164 replies to this topic

[WeeRLegion]

Ahum. Well.
As for the all over lightsource, I think a football stadium is a good example case; there's often hard light coming from 4 directions, and the interesting thing is, the players are not shadowless, but instead have 4 faint shadows; even in thoroughly lit places there's more light and then there's less light. @_@
So, ahh for the lower part of the robes, I'd just focus on shading in some folds and adding heavy blue highlights as appropriate, weaker the further up it goes.
For the torso and the hands, I'd mostly focus on the purple background light, sharpen the light at a few points around the edges of the torso and add corresponding faint highlights, just thin faint highlight lines around the edges.

Oh yes, and as I said, the eye could act as a little something of an lightsource, have it add some little highlights around the eye socket.

The hair, ah. Well, I'm not quite sure what I'd do with it. I think it needs to be spread out more, in sparse locks and strands, not like an electrocuted peroxide-blonde. It needs to let through some light, but eh, I'm kinda clueless here, hair isn't my specialty either. xP
I'd venture a guess and say that the mistake is that there's too much detail for it to look acceptably cartoonish, and too little detail for it to match realism. Say, Baldur's gate portrait hairs; they're mostly drawn as slightly variated solid colors, with a number of locks in strategic palces detailed in for, uh, detail. And then a few carefully picked singular strands added for a hint of realism.
Ahem, tell you what, look up some photos of real hair; you'll notice that only the curliest hair appears that detailed at this kinda distance. o_o


Oh, and one thing; SHADE, SHADE & SHADE. Highlights are created by shadows; you need not go to bright shiny white to create a glaring highlight if you instead shade whatever areas are not highlighted; if none of the aforementioned colored lightsources hit a specific part of the lich here, SHADE it, otherwise you'll imply an additional boring colorless lightsource.



Oh, and another thing, back it up before you try any of this.

[Icendoan]

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

Aaargh! PUT UP SPOILER WARNINGS!

I avoid reading anything in any Ps:T thread because of this.

Icen

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

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.

Lol, it's a hilarious story for power. Well, an evil one too... haha

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Ahum. Well.
As for the all over lightsource, I think a football stadium is a good example case; there's often hard light coming from 4 directions, and the interesting thing is, the players are not shadowless, but instead have 4 faint shadows; even in thoroughly lit places there's more light and then there's less light. @_@
So, ahh for the lower part of the robes, I'd just focus on shading in some folds and adding heavy blue highlights as appropriate, weaker the further up it goes.
For the torso and the hands, I'd mostly focus on the purple background light, sharpen the light at a few points around the edges of the torso and add corresponding faint highlights, just thin faint highlight lines around the edges.

Oh yes, and as I said, the eye could act as a little something of an lightsource, have it add some little highlights around the eye socket.

The hair, ah. Well, I'm not quite sure what I'd do with it. I think it needs to be spread out more, in sparse locks and strands, not like an electrocuted peroxide-blonde. It needs to let through some light, but eh, I'm kinda clueless here, hair isn't my specialty either. xP
I'd venture a guess and say that the mistake is that there's too much detail for it to look acceptably cartoonish, and too little detail for it to match realism. Say, Baldur's gate portrait hairs; they're mostly drawn as slightly variated solid colors, with a number of locks in strategic palces detailed in for, uh, detail. And then a few carefully picked singular strands added for a hint of realism.
Ahem, tell you what, look up some photos of real hair; you'll notice that only the curliest hair appears that detailed at this kinda distance. o_o


Oh, and one thing; SHADE, SHADE & SHADE. Highlights are created by shadows; you need not go to bright shiny white to create a glaring highlight if you instead shade whatever areas are not highlighted; if none of the aforementioned colored lightsources hit a specific part of the lich here, SHADE it, otherwise you'll imply an additional boring colorless lightsource.



Oh, and another thing, back it up before you try any of this.

Wow! That is going to be of much help! Thanks WeeR ! I can promise I'll try my best!

