Portraits for Northern Rebirth

[Maeglin Dubh]

Here they are. Not my best, but not my worst, and not bad for five-minute concept scribbles! Feel free to borrow elements from any one of these.

http://maeglin.dubh.googlepages.com/AxeUpright.JPG

Eh.... Fixed it to a link. That's just huge.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The horned helmet is totally overused, clichéd and looks goofy (it already was during Vikings' time, that's why they never used them). If you insist on using it, may I suggest that you use something less bland than simple bovine horns? Dwarves are mountain people, so horns of a mufflon or a goat would be a natural choice. Here's an example for reference:

[battlesquid]

Sgt. Groovy:
It's overused, on the other hand it looks like a durable combat helmet as opposed to replacing the horns with the goat horns you suggested. To me it looks like those will break off easily and more importantly be in the way during combat. It would probably look very nice though.

Maeglin Dubh:
Nice axes. It's good reference material, I'll look at it next time I'm drawing an axe. Maybe you could delete the first posting though, so it doesn't annoy people when looking at page 5.

[Sgt. Groovy]

To me it looks like those will break off easily

I take it that you've never seen rams fighting.

and more importantly be in the way during combat. It would probably look very nice though.

Any horns would be a liability in a realistic battle helmet. They add weight, and if a weapon hits them, they will act as a lever that will either yank the helmet off your head, or yank your head around. They would only to be likely to be seen on a ceremonial helmet, which yours might be, considering the jewel.

A battle helmet would rather be plain conical or round one, to make weapons slide off, or if it had decorative extrusions, they would be so thin they'd break if hit.

[Taurus]

I think this portrait is comming along good. I like the 'H' and the dimond. Adds a nice touch. About the horns, the reason why I asked for them was because of the image of the Dwarven Lord - see attached image. Another thing about realism, and comabt effectivness, remeber that this is a Fantasy Game Often in these kind of things, real life comabt effictivness takes a backseat to good looks. All the chicks wearing chain mail bikini's for example. Unless their main concern is to not have their booty dammaged, chain mail bikini's are not very combat effective.

That being said, I kind of like the ram horns idea - or something like it. Even if you want to add a few little curves in them, like a mountian goat to kind of make them origianl I think it would be neat. But, i'll leave the final decision up to you. The helement still looks good to me as it is.

[battlesquid]

Sgt. Groovy:
Yup, the helmet is indeed ornamental, so I see your point.

Taurus:
Good, I'll probably edit the horns, but not the helmet itself. Curled horns will make him look more fierce, which I think is what we want.

As Sisal had white under the lines I wasn't able to put cloth on her unfortunately. However I have started on a new sketch of her, and this time I have used a real life model, so the proportions and stance should be better.

I find it hard to make the mouth look the way I want it to, she should look fierce and thoughtful, like a leader that observes her fighters during a battle considering whether she should offer her men help. The eyes are not perfect either, but I will do the details like that in post scan. The chin is looking too much to her right, that's easy to fix. The ear may be too big too.

The sword needs critique, I'm not happy with it, but I think I like the skeleton head cross-guard. I think it's the hilt (where you hold the sword with your hand) is the part the needs to be redrawn, what do you think?

[Maeglin Dubh]

The hilt needs to be longer. Long enough for two hands, at least. A sword of that length (I assume the point is touching the ground) would probably be a [censored] sword, or a hand-and-a-half sword for the more polite among us, that being a sword for use with one or two hands.

[Taurus]

She's off to a good start Battlesquid. However, I don't like the skeleton crossgurad. I am not critiquing it but I just don't think that suits her personality. She is an elf after all. Othwise you got her mood down pretty good.

[Jetrel]

Some hopefully instructive comments:
• The chin point should go (more or less) directly beneath where that part in her hair starts at the front. Right now the face is as though different parts were drawn from two different angles; That's cubism, and it can be cool, but it's a no-no, here.

• Her shoulders are somewhat disproportionately wide (compared to the size of her head). Also a bit low.

• Great work on the hands, and many parts of the arms.

• Her hip/waist construction doesn't look feminine enough. The hip curve on a girl starts higher up, and generally cuts in deeper, cuts in beyond the limits of the hip bone.

[battlesquid]

Maeglin Dubh:
I agree, and you're right, it should be possible to use with one or two hands.

