Shadesiren's April/May Storybook WIP thread

[Shadesiren]

Well, I'm attempting to join in - I kinda mashed up the three suggestions - my character, Storybook/fantasy setting.

Arameah Azielle, my City of Heroes Character, as Rapunzel, a storybook character, in Maj'dul, a fantasy setting.

This is only my initial sketch, blocking out the setting. c/c (4) always helpful, so always welcome

[Aalyve Wyyre]

gorgeous so far!

My sketches were coming out really light. There's a trick that Starrydance taught me for darkening them up a bit. You can open them in photoshop and duplicate the layer with the setting to "multiply". It'll darken it, but not too much!

Hope that helps, can't wait to see this develop further!

[Starrydance]

Looking beautiful so far, I love that background! I love little details like that! <3

Rapunzel is a good fairytale doesnt get enough play. Im looking forward to more updates ^_^

[Diabolica]

Your sketch looks lovely! I can't wait to see more! *camps thread*

[Shadesiren]

Update - day 3 of work - Phase One Digital Inking

Required MASSIVE amounts of resizing work, thanks to the frikkin top of her stupid head. About srove me out of my mind fixing the proportions. I think I'm happy with it, so far.



Next step: Phase Two Inking (Clean up/Fine Tune).

[Starrydance]

Nice clean up job! Very nice! The only small thing I see is perhaps her hand is a bit small - but great job on the head and torso! <3

[Shadesiren]

Ok, phase three well started, fine tuned her hand and some of the lines. Not sure how I'm gonna do this, still, but I'm going to try for a Storybook Illustration look. Whatever that means, exactly lol!



Each color is a layer, and there's no layer for her horns yet, so that's why there's blue there - this is really rough still.

[Aalyve Wyyre]

Shaping up SOOOO nicely! can't wait to see it progress even further!

[Shadesiren]

Update time again. About 3 or so more hours, and her hair is shaded, the background colored in more and some details fine tuned some more. Still not sure how much of the black lines I might keep. Hair on the larger images is quite the challenge... on a doll, it's easy, but wow, that's a lot of area to go over (this image is reduced from the original by 50% and then 25% again).

[Shadesiren]

Well, a few more hours work, and I'm shocked... I'm