164 replies to this topic

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Thank you Epantiras! I guess i could give it a try! Btw, do you propose to use a brush for the "dots of light"? Also, should i try to add white or pale blue dots? What about the moon's shape? Do you like it or should I change it as well? Anyway, i'll see what I can do! Thank both you and Aliya for your help!

[Epantiras]

I think the moon's shape is ok ;-)
I'd suggest you to do different attempts with dots (one layer for each attempt so you can easily get rid of those you do not like). I'd personally use a brush and play with settings to see how it looks.

[Aliya]

I think Epantiras meant to say, Silin', that you need to create new layer set it so 'Screen' and smudge them a little. Use dodge and burn settings to make white dots brighter or paler.

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Tried to do as you suggested me. There was a problem with the light balance, so I changed many thingys in a combination to make a proper lighting. In short. I slightly reduced the moon's light adding a pale blue layer on top of it. I added the "dots" in the dragons body and that raised the light so i had to slightly raise the wings as well. Hope you like it now! And thank you so much for your help Aliya and Epantiras!

Styx Dragon v3

[Aliya]

MUCH BETTER!

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

THANK YOU Aliya! I'm glad you like it!

[Epantiras]

Wow now it really looks like he's got scales ;-)

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

THANK YOU Epantiras! Your help is always most welcome!

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Info: Vecna (veck-nuh), deity of secrets, was once a
mortal king who became a lich. He usually
appears as a lich who is missing his left hand
and left eye. He lost his hand and eye in a
fight with his traitorous lieutenant, Kas. Vecna
rules that which is not meant to be known and that
which people wish to keep secret.

Dogma:
Vecna plots the destruction of the other deities so that he may take the world for himself. According to Vecna, there exists a secret that can destroy any being, no matter how powerful that being is. In the middle of every heart hides a seed of darkness kept hidden from all but the self. Finding that secret evil and exploiting it is the key to undoing one’s enemies. Strength and power, says Vecna, come from knowing and controlling what others do not. He also admonishes his followers never to reveal all that they know. (D&D deities and demigods)

From PS:T description:
"It is said that Vecna was one of the Planes' mightiest sorcerers, able to draw life from dust and send it back again, extinguish lives with a glance, and make the earth shudder beneath his touch. He was said to be so powerful that when the end of his life drew near, death refused to take him into its kingdom.

And so Vecna died, yet lived on.

Abandoned by death, Vecna became the master of a vast kingdom on a prime world called Oerth (Greyhawk). Neither kind nor just, Lord Vecna's rule was one of great horror and suffering, and it is said his reach was so great that even the Powers of Oerth feared to cross him for fearing of drawing his eye.

Yet, while Vecna's gaze traveled ever outward in search of new conquests, he failed to see his own end when it came for him... in the form of his lieutenant, Kas.

As was fitting for Vecna's left hand servant, the arch-lich had fashioned a terrible weapon for his lieutenant as a symbol of his authority. Vecna made this weapon with such skill it is said that part of the sorcerer entered the blade, and it was this sliver of Vecna that gave the blade its life and its treacherous nature. Where once there was lifeless steel, there became thought, intent, and, perhaps most horrible of all, a voice.

The sword whispered treacheries to the ambitious Kas, night upon night, month upon month, year upon year, until one night, the remains of Kas' discipline was seduced by the rippling edge of the blade. Convinced by his blade that he was Vecna's superior, Kas confronted his dread master upon his Desiccated Throne, and the two of them fought a terrible battle.

During the battle, Kas was killed, but before he fell, his blade had dismembered his former master, scattering his remains so that no one may draw them together again. And so it has come to pass that pieces of Vecna have made their way across the Planes..."

As it turns out Vecna ended up being sent to the Demiplane of Dread (Ravenloft) where he became one of the Lords. He was trapped in Ravenloft for a number of years until finally figuring a way to escape in the module Die Vecna Die. In it Vecna has devised a way to simultaneously ascend to full-fledged godhood (he was a demi-power), escape from his prison in the Demiplane of Dread, and usurp arguably the most powerful entity in the multiverse: the Lady of Pain. To carry out his elaborate plot, Vecna has lured his old rival demigod Iuz to the Demiplane of Dread. Iuz hopes to destroy Vecna and claim the Maimed Lord's power for himself, but Vecna intends to turn the tables on his nemesis. He fuses Iuz's power with himself and (while his divine status is still in flux) takes off to Sigil where he gives the Lady of Pain a good b!tch slap and starts remaking the multiverse in his own image. Eventually the players in the module stop him (with the help of the Hand and Eye of Vecna, which gives the players some resistance to his godly power) and Vecna is kicked out of Sigil. The fallout results in the multiverse looking a little different (explaining the changes from AD&D to 3e cosmology of the planes), Vecna still a greater god, and back in Greyhawk after all his years in exile.


