The Hammer of Thursagan portrait repaints

[LordBob]

Help you will get, no worries. There's been plenty of research lately for the loyalist and dwarf series, so we're bullet-proof (ahah) when it comes to armour design.

Portrait-wise, I really encourage you to redesign what can be : good painting on weak lineart would still have to be revised in the future. If you're going to spend some time on it, better do it once for all.

[DUHH]

OK. You´ve convinced me. I´ll do everything from scratch.

[DUHH]

New version of Aiglondur:

[thespaceinvader]

Looks good - it's recognisably the same character, but the armour makes a lot more sense. A few issues, thoguh: The centre line of the chest armour could do with moving over a bit to match the rotation of his body. Same with the belt. And the axe head should be bigger. Quite a lot bigger. And probably slightly broader shoulders and body, too, and a decent amount of belly. Mildly bigger arm, and again, slightly smaller hand.

Don't feel too constrained by the need for a double bitted axe, btw - i'm sure that esr would be happy with a single blade if it works better.

Great work.

Oh, and I should add, don't feel discouraged if you get nitpicky crit like this - finding fault with minor details usually means the overall quality of the pic is great. We sometimes have a tendency to forget the 'praise' part of the crit here.

[LordBob]

Much better. I'm sure you'll do great work using your own lineart.
A few quick comments, though.

- You might want to consider drawing his head more like the first picture, so that he faces the viewer slightly more.
- The grip on the axe feels uneasy. Either the axe is ready for use, in which case his grip'd be at the bottom of the handle for a better swing. Or he is at rest, in which case the most comfortable grip is right below the head in order to minimize its momentum. In any case I think it's fairly uncommon to hold axes and the like right in the middle of the handle.
- Shields usually have straps for the bearer's arm located on the middle line of the shield. Right now this suggests one elbow lower than the other. This can be solved by drawing a taller shield, or just moving it upwards.

[DUHH]

Oh, and I should add, don't feel discouraged if you get nitpicky crit like this...

I will cry myself to sleep tonight, but I will do it as a wiser man and a better artist, ans that´s all that matters.



Anyhow....

Thanks for a lot of good comments. The only one I choose to ignore was the angle of Aiglondurs head. I like it in profile.

Updates on all three:

[turin]

Angarthing (what a name!) pwns. I can't wait to see him colored. Very good choice for how he should hold the mace.

I like the other two as well, but that one's just awesome, so I thought I'd say it.

[JW]

Those are so sexy they make my brain hurt

[Sgt. Groovy]

Angarthing's head is too small and off-centre (skewed to righ, his POV). The ball of the flail could also be a bit smaller and the spikes longer.

[thespaceinvader]

Angarthing looks great! Make sure to rotate him round a bit before the final version though, he's falling over backward at the moment =P

I really like the low angle, though. It gives him a real air of command.

I think Aiglondur's leg still needs to come outward a little more. Aside from that, he looks REALLY good. The armour is unique enough to distinguish him, but similar enough to the mainline dwarves to look like it shares their influences.

With all the dwarves, too, it would be nice if you could make sure they're low enough in the frame to match the mainline ones, too.

I love these. Fantastic stuff. I wish my sketching style were that fluid. I tend not to be able to post sketches because nobody else would be able to tell what the heck is going on.

[DUHH]

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

With all the dwarves, too, it would be nice if you could make sure they're low enough in the frame to match the mainline ones, too.

I´m not sure what you mean.

Lower them in the frame somewhat, so they have approximatly as far between the egde of the 400 pixel frame and where the drawing starts as the mainline dwarves?

[thespaceinvader]

Yes, indeed. So that when you look at the pictures next to one another, their heads are at roughly the same height in the frame - just to make them appear to be roughly the same size. It's one of the things which indicates how tall they are =)

[DUHH]

Will fix that before I finish the images.

Anyhow... Inked Aiglondur:

[thespaceinvader]

Much love =D

The shoulder guards look pretty good to me (though i suspect LordBob might be more help). Possibly the axe handle could be a little thicker.

There're a few missing lines here and there, though, but I assume they'll get filled in when you colour.

The only other issue i see right now is that the chainmail looks a bit too fluffy. The edges don't tend to be quite that bobbly.

[mameluke]

Maybe there is an issue with the "root" of his nose (between the eyes)?
It seems either like there is a line missing or that he has a nose "like a sail".
Hope you know what I mean...

my 2 pence