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Well, I here's the WIP about the blue light. I think I'll add some more in the front down part of the black robe (where there's an updide down V) and some tiny tiny light in the neck, just to show the cloth lines who are hidden (and that could draw attention there as WeeR suggested. Do you agree? Is it somewhat better? Also, do you agree with the new lighted crown? I did a slight change to draw attention there as Epantiras suggested. Again what do you think?

PS: I'll try the red light later.

PS2: Have you noticed that the markings create a V thingy in the middle of the robe? Lol V for Vecna!

WIP v1.1

[WeeRLegion]

Mmmm, yeah, a faint difference. mmm, I'd cut the edge highlights from the lower robes; there the blue flames are close enough to negate that effect fro mthe background light, maybe also fade it out on the sleeves; the background purple is mostly strong enough to warrant a clear highlight around the torso.

The lower torso lighting works much better now, it's got more depth now. You should probably continue that wider highlight down to the hip area, at least on the viewers left side, the purple is quite strong there, so consistency calls for it. But not too low, as mentioned above.

Also, try using colored highlights; as is, the highlights are quite desaturated, almost white, which is undesireable.
Try selecting the highlight areas in quickmask mode with a very soft brush, then copy the selection to a new layer, and adjust that layer's color settings more towards purple (Colorize/Hue/Something such).
If it doesn't fit in, tamper with the layer's blending options

Same maybe with the robe fold ridges on the white robe part, just using color blue instead?


Save it, and Go wild!

*And I mean WILD. It's saved, right? So Doing it a little over the top won't hurt and the chances of winding up with something totally awesome are too good to miss!

Edited by WeeRLegion, 03 June 2009 - 02:04 PM.

[Epantiras]

Agrees with Legion ;-)

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Thanks WeeR and Epantiras. I tried to do as you said but it seems that I followed WeeR's first advise more than the last one. So I almost turned his robe purple XD... Well, I also tried to add two lights together blue+purple (where blue is strong near the flames and purple near the center background. What do you think?

PS: It took me some time so the red light is about to appear next time...

Vecna WIP V1.2

[WeeRLegion]

MUCH Improved!
Vecna looks much more a part of the picture now. :]

*If you've got difficulty getting color to show on the white part (Using the aforementioned selection method), darken it a little with the light-slider in the hue settings, then try again.

Edited by WeeRLegion, 03 June 2009 - 10:21 PM.

[Epantiras]

Agrees with Legion once again
(Legion you're faster than me ;-P)

BTW maybe you could add purple lights on the book as well? Just the upper part, as the lower part should reflect the blue lights of the blue fire in the bottom instead.

[WeeRLegion]

Lulz
*Agrees with Epantiras*

Of course I r faster, Legion is everywhere! .p
Legion is also meaner and more arrogant than you, but ehheh... .p


Mmmm. One lil idea I've had on top of this is, that you might add another red light in the mouth; cast a proper red highlight on the upper torso for some more shape. ^^

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Vecna WIP 1.3


*agree with both WeeR and Epantiras* lol

I fixed the book lighting and added the red light (soft light). When I tried stronger light, it made the -almost white skull- to near absolute white and killed any spot of depth in the left side of the skull, making it too flat. What do you think about the red light now? Does it needs to reduce the opacity and make it more soft? Or it's ok?
WeeR, I agree that a strong light on the mouth will built better shape on the torso but there's the problem that I don't like the idea of the light in the mouth. lol Despite that, I tried to do that, and It didn't turned out so well (at least for my taste). Maybe because one of the point of the eye is to focus the attention there (in order to make contrast with the missing eye).

[WeeRLegion]

Ye, the mouth light was just a lil idea, don't wrry about it. .p


Yeah, it's starting to look real good now. The red light seems ~ok. 3d:wise, it might maybe hit the torso at a slightly lower point, as in, the middle-lower part of the decorative metal ring thingy there rather than the top, but eh, try it and see how it looks.
Otherwise I think it's looking real good. :]


...
Hmmm. well, 1 more nitpick, the arm bones look a little bit glassy in a way. Maybe due to a shading layer with some special blending option set or something?


