Portrait: Queen

[Sgt. Groovy]

The far side eye is foreshortened a wee bit much, now that you mention it,

I don't see a problem as much with foreshortening, as with the hight of the eye being too small.

As far as my judgement can see, I don't think her pose/spine are unrealistic, or awkward at all.

I don't criticise anyone's pose without trying it for size, and this one definitely doesn't feel right to me:

• The facing of shoulder is turned counterclockwise, and the pelvis clockwise, and their difference is closing in on 90 degrees. It's way too much even for exaggerated sway, and when people look sideways when walking, they don't turn their chest that way, only the head
• The pelvis is almost level, although the lower end of the spine is at something like 10 degree angle. The hipbone should connect to the spine at right angle. [ETA: actually, it's not that bad, the twisting of the body centreline got me confused]
• The feet and the hips are not in sync with the upper body. When walking, the curve of the spine (and the angle of the pelvis and shoulders) are strongest when all the weight is on one foot. According to the legs, her step is on the midphase, whe the weight is divided on both feet, and then the spine and shoulders should be straight.

[Sgt. Groovy]

And maybe one reason the hair looks more like a hat (to me anyway) is that the hairline is too low.

[Pickslide]

Made some tweaks to the face, and I updated the image on page 1 to avoid dumping extra stuff on the server (Does it actually help if I do it that way?). I'm afraid I may have made her look too pretty though, and less old. I never meant for her to be beautiful, at least by video game standards :P. Ihe nose stud gives her character character I think. A little bit of non-western decor tossed in :), so I'm gonna leave it in.

I don't know about the hair, I realize it is drawn in a big lump. I'll play around with doing the hair differently. Either I'll try to draw out more strands and have it look looser, or I'll trim it down so its solid, but sticking closer to her head. No big Texas hair here.

I'm confident the pose is fine. I appreciate the runway referances, but they're all facing straight toward the camera, and they aren't twisting at all.

[Darth Fool]

I thought that the "nose stud" was a wart!

[Jetrel]

For now/1.2, I've committed this image:




Though it looks great as it is, the few improvements I could see being worth making would be 1] reframing the portrait to show more of the hips, and hence resolve any questions about the pose/fabric, and 2] adding more ringlets of hair behind that first one (a job which, for perspective reasons, only needs to happen on one side of the face).

If you want to make them, feel free to take your time - the above image is _more_ than fine for 1.2.

[Pickslide]

AAAGH! I never came back to this topic because I was never happy with the hair!

Better, or worse?

[Jetrel]

AAAGH! I never came back to this topic because I was never happy with the hair!

Better, or worse?

The hair is much, much better now.

However, I think the removal of the decorative stuff around the bodice is a bit of a loss; the only thing that was wrong with the old one was the baseball-sized gem; simply toning that down to .. a golf-ball size .. would work wonderfully. Given that you've got that in a different layer, that should be easy to do.

If you don't think "adding that decorative stuff back in" is a good idea, say so, and I'll commit this as-is. Otherwise I'll wait, since that change should be a quick one to do.

[irrevenant]

I always wondered what was with her finger in that portrait? (Not a criticism, just a question).

[Pickslide]

Um...case of missing layers there. Fixed it.

irrevenant: I dunno, I keep trying to do something interesting with portrait hands. I suppose she's picking at her teeth while looking down at you in disdain?

[Jetrel]

irrevenant: I dunno, I keep trying to do something interesting with portrait hands. I suppose she's picking at her teeth while looking down at you in disdain?

People do lots of weird things with their hands, almost always without really thinking about it. It's also rather specific to the person, what precise things they habitually do; it's what we'd call an idiosyncrasy or mannerism. Adding these into some character's poses, especially those of more eccentric characters, can tend to give them more life and interest to the viewing audience, because real people in real life situations tend to do exactly that. They won't do that when they pose for a photograph, but photos themselves would seem very stilted for a use like this (unless seasoned actors posed for the photos) for that very reason.

It's something I recommend doing, and Pickslide independently came to the same general conclusion.

Um...case of missing layers there. Fixed it.

Gotcha, I've committed the following crop of it. In the meantime, this full-body-version could be put to good use in other places - I'd like to see art like this worked into the website+wiki design, and used on T-shirts.

[Kestenvarn]

I like the new hair, but believe the shading for her skin is too light to actually make out when shrunken to portrait size; she seems two-dimensional in some areas because of this.

[Sgt. Groovy]

the only thing that was wrong with the old one was the baseball-sized gem

Strongly second that, a gem of that size would have to be bolted down to the breastplate to stay on.

The new hair is better, more made up than the old one, which fits a queen better. It (particulary the upper part) still has sense of solidity that makes it look more like a wig that her real hair, but that is by no means out of place for a queen. The only porblem I see is the gaps between the curls, there should be more locks of hair behind the visible ones, blocking the holes.

The apparel, on the other hand, is completely out of place for a quasi-medieval royalty, as I have already pointed out in the sprite thread.