Made in May 2009

Credits: Brushes used from Obsidian Dawn http://www.obsidiandawn.com

Vecna, deity of secrets


I'd love to hear your comments!

[Epantiras]

Hey, but if in BG2 you can wear the robe of Vecna, does it mean that he's going aroung naked? ;-P
And you forgot the most important piece of lore: Morte's the head of Vecna XD ah, that's just some idiocy he tells Fall-From-Grace.

The pic looks nice, I like the blue fire and the overall cure for details. The white part of his robes looks nice too, did you use textures for it? I almost see the pattern of the tissue.
His untamed mass of white hair is... weird, very compact but with some hair loose, plus I think it distracts the viewer from Vecna's lich crown (why do all liches have crowns??).
As final word, I'd say that he looks a little "flat", but that could be an effect you DID want to acheive since he's a skeleton, not a living being.

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Hey, but if in BG2 you can wear the robe of Vecna, does it mean that he's going aroung naked? ;-P
And you forgot the most important piece of lore: Morte's the head of Vecna XD ah, that's just some idiocy he tells Fall-From-Grace.

The pic looks nice, I like the blue fire and the overall cure for details. The white part of his robes looks nice too, did you use textures for it? I almost see the pattern of the tissue.
His untamed mass of white hair is... weird, very compact but with some hair loose, plus I think it distracts the viewer from Vecna's lich crown (why do all liches have crowns??).
As final word, I'd say that he looks a little "flat", but that could be an effect you DID want to acheive since he's a skeleton, not a living being.

Lol, I'm sure he has many robes, so he won't going around naked. XD Also the robe you find in BG, although one of the most poweful items in the game, is downscaled to fit the game... (the same goes with his eye in PS:T).

Thanks for your comments! You know it's my first time I do digital hair...so you're right I could have done better. I only kinda like that the untamed mass of hair makes him somewhat more original from the common lich cliche with less hair. lol Only Eddie from Iron Maiden has more hair ( but is Eddie a lich?) Maybe my madness lead to a crazy mix -by mistake or not- but i like it! lol
I used texture for the fire but not for any part of robes. I guess my "lineart" layer wasn't much clean and that lead to a texture? XD Maybe you're right about the flat thingy but since he's a skeleton, there's no great problem with it. I thing that with all the lights I Killed some depth but anyway, I'm satisfied with the result! I don't believe all those things were intended but let's say experiments gone fine this time. lol haha


PS: As about morte, let me give you one advice: don't believe a word of what he says! lol The "real" thing is that:

The Head of Vecna was a hoax that one adventuring party played on another in a campaign run by game master Mark Steuer. One of the groups tricked the other into going on a quest for the Head of Vecna, a hoax artifact that was supposedly similar to his Hand and Eye, but was simply an ordinary severed head. The hoax takes advantage of the fact that the Eye and Hand require a person to remove their own eye or hand and replace it with the artifact to function. The characters involved in the story reasoned that they needed to decapitate themselves to gain the powers of the Head of Vecna, and several members of the group actually fought over which character would get to have his head cut off and replaced. After the third character died, the joke was revealed.

Edited by Silinde Ar-Feiniel, 01 June 2009 - 10:08 AM.

[WeeRLegion]

Hmmmmm. I think the bright white robe hem thingy draws the eye away from the central areas, and the skull kinda drowns in the hair; it kinda drains out the feel of power from the image as it lacks focus.
I think a full black robe woulda been better (black aside the trims and detyails and what not), with a slightly brighter colored -maybe purple or somesuch- decoration around the collar to draw the eye to the area.

And, hum, the hair. It's a neat idea, but it looks kinda messy; it's way too solid for hair spread out like that, makes me think of an afro. .p
It kinda looks a little electrified in the sense that I'd be a hell to comb through, but not enough to really look shocking and powerful.

Hm. I think you could also add some depth by adding some heavy-handed blue highlights from the blue flames, and maybe add an opposing hard light-source in the eye; add some red highlights on the skull and upper torso.
Oh, and for some more depth, maybe reconsider the decor lines on the shoulders; they make the torso cloth look like it's just a flat shape drawn with white borders.

