Corvvs' Thread of Ill-Fated Portraits: Merman Hunter

[Corvvs]

Seeing as how Kitty has a better gryphon portrait, I think I'll ditch this and maybe take a shot at another monster instead - the Sea Serpent. EDIT: Sketch.

[Turuk]

It's very rough, so not really too much to say, but I have always been a fan of the sea serpent rising up, considering who he is going to attack next pose. This should not be too hard to do anatomically (compared to a half-lion half-eagle), just may be an issue of making him convincingly frightening.

[Corvvs]

Here's an inked version (no line width yet though, all the same). I had to sit down and think about how it would move, and decided that it would be cool for it to swim like a Flatworm, hence the big droopy fins along the sides. So, how is it?

[Turuk]

I would say that that might not be a bad take, but possibly blend the flatworm fin idea with a more traditional view of the movement like an eel, with the undulation of the body providing the impetus for movement.

[Skizzaltix]

Interesting--I like the idea of the fins.
Though, there's something about the shape of the eye, possibly in combination with the mouth, that makes it look more friendly than scary
I think it's mostly the way it's looking up at the camera... Try having it look down, with the iris partially obscured by its lower lid, maybe?
Anyway, good job! Keep it up

[thespaceinvader]

If at all possible, give it 6 limbs, even if they are vestigial, and it can be a species in the same family as drakes and dragons. I've been considering wesnoth's fauna a lot recently, and it would be nice if we could have them share some characteristics.

And from a colouration point of view, try to have the top a dark, desaturated colour (green, since that's on the sprite) and the bottom a pale colour - one of the most prevalent things you'll see in large marine animals is this sort of colouration, as it camouflages from both top and bottom.

[Corvvs]

Here's the version with some limbs.

@Turuk: indeed, the side fins will remain small.
@Ski: did what you said, and IMO it looks better. Thanks.

[thespaceinvader]

I was thinking along the lines of something where it was mostly 'body' with the limbs evenly spaced along it, but I like the idea of something that's mostly tail with all three limbs emrged into one long fin. It's an interesting effect =) I'd suggest, though, scaling the body up in relation to the head - currently the proportions make the head look a little large.

[Turuk]

Vestigial limbs that turn into fins spaced like this piece of artwork TSI?

Limbs


Corvvs, I would make the head and body the same size, but maybe put more emphasis on the head details (more so than the fin-like protrusions you have) in order to clearly delineate between the two. Maybe something like this picture.

Head

[Corvvs]

Well, I just ran with what I had before you posted, Turuk, though you do raise a nice point about the head...

Here's a semi-shaded version.

[Turuk]

Fair enough, though you can always add more detail to the head if you are so inclined.

I like the colors used, I think the light green fins contrast nicely with the darker body. Beyond that, something seems a bit odd about the shading, but I am not really sure where your light source is coming from to be able to judge that very well. Plus, I know that you are still in the process of shading, so you may be changing/completing what I am giving critique on.

[Corvvs]

The light sources are the two big arrow things that are kinda hard to see... I'll fix that next time. The shading might have seemed odd because it lacked highlights - that's fixed at least.

[Urs]

Hmm... interesting. I still think something about it is quite, but then again I have a weird definition of quite so whatever.

It's still very dark, and also I'd imagien it'd have more scales on its body than it does now.

Either way, good work. But I'm very tired and probably should not be providing critique.

[Corvvs]

Voila. Scales via a bumpmap because I'm lazy.

[Ranger M]

give in to the lazy do not, leads to the darkside it does hmmm.

on a more serious note, those scales won't be visible when the serpent is in game, you should draw them individually (although you can make them big, to save time)