Oh. Right. Now what *IS* that stuff coming from the sleeves? The blackened spirits of dead children? Wha?
Bluntly said, it doesn't fit in, even less now than it did before. What is it? What is it supposed to look like? O-o

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Nice trick! (I hope so) . I'll try that one with the red light on torso and see how it looks like. But maybe the next day, as today I'll go for a beer with my friends!

About the arm bones, maybe a little shading here and there will do the trick. I'll try that too, thanks!

As about the stuff coming from the sleeves, I think it's coming from the heart of Vecna. Reading the Dogma peragraph, I imagined that as the visual growth of the dark seed that became one with Vecna in a form of something like dark spiritual tentacles/wings which are ripping out souls... Yeah, I know I'm mad...
I really can't remove them now but I wouldn't like to remove them anyway. Is there a trick to make them fit more to the pic?

Edited by Silinde Ar-Feiniel, 04 June 2009 - 11:07 AM.

[WeeRLegion]

Mmmmmmm... The high contrast in the tentacles makes them appear rather crudely drawn. You'll want a smoother looking surface I'd say.

Also, since you won't erase them, you should lengthen them, try to make them more... flexible looking. As is, they take twists in a rather rigid and angular manner.
For the purpose of redrawing them, you may want to fade out the furthest out bits; they're mostly on fairly solid black/very deep purple, so drawing the background color on top of them with a soft brush should do the trick quite easy.


Personal preference would call for them to be drawn either as very ethereal, reaching all around, twisting curiously, or as very physical; think lobster on dry land, lazily hanging tentacles showing clear effects of gravity.

For comparison, the current design looks very solid and physical, but lacks any clear shape that a physical object would have.
However they curve rigidly rather than fluidly.

*As for how to properly enjoy a beer with you buddies, I think you should...

Edited by WeeRLegion, 04 June 2009 - 10:40 PM.

[Epantiras]

*Nods in agreement to Legion*

BTW those tentacles remind me of the Trascendent One XD they almost look like wood.

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Vecna WIP 1.4


Well I don't feel that I should redraw the tentacles (maybe I'm too lazy lol) so I tried to make them fit more to the pic. I think I'm satisfied about it now. Maybe If the pic was bigger I would give it a try but there's little space and I'm afraid it will once again mess the focus of the pic. ALso, I added some colors and shadows to the skeletal hands to make them more bones than glass as WeeR suggested. And I tried the red light torso thingy but it was unexpectingly bad-looking. Maybe because the color turned to red as the book and it seemed out of place, maybe because the metal thingy has depth and the light couldn't jump it to reach the torso (it's not a marking but a kind of phylactery I suppose). Anyway, I think I'll keep it as it is. So what do you think about the current adjustment? I think this is the final version as I'm a little bored about further fixing it. At least for now

Anyway special thanks to both of you for your help!

PS: The Trascendent One? Maybe I'm influenced by him as well. Generally, PS:T was a great game that helped my fantasy go wild!

[WeeRLegion]

Looking very good now. :]

The tentacles are much better now, though I do still think they could be better, but eh, your call m8. .p

Edited by WeeRLegion, 05 June 2009 - 03:38 AM.

[Silinde Ar-Feiniel]

Thanks WeeR! A big credit goes to you! I think I've learned a thing or two about proper lighting on this kinda live-tutorial! Now I will update the firat post and the DA submission!
Here's a digital beer for you!

PS: If I ever want to retry the tentacles I will surely ask your advice!

PS2: Eternal tears of sorrow, a finnish metal band that I like reached #19 in Finnish charts! Yeah! You should hear their new work. It has some cool songs! Here's one of my fav songs among them: Tears of autumn rain

[WeeRLegion]

PS2: That's übar, they seem to have progressed nicely towards a direction of niceness since they dropped off my radar a good while back. ^^

Edited by WeeRLegion, 05 June 2009 - 04:25 AM.