And, um, what's that stuff coming from his sleeves? .p



Sorry, I've got a headache, doesn't get me in a very positive mood. xP

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Hmmmmm. I think the bright white robe hem thingy draws the eye away from the central areas, and the skull kinda drowns in the hair; it kinda drains out the feel of power from the image as it lacks focus.
I think a full black robe woulda been better (black aside the trims and detyails and what not), with a slightly brighter colored -maybe purple or somesuch- decoration around the collar to draw the eye to the area.

And, hum, the hair. It's a neat idea, but it looks kinda messy; it's way too solid for hair spread out like that, makes me think of an afro. .p
It kinda looks a little electrified in the sense that I'd be a hell to comb through, but not enough to really look shocking and powerful.

Hm. I think you could also add some depth by adding some heavy-handed blue highlights from the blue flames, and maybe add an opposing hard light-source in the eye; add some red highlights on the skull and upper torso.
Oh, and for some more depth, maybe reconsider the decor lines on the shoulders; they make the torso cloth look like it's just a flat shape drawn with white borders.

And, um, what's that stuff coming from his sleeves? .p



Sorry, I've got a headache, doesn't get me in a very positive mood. xP

OMG! @_@ I feel shame for making so much mess on my image! Haven't really realized all these stuff! Maybe you're right for many of them. I agree that a only-black robe would be better for focus thingys. But since it is white I couldn't shade it more as there are some flames there and there can't be more dark with flames. Also I know I could have done better on the hair but I think it's no so tragic for my first try on digital hair,is it? The focus on them is intended as I wanted to have a ghostly light thingy. And maybe it doesn't help in general focus but white hair shine more than a skull, don't they? I tried otherwise and believe me it was much worse (IMO). It looked copletely out of place. Also, stronger highlights look cool but also mess with the focus. I have tried that too but i didn't like results. In short, that was the best combination I could do. I'm sorry if it's too messy. The bad thing is that I don't have time to try new thingys now, as I started studying for my university exam period....

As about the stuff coming from his sleeves, I can't reveal it to you, it's a dark secret.... lol
Hope you'll soon be on a better mood!

[WeeRLegion]

Oh, it's not nearly as bad as it may sound like now, I was just looking for some flaws there; say, the backgronud colors look really good, if you'd apply some heavier lighting along those lines it'd quickly turn quite awesome.

It's easy to think of skeletons and dead things as desaturated/colorless, but that's not quite true, desaturated tones, aside matte black tend to pick up a gret deal of ambient lighting; in surroundings like that, Vecna would look like a disco king! .p


But ey, I know it's a helluva piece of work to do proper lighting when there's a light source all around; I did try with my revenant pic but that can hardly be called my best by any means. xP

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Oh, it's not nearly as bad as it may sound like now, I was just looking for some flaws there; say, the backgronud colors look really good, if you'd apply some heavier lighting along those lines it'd quickly turn quite awesome.

It's easy to think of skeletons and dead things as desaturated/colorless, but that's not quite true, desaturated tones, aside matte black tend to pick up a gret deal of ambient lighting; in surroundings like that, Vecna would look like a disco king! .p


But ey, I know it's a helluva piece of work to do proper lighting when there's a light source all around; I did try with my revenant pic but that can hardly be called my best by any means. xP

Thanks for the advise and the understanding. I will try some more thingys if i find time, but the exam period is killing me...

[WeeRLegion]

Ey, would you take objection to me tampering further with the pic? .p

I'm sorta bored, but feeling utterly uninspired to draw anything of my own. XP

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Ey, would you take objection to me tampering further with the pic? .p

I'm sorta bored, but feeling utterly uninspired to draw anything of my own. XP

If you mean about fixes, hope you don't mind but I'd like to try it on my own. (I also hope you don't mean about adding disco balls to make him a disco king XD)
Sorry for that, hope you're not offended...

[WeeRLegion]

Of course not, it's your work, you decide.

Na, I was just wondering if I myself could implement the changes I suggested, as some of it might be a bit of a challenge. .p

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Of course not, it's your work, you decide.

Na, I was just wondering if I myself could implement the changes I suggested, as some of it might be a bit of a challenge. .p

I'm preety sure you could do that. lol But you know it's a challenge for me too! Maybe I'll try some of your advice tonight if I find some time. I'm mostly concerned about the light and I'd really appreciate your help as I also entered a secret contest (a contest about secrets I mean) in DA with this one. So I'd like many advices but I have to make the fixes on my own!

[Epantiras]

Morte, why didn't you read the last line, the one saying "don't trust the skull"?

Ah, I didn't know about that head of Vecna hoax, that's cool.