of frustration.

My computer is making me do this already. My computer is schizophrenic I swear. It just had another fit yesterday and now it refuse to display anything on the monitor at all, so I aint gonna be playing any computer games anytime soon.
Oh well at least it leaves more time to practise portraiting and do other wesnoth related things on the laptop.

Thanks for the motivational speech.

[boru]

Right, portraiting, right ... (goes to smash my head too)

[Valkier]

I don't know if this will help you out much or not, but here's an old step by step I made for the bad moon rising thread.



Just keep in mind that this is NOT a substitute for real anatomy studies. This is simply how I go about building the human male body for portraits.

[Major]

Thanks valkier.

Tried again with marginaly better results but in a different style.

[Midnight_Carnival]

That green guy made my day!

Suggetion: Tone him down a bit, especially round the edges, add some texture to the skin, I think something like localised crosshatching might work, and some really badass veins, like he's on steroids. Since your creature is quite mutated (I presume?) I won't lecture you on anatomy... especially since that's what people are always compalining to me about, but do have a look at people's bodies, porn, flayed corpses or roadkill someitmes.

Wesnoth portraits generally start with a line drawing (correct me if I'm wrong) and then add colour and then detial. I don't like working like that (although paradoxically I'd like to acieve the effect you get then you do ), and I'm glad to see other people trying different styles.

[Dixie]

As M_C said, anatomy is a bit lost on your last green-mutant portrait, but comparing it with the previous one, I'd say your (main?) aatomical problem resides around the head. Your portraits' bodies are pretty bulky, but they have pretty small heads (proportionnally). Appart from especially muscled/thin exceptions (and not counting clothing and armor) a person's head should be about half as large as its shoulder width, IIRC. Also, they have absolutely no neck and are stuck between the shoulders, which strenghtens the bulky impression. The rest ain't perfect, but I think it's the main issue.

[Major]

Thanks, I'll have to work that into the next one.