Naga Hunter

[Ranger M]

I recently started doing a portrait for the Naga hunter, and after a couple of rubbish starts I got this, which stays pretty faithful to the current Naga and Nagini fighter portraits for the shape and anatomy of the Nagas. I'm not sure weather I'm going to colour it in a more Jutes style, or in Jormungandr's style (although I'd probably try to do it in Jormungandr's style as it is closer to my prefered style, and he did the other Nagas, so I'd like them to be as similar as possible). It's mostly going to be used in IoA, but it could also be used in UtBS if a Naga hunter has a line in UtBS (I can't remember if one does).

Anyway, I'm posting it here for comments and crits on the shape, quality of line art and pointing out flaws and differences between this Naga and the mainline ones that I haven't spotted. Oh and I also want an opinion, what are Naga bows and arrows made out of? Are they wooden or are they made out of some kind of coral?

BTW, I realise that the lineart doesn't scale very well, but adding the black background and colouring it should hide the pixelation, and if it doesn't then I'll fix it later.

[zookeeper]

I think the pose is quite ackward. Try that in front of a mirror - stand upright (maybe leaning just a little bit backwards like in the portrait), hold your elbows in and behind you and extend your hands out in those angles. Feels ackward, doesn't it?

I don't have any specific suggestions for the pose, though...I could try to edit some alternative poses. And I just noticed that I don't seem to ever comment on anything other than poses in art contributions.

[samuelf]

Nice lines. I agree with Zookeeper on the slight awkwardness, maybe if you rolled the leading shoulder forward it'd help. I think the thumb may need lifting to get the scale right on the hand and the eyes are perhaps a little close together?. I like the quiver and the perspective on the ear!

Corral seems like a brittle material for a bow. What about bone... fish/whale bone or something? (or merman!)..

Long live Arendia!

[Dragon Master]

I always thought nagas had fangs, but that's not a huge problem.
The biggest flaw is his left arm. The hand is far too small and the forearm should taper from his elbow to his wrist. I agree with Zookeeper, the elbows should be in front of the torso. Something about the eyes just doesn't seem right, it may be they are too close together. The neck seems a tad too thick to me. As for arrow material, nagas live in swamps, so I assume the arrows would be wood. Maybe make the arrows and bow a little less well made with bone spearheads.

[irrevenant]

I think the pose is quite ackward. Try that in front of a mirror - stand upright (maybe leaning just a little bit backwards like in the portrait), hold your elbows in and behind you and extend your hands out in those angles. Feels ackward, doesn't it?

OTOH, Nagas are serpentine so their (comfortable) range of movement may well exceed that of humans.

One thing that leaps out at me is that his face looks flat; it looks like it's been drawn on his head. The nose (including the bridge) is the main problem I think...

[Redeth]

Pretty good. The strange pose doesn't bother me, it gives him this very flexible 'snake' like look.

There's a small misalignment between the neck and his chest, easy to fix (the line defining his upper chest should be moved slightly down and to the left of the picture).

Oh and I also want an opinion, what are Naga bows and arrows made out of? Are they wooden or are they made out of some kind of coral?

Whatever the bow is made of, it'd be cool to have some algae hanging down from it.

[Ranger M]

I think the pose is quite awkward. Try that in front of a mirror - stand upright (maybe leaning just a little bit backwards like in the portrait), hold your elbows in and behind you and extend your hands out in those angles. Feels awkward, doesn't it?

I don't have any specific suggestions for the pose, though...I could try to edit some alternative poses. And I just noticed that I don't seem to ever comment on anything other than poses in art contributions.

I'm fine with the pose itself actually, I can hold that pose for a while if I am doing something with that hand without being too uncomfortable (for some reason it feels more natural if I do it while pointing or holding something than if I just hold it there), and as Irrevenant and Redeth pointed out it makes him more snakelike (not my original intent, but it does work).