Taurus:
Thanks, since you like her I will continue on this sketch. The skeleton cross-guard will come off by the next sketch, as you pointed out it's not very elvish. I'll try to dream up a new idea for the cross-guard. I want it to look original. Maybe if it looked more like folding branches, wouldn't that be elvish?

Jetryl:
Thanks for well-describing instructions.

I've corrected the chin as you suggested. It was never my intention to draw cubism, hehe. I've also redrawn the mouth, I think it looks better now.

The shoulders are too wide... I will either have to redraw the head (not sure I like the face anyways) or redraw the body (not tempting because it's pretty good). I don't think I can just narrow the shoulders, because that would make the arms larger than the shoulders they come out from, which is anatomically incorrect. Help me decide what to do

Thank you for noticing my efforts with the hands.

Not sure, but I've tried to correct the hips to look more like you described. Let me know if I got the idea.

---

So for this sketch I have only worked on the body. I think I messed up the nose though. I'll redraw the sword hilt and cross-guard as soon as I have the body looking the way it should.

Edit: The new head was so ugly I had to delete the attachment! Here's a new one. Maybe not as good as the first, but the proportions and angle seems right to me. My friend says the mouth looks weird, though I disagree. I'm not sure what it is, but something still seems wrong about the head. The breasts have been sized down as well.

[Sgt. Groovy]

I think the shoulders are pretty ok, If she's used to wield a sword, wide shoulders are appropriate. The problem I see is with the hollow between the collarbones, which should be lower and more to the centre and the centre ends of the collarbones should also be lower (the bones forming a very shallow "v").

I'm not sure about the expression, to me it signals "Shite, this is not good!" Tightly shut lips, I think, would express concentration and resolution better. One thing you must remember about the lips is that under normal from-upward lighting conditions, the upper lip is always darker than the lower lip. A good minimalistic way to draw the lips is to draw the upper lip darker than the face, and outline the lower lip with the shadow that forms under it. The human portraits by Jason Lutes are a good example.

The main problem I see with the face is that it looks made up. Naturally, women's lips are no redder or fuller than men's, neither are their eyelashes longer or darker.

And please do think of something else for the sword handguards, right now it looks like straight out of Phantom.

And, I think moving the legs slightly wider apart would make a more determined stance, also correcting the forward lean.

[battlesquid]

I think the shoulders are pretty ok, If she's used to wield a sword, wide shoulders are appropriate. The problem I see is with the hollow between the collarbones, which should be lower and more to the centre and the centre ends of the collarbones should also be lower (the bones forming a very shallow "v").

Yeah, I'm not going to change the shoulders, especially now that I've redrawn the head. The collarbones have been fixed in latest sketch I think.

I'm not sure about the expression, to me it signals "Shite, this is not good!"

The main problem I see with the face is that it looks made up. Naturally, women's lips are no redder or fuller than men's, neither are their eyelashes longer or darker.

Yes, in fact it was so bad I had to delete that sketch! I think the nose was the worst though.

And please do think of something else for the sword handguards, right now it looks like straight out of Phantom.

I'm thinking Punisher!

And, I think moving the legs slightly wider apart would make a more determined stance, also correcting the forward lean.

Yes I agree, I'll do that.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The new face: I liked the old eyebrows better, and the fact that she's looking at the same level, like into the distance. Now she's looking clearly downwards. You could also try to make the eyes a bit squinted, people tend to squint their eyes when they are looking concentrated into the distance (use a mirror to see how squinting changes the face).

The ear is too close to the eyes. This is a common mistake, but the ears are actually quite far back.

[battlesquid]

Sgt. Groovy:
I agree, the old eyebrows were better suited to show the expression that I'm looking for. So I followed your advice and redraw them.

Looking down, however, is exactly what I want her eyes to do. I imagine her standing on a hill looking down on her divisions at the battlefield beneath.

I have tried to make the eyes squint a little, I'm not sure, but I think at least they look more lively and focused than sketch 3.

I've kept working on the mouth, and I feel that it's getting better. The lips may look fuller than the average woman's, but I prefer them that way actually. Also when I think about it, I know some people have much fuller lips than others naturally, so it's not inappropriate.

The ear has been moved back as suggested, but how about its size?

Better shadows are also applied in this sketch.

[battlesquid]

Hamel with ram horns, a more aged face and the beginning of his new axe.

I'm open for suggestions as to how he will hold the axe, maybe he will hold onto the top of the axe (where the haft/handle stops) with his right hand?