Valkiers portraits: It's like I can touch you!

[Valkier]

Not too many visible fixes. Mostly getting it cleaned up and ready for the transparency. I sharpened the cloth on the left arm and roughed up the leather strap to a better degree. Fixed the perspective on the pelvis. Added in a gradient on his back to show there is some armor there. Otherwise just sharpened up various areas and put in some more colored bounce lights.

I suppose line work comes next. Unless I work up some ambition to spruce up a couple areas I'm looking at, I may just finish this.

[kitty]

Really, really nice! (but why do you post that big?) He's really getting there!

I'm trying to understand his pelvis right now and I'm a bit confused. I thought it was a placeholder in the last versions you posted, but since you called it fixed... The hip bones are of different sizes. Especially his left one is extremely bent, while the other one is much more straight - and the whole pelvis is rather the size of a women's than a man's. The easy way out would be to make it cracked and repaired in serveral places (like the skull or even more) or you take the anatomical challenge to get it right.

[Turuk]

A good beginning, this could go far. Keep working at it like kitty has pointed out and you will get there.

[Valkier]

A good beginning, this could go far. Keep working at it like kitty has pointed out and you will get there.

I see what you did thar.

[Valkier]

The reports of my death (there were none) are slightly exaggerated. Sorry for the lack of updates, work has been a bit more tedious lately. Also have a lot of college planning to take care of, so the bottom line is this is the first night in awhile I've had time to sit down and fix it up.

Anyhow, I fixed the pelvis. A few more things to touch up and then it's line time for me.

Really, really nice! (but why do you post that big?) He's really getting there!

I'm trying to understand his pelvis right now and I'm a bit confused. I thought it was a placeholder in the last versions you posted, but since you called it fixed... The hip bones are of different sizes. Especially his left one is extremely bent, while the other one is much more straight - and the whole pelvis is rather the size of a women's than a man's. The easy way out would be to make it cracked and repaired in serveral places (like the skull or even more) or you take the anatomical challenge to get it right.

Is there a law that all raised skeleton warriors must be men? Skeleton Female suffrage will come to fruition some day and you will be the first to be publicly crucified! Or not and I really didn't have a gender in mind for our bony friend. If it looks like a male now, great. If it still resembles our child birthing counter parts, I doubt I'll lose much sleep over it.

Also, I post so big because I work rather large. My typical setup is 300 DPI and at least 1000 pixels. I know that the final must be shrunk down considerably, but I just find this helps me work better having all the extra pixel realestate at my disposal. That and I'm very detail oriented so this helps me get that out of my system at the same time. I can shrink them down for posting here if it is a problem. Just let me know.

[Valkier]

Glowy eyes!

[Vendanna]

I think the image ends looking better without the glowing eyes, since for some reasons.

the glowing eyes make it looks more "funny" rather than "Frightening" (probably because the glow is too huge?) and I feel it also attracts the attention more to the "head" where the lightsource is placed rather than the full piece (which its bad since its an awesome portrait)

I don't know why people want to add "glowing" eyes to animated skeletons, those (apart of being very small size, aka the light should be like similar to a pupil in size (a bit bigger maybe) its usually used to show "mallevolent intelligence"...

... and a lvl 1 skeleton isn't your "special undead" just a zombie without flesh.

the bottom of the axe handler (the wood part) isn't finished yet, I suspect. apart of that this is one of the best undead pieces I have seen drawed on these boards and I wanted to congratulate you for drawing it.

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah, I'd say lose the glowy eyes. They're very difficult to do correctly, conflict with the sprite, and look really goofy. It looks much more sinister without them. Otherwise, looking good. You must be about ready for linework by now...

[Valkier]

I probably should have said it in my last post. Glowy eyes were not intended to be a permenant fixture. Basically I was watching some terrible anime on Hulu last night and I decided to do that for the hell of it. I also have one with gigantic anime eyes and another with tinier skulls in the eye sockets.

Thanks for the compliment Vendanna! I have a feeling that by the time I'm done doing all the skeleton portraits, I'm going to be rather well versed in what comprises us. This may or may not be a good thing.

TSI: Yeah. The part I've been fearing. Line work. God help us all.

P.S. Castle is a fun show.

[kitty]

Is there a law that all raised skeleton warriors must be men? Skeleton Female suffrage will come to fruition some day and you will be the first to be publicly crucified! Or not and I really didn't have a gender in mind for our bony friend. If it looks like a male now, great. If it still resembles our child birthing counter parts, I doubt I'll lose much sleep over it

No, of course not. But generally I'd expect most corpses on Wesnothian battlefields to be male and since those are the rawmaterial for dark sorcerers... More important is that the new pelvis is much more anatomically correct - good work!

And after you'll have finished him, which skeleton will be next?

[Valkier]

Is there a law that all raised skeleton warriors must be men? Skeleton Female suffrage will come to fruition some day and you will be the first to be publicly crucified! Or not and I really didn't have a gender in mind for our bony friend. If it looks like a male now, great. If it still resembles our child birthing counter parts, I doubt I'll lose much sleep over it

No, of course not. But generally I'd expect most corpses on Wesnothian battlefields to be male and since those are the rawmaterial for dark sorcerers... More important is that the new pelvis is much more anatomically correct - good work!

And after you'll have finished him, which skeleton will be next?

I don't know for certain yet. Leaning towards death blade so I can do some different outlandish things. I have ideas for the archer (arrows with bone fingertips for points anyone?) but I want to sit on that concept for awhile.

Revenant would be a close second. We'll see which way the wind blows me.

As for the next portrait however, I have a question. There was a comment made earlier in my thread that since these are skeletons, conversation and dialogue probably won't be cropping up for them. Does this mean I can make my next one look a little more action ready or should I stick with a more relaxed pose like I did this one?

[thespaceinvader]

Generally, I'd avoid anything too outlandish like bone fingertips for arrowheads on the level one. Canonically, the boneshooter, as the name suggests, uses bone arrows, so you could use them there. But it's difficult to make such things look realistic and threatening. Carved bone might be a good bet, though.

I'll leave final judgement on activeness of skeleton portraits for kitty, but for my money, making them too active would be a bad idea - just cos they're not used often doesn't change the technical spec...

[Valkier]

Generally, I'd avoid anything too outlandish like bone fingertips for arrowheads on the level one. Canonically, the boneshooter, as the name suggests, uses bone arrows, so you could use them there. But it's difficult to make such things look realistic and threatening. Carved bone might be a good bet, though.

I'll leave final judgement on activeness of skeleton portraits for kitty, but for my money, making them too active would be a bad idea - just cos they're not used often doesn't change the technical spec...

I really can't/won't start on a new portrait till I hear the final decision on posture. I got lucky with this last one it seems so I don't want to push my luck.

As for the arrows, you're right. It is difficult to make it realistic and threatening. That's what makes it so fun to try! If I was worried about failure, I may as well stop drawing now.

[kitty]

Active is fine, but not too active. It should still be usable for dialogue. Just because skellies aren't used much for dialogue right now doesn't mean that they couldn't become popular enough (thanks to your portraits ) to get speaking roles in future.

But if we have got a usable basic portrait, you can feel free to add additional alternate ones ranging from defeat to crazy victory. First the basics, afterwards the fun.

[Valkier]

First attempt at outlining. I tried to put them in without flattening anything on the interior of the figure. If it's good, hurray! If not, I hate you but I'll try to fix it.