My Unfinished Heavy Infantryman Portrait

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 10th, 2007, 8:12 pm

Ok I re-did the pic, but it just doesn't seem as good as the other one i did. but i think the lighting is more on then the other pic. Oh as for the little spiks on top of the helmet, it not ment to be lighted, but It is the way it is because if not like that it would be difficult to see it.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 10th, 2007, 8:56 pm

The shoulder still looks to be lit from above rather than below.

He doesn't look as menacing as the other guy. The front-on 'looming over you' view really does seem suited to the HI. This might be more menacing if you zoomed in, though...

BTW, what software are you using to 'ink' him? He's still not anti-aliased and most graphics packages have tools to draw anti-aliased lines.

Karo · Post by **Karo** » February 10th, 2007, 9:33 pm

irrevenant wrote:BTW, what software are you using to 'ink' him? He's still not anti-aliased and most graphics packages have tools to draw anti-aliased lines.

Looks like MSPaint.

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 10th, 2007, 10:16 pm

yep like Karo said on paint. Didn't i mention that when I posted my first pic, the cartoony-like one? Oh, and I still have the other one, I guess I can attempt to fix the lighting on that one If it ok, because it is a frontal view.

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 10th, 2007, 11:26 pm

Here's another one. On this one an art contributer helped me out on this one.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 11th, 2007, 5:13 am

The composition is cool.

The picture is very grainy, and still not anti-aliased. (The more shading you add, the more the lack of anti-aliasing stands out).

Unfortunately, at that level of zoom, it's not clear what the mace is - it looks like he has a club hand or something. Tilting that into the picture (say 30-40 degrees to our right) should do it.

His neck looks a little long, too.

I like what you've done with the head ornamentation. Looks very distinctive now. I'm not sure what that thing on his left shoulder is, but it looks good and adds character.

I reckon you're very much on the right trail now.

Stilgar · Post by **Stilgar** » February 11th, 2007, 5:22 am

I suspect that the graininess that irrevenant refers may be due to the image being in an overly-compressed .jpg file. Try reducing the compression when you save the .jpg, or better yet try saving it as a .png and see if that makes it better.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 11th, 2007, 6:57 am

Master Stilgar wrote:I suspect that the graininess that irrevenant refers may be due to the image being in an overly-compressed .jpg file. Try reducing the compression when you save the .jpg, or better yet try saving it as a .png and see if that makes it better.

Or a .gif. Compare filesizes, but AFAIK, with that few colours you won't get much of a filesize saving (if any) from jpg.

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 12th, 2007, 11:53 pm

I'm not sure i can do the changes, because like I mention when I submitted the last picture, and art contributer wanted to help me out that time. I also do not think I have the appropite program to finish the portrait unfortunally. The only program I have is MSpaint to do art work.

Post by **Sangel** » February 13th, 2007, 12:01 am

Gorzan wrote:I'm not sure i can do the changes, because like I mention when I submitted the last picture, and art contributer wanted to help me out that time. I also do not think I have the appropite program to finish the portrait unfortunally. The only program I have is MSpaint to do art work.

I highly suggest you peruse the list of art programs found here. Some are completely free, and all are considerably better choices than MSPaint.

commanderkeen · Post by **commanderkeen** » February 13th, 2007, 12:12 am

Yes, all of them are better. Jdraw isn't really, but it supports transparency, which is a must. the GIMP can be complicated, but it's worth learning. Xnview is a good program for converting images and applying effects. I don't think it supports transparency, but in portraits transparency isn't generally used.

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 13th, 2007, 12:13 am

I fixed the neck and the hand you can see.. but it looks kind of funny to me. And yes done on MSpaint. Oh and which free image editor do you recommend? or they all good.

commanderkeen · Post by **commanderkeen** » February 13th, 2007, 12:22 am

They are all good.
If you like MSpaint you will like Jdraw.
If you have broadband then get the GIMP. The only bad thing about the GIMP is that it's very complicated and takes a while to learn.

I don't know anything about the others I'm afraid, as I mainly run Windows and don't know many Linux programs.

An art dev will know a lot more about these programs than I do. But if you want to keep using MSpaint (urgh!) then Xnview and Jdraw do help round out MSpaint's weaknesses.

Any of them are much better than MSpaint, except possibly Jdraw by itself. I recommend trying all of them and using the one(s) you feel most comfortable with.

Post by **irrevenant** » February 13th, 2007, 11:12 am

IMO, go the GIMP. It's got some complex, scary features but you don't need them to get started.

Two big advantages GIMP has over MS-Paint that are real easy to use:

(1) An anti-aliased paintbrush tool.
USE: Click on the icon that looks like a paintbrush. Draw.

(2) Transparency.
USE: Go to the layers dialog (Ctrl-L). Right-click on the 'background' layer and select 'add alpha channel'. Once you've done that, drawing on the picture with the Eraser tool will leave that area transparent. (Note: GIMP represents transparency as a grey checked pattern).

The true beauty of the GIMP (and any serious graphics package) compared to MS-Paint becomes apparent when you start using layers, but you don't need those to get started.

And there are enough GIMP users on this forum that if you ever get stuck, you can just ask and someone will be able to help...

Gorzan · Post by **Gorzan** » February 13th, 2007, 8:41 pm

Well, I'm trying to use GIMP, it may take me a while because for some reason the program seems to be missing the help file so I can't look stuff up..., But i'll get the hang of it... eventually.