Nice lines. I agree with Zookeeper on the slight awkwardness, maybe if you rolled the leading shoulder forward it'd help. I think the thumb may need lifting to get the scale right on the hand and the eyes are perhaps a little close together?. I like the quiver and the perspective on the ear!

Corral seems like a brittle material for a bow. What about bone... fish/whale bone or something? (or merman!)..

Long live Arendia!

As I said I'm fine with the pose, but you make a good point about the hand, I had hoped to get away with it on the grounds of foreshortening, but apparently I can't. The Bone bow also seems like a good idea, fish bones can be very bendy and flexible.

I always thought nagas had fangs, but that's not a huge problem.
The biggest flaw is his left arm. The hand is far too small and the forearm should taper from his elbow to his wrist. I agree with Zookeeper, the elbows should be in front of the torso. Something about the eyes just doesn't seem right, it may be they are too close together. The neck seems a tad too thick to me. As for arrow material, nagas live in swamps, so I assume the arrows would be wood. Maybe make the arrows and bow a little less well made with bone spearheads.

The mainline ones don't, and I was just using them as a basis, and anyway his mouth is closed so he still could do. I'll try moving the eyes some more (they were even closer before) unfortunately it has a tendency to make the lines that define the nose look weird.

One thing that leaps out at me is that his face looks flat; it looks like it's been drawn on his head. The nose (including the bridge) is the main problem I think...

I tried to stick closesly to the face design of the current Naga portraits, and although I see what you mean I think that shading should go a long way towards fixing this problem, if it doesn't then I'll try re-doing the line art.

Pretty good. The strange pose doesn't bother me, it gives him this very flexible 'snake' like look.

There's a small misalignment between the neck and his chest, easy to fix (the line defining his upper chest should be moved slightly down and to the left of the picture).

Actually the chest should probably be a little further right, and possibly down, if you look at the current portraits they have chests that stick out alot. If I could re-design them to be more flat chested then probably I would, but unless I find the time to make better than the current mainline ones (which wouldn't be as hard as making better drake ones, the Nagas are probably Jormungandr's worst work, although that could just be my opinion, but it would still be hard and it would depend on this turning out well, and it would be sort of a waste seeing as they have portrats and there are other units that don't).

Whatever the bow is made of, it'd be cool to have some algae hanging down from it.

Hmm, fish bone bows with algae hanging from then, sounds good I think that I'll go with it (or try to, it depends on how well I do it), I'll need to re-draw the end of the bow, but I'll live.

[zookeeper]

I'm fine with the pose itself actually, I can hold that pose for a while if I am doing something with that hand without being too uncomfortable (for some reason it feels more natural if I do it while pointing or holding something than if I just hold it there), and as Irrevenant and Redeth pointed out it makes him more snakelike (not my original intent, but it does work).

Of course you can hold pretty much any pose, but my objection isn't that it's impossible (or especially painful or something), but that the pose is useless and therefore just "looks wrong". A relaxed standing pose is useful for standing, leaning on a stick is useful, an aggressive boasting pose is useful, etc, but this one (to me) looks like something even a naga wouldn't have any reason to stand around in. It looks like it might be good for swimming, but this one is standing. If it makes him look more snakelike to you, then ok...but to me it just makes him look like he's intentionally trying (for some reason) to show as much of his chest to the viewer as possible.

But I'll make no further mention of it unless I can come up with something I think is a lot better.

[Ranger M]

Of course you can hold pretty much any pose, but my objection isn't that it's impossible (or especially painful or something), but that the pose is useless and therefore just "looks wrong". A relaxed standing pose is useful for standing, leaning on a stick is useful, an aggressive boasting pose is useful, etc, but this one (to me) looks like something even a naga wouldn't have any reason to stand around in. It looks like it might be good for swimming, but this one is standing. If it makes him look more snakelike to you, then ok...but to me it just makes him look like he's intentionally trying (for some reason) to show as much of his chest to the viewer as possible.

But I'll make no further mention of it unless I can come up with something I think is a lot better.

