Castle Paradox

[HarlockHero]

Design for character "Yuki" from manga "Heart of the Undying". Costume consists of red overcoat with high collar and yellow trim, black bodysuit, and cyan gloves and boots, if you have any trouble de-constructing it. This picture was drawn after reading some of Intron Depot, so I tried to use a bit of Shirow-style airbrushing to shade it instead of my usual cel-shading. The effect was nice, I think, but with a few problems. The upper half of the body and head are good, but the shading on the legs uses colours too far apart, like colours that would be chosen for cel-shading instead of smooth-shading. Also, the stark outline of the boots tends to contrast too much with the bright "shiny" shading on them. Any other comments and questions, go.
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[Chaos Nyte]

Aside from the problems you already stated, the design of Yuki's head is wonderful. The green streak grabs my attention and blue eyes keeps me drawn to the picture.

It's nice to see you using a new style, and I'm sure after a few more sketches you'll improve tremendously with it.

[Grandtrain]

I love it. It's much nicer than anything I could do. The only thing I could criticize is the outfit. Similar designs are already used in a lot of animes and games. Maybe some more accessories would be nice.

[zetes]

Thats awesome! All my comments have been said.

[Aethereal]

I think it is a wonderful piece, but the way she is bending (?) to the side/into the background slightly seems very awkward and uncomfortable. Other than that, no complaints. Great style.
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[Sephyroth]

What Aeth said... is her left foot floating off the ground or something?
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im realy ded

[Misteroo]

There is an issue with the feet, yes... and her spine looks as if it should be in pain. Aside from that the overall construction looks pretty neat.
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--Misteroo--

[Rolling Stone]

I can almost see her tittery whoppet.
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BANDIT REVOLVER, DOWNLOAD IT OR ELSE.

http://www.castleparadox.com/forum/gamelist-display.php?game=620

[Royal]

Hey Harlock

Nice picture you got there, I like the pose up to the point where the spine gets broken (right above the hip) also I think you should work more with color variations, right now this seems too flat. Try to define the shadows more and select a definite lightsource from the beginning.

Keep it up, I'd love to see some more of the stuff youve done.

[Komera]

As I promised... cretique time!

I get the feeling this picture might have been done on the computer, which makes me inclined to ignore some technical details such as coloring outside of the lines and unsmooth lines. But that is... only if you were using either a mouse or a trackball. If you were using a stylus and tablet- then frankly the results should be better.

Though the character is very well proportioned, she is a bit more elongated than perhaps I would have done. I keep wishing to see a more dramatic shading attempt. It would be nice if the gloves and the red coat had a little detail on them (not a lot, just a little). It is a little disconcerting that the purple on her boots do not have shading while the rest of the boot does.

Unlike apparently everyone else, her spine does not look broken to me... but rather that she is throwing her weight on one leg and leaning the other way. However dramatic this makes her posture, it is a very unstable position and she's more likely to FALL OVER than to stand up. I don't know about you, but when I lean to the right, my weight naturally falls over my right leg and my left is used for balance.

I think I'll close up with this observation... You've evidently made her a fighting lady, but you've given her twiggy arms. Even Chun Li has some amount of muscle in her arms (and as we all know, Chun Li is mostly about LEGS). I have mass on my arms (I don't fight, so this is mostly fat, unfortunately). Any skinnier and she'd have anorexic arms (I've seen them, not pretty).

Gryphon! (This hence is my signal that the cretique is now over)
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LJ.Art

SD - Ten creatures remaining.

[HarlockHero]

first off, komera, THANK YOU for being one of the few elite that realize that there's nothing wrong with the spine placement in that picture; you don't know how exasperating it's been.

as far as the rest of the critique goes, i agree with you on all points except one, but i'll offer a bit of feedback anyway. yes, it was done on a computer with a mouse. i'll be getting my first graphics tablet sometime this week though. the shading is less dynamic because of my ineptitude at using an airbrush to shade (this is my first try at it, i usually use magnetic lasso and do cel-shading).

the only thing that i disagreed with was the twiggy arm assertion. to me, her arms look appropriately healthy for an intermediate-level martial artist (she's only a fighter insofar as she has had police-type training. her primary focus is actually criminal psychology nowadays). actually, the diameter of her right arm (the viewer's right) is equal to that of her NECK, so if anything, i think it could be shaved down a pixel or two.
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[Komera]

Only your first attempt with airbrush shading? Rather impressive actually for a first attempt. I used to do my shading with paintbrushes. I know one lady who shades with the burn tool (I've tried it, but for me it just makes weird results).

Try this: airbrush your shading on a different layer (presuming you use flat coloring as a base)... don't worry about getting your shading outside of a character's lines... just get the shading the way you want (if you're in a hurry or the base colors are too complex, I suggest just do shades of grey and set the layer to multiply... this is what I did for mavijo.jpg in the other thread)... then select the base color with the magic wand tool. Invert. Clear (delete). And anything outside of the character/base color is free from shading. If you want to get really detailed, you make separate layers of shading for each base color and flatten when you're done.

You'll love working with stylus/tablet. It makes drawing so much easier. Drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a bar of soap.
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LJ.Art

SD - Ten creatures remaining.

[HarlockHero]

ah, good idea about using the select-invert-clear coupled with shading on different layers, that hadn't occured to me before. what i've usually always done is place the lineart (whether comp-drawn or scanned) on its own layer and set that layer to multiply, and then fill in a layer below it with flat color. as for my usual cel-shading, i've tried a huge variety of things, including:

1. using the magic wand to select the flatcolor area and then drawing in it with a lighter or darker color.

2. using the lasso / polygonal lasso to select areas and painting in them / filling them / using the dodge and burn tools to lighten/darken.

3. (and this one works the best if you want a real cel-shaded picture) use the lasso tool to select areas for shadows and highlights and then shade by using the image -> adjust -> brightness/contrast function to lighten or darker the color.

t-minus ~72 hours until tablet arrival
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[Royal]

Sorry for that sloppy comment about the spline, I checked after komera said it and she's right, no broken spline but I think what makes the illusion of it is that it's a too forced pose. also the crotch area isn't 100%.
I made a for diagram for shading and the anatomy to make up for the other comment, the red lines show (from my point of view) a better solution for the crotch.

[HarlockHero]

you're right, that would have been a fairly significant improvement. thanks for the diagram!
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