Yes, but I can hold the pose without being uncomfortable (I probably worded my reply badly), I was trying to do a semi active pose, of him doing something, maybe reaching behind him for something, possibly leaning on something (his tail perhaps), as I said I'm fine with it (it has the bonuses of concealing parts of his arm and his hand, which probably contributed to this being the version that I carried on with as there was less that could go wrong with it).

[wayfarer]

Well Ok the most important thing that cracks the pic is the left arm which seems to be behind his chest. Quite difficult I mean. The stance as whole is interesting if you work the whole serpent bone structure out it will affect even more. So already mentioned the right forearm looks a little bit short for human anatomy and the hand a little small else quite good.

[Ranger M]

Well Ok the most important thing that cracks the pic is the left arm which seems to be behind his chest. Quite difficult I mean. The stance as whole is interesting if you work the whole serpent bone structure out it will affect even more. So already mentioned the right forearm looks a little bit short for human anatomy and the hand a little small else quite good.

Yeah, I put in a lot of attention to detail in the hand, as the hands I draw usually suck, but I seem to have spent too much time getting the shape, and not enough getting the size.

As for the arm, it being behind when chest was on purpose, where it was and what it is doing was arbitory, I just felt like making it do that, but the top half of the arm being behind the chest was intentional as it emphasises that the Nagas upper body is alot more spherical, and bluges more, than a humans body (see the Naga-fighter for the best example, you can't see it to well on the Nagini-fighter as her chest is pointing away), I tried to make this obvious because if you assume that the picture is correct, an his arm can do that, then the body around the chest must bulge around the middle, and have a greater depth than the arm itself (at least that was my reasoning).

Hopefully it will become much clearer when I do the markings on the body, and the shading, so you'll be better able to see what I'm trying to do.

[wayfarer]

You mean like a cobra. Well one important thing, unlike in mangas animes or insects. Live has got bones. The chest might be less important but the hands finger nails are always a nice touch but he is a serpent creature so that is less importnat but give him more angular fingers knuckles and such else they look somewhat pillowy.

[Ranger M]

You mean like a cobra. Well one important thing, unlike in mangas animes or insects. Live has got bones. The chest might be less important but the hands finger nails are always a nice touch but he is a serpent creature so that is less importnat but give him more angular fingers knuckles and such else they look somewhat pillowy.

I'll try to do so, although if they get too angular then they look un-natural.

[Ranger M]

Ok, after some edits to fix the line art, I decided to do shading as well, and then got carried away, so this is the almost finished version, well, one of them is the almost finished version.

I'd apprechiate comments on the shading, but what i most want at the moment is another opinion. In the right hand version of each size the Nagas skin has slight glistens on the green parts of its body (not very many), because doing the same effect for metal doesn't work, but that part of their skin should be slimy and therefore shiny.

I'd like to know if it works basically, does the portrait look better with or without the glistens?

I know that they don't work at the high res 410x410, but that matters less as you won't see them in game. Also, if you choose that you like them, then also please mention if you'd like more of them (so that they are more obvious and visable) or weather the current amount is fine. If they are liked then I'll do a little more anyway (the glisten on the eyebrow area is just about perfect, the rest will need re-doing), but I'd like to know if improvement of quality (and with many of the lines, visibility in the 205x205) is wanted, or more is wanted too.

I'd also like to know if I am correct in assuming that the stripes on the nagas, and the shape of the divide between green and grey flesh are different on all Nagas, like hair is for humans, I remember reading it somewhere before I think, but I'm not sure (I would like an official opinion on that, as if they aren't then I'll have to modify what I've done so far, and try to make it match the current ones as painstakingly as possible, which will be hard and boring so don't make me do it unless you have the authority to do so, which means a dev, preferably one of the art devs)

Bear in mind that this is the almost finished version, I haven't added the algae yet, or the patterns you see on the other naga portraits, and I have spotted a couple of errors in the shading as I was writing up this post.

[Dragon Master]

That arm still looks wrong, and the bow is too consistently thick, and it has no texture. Something about his chest also makes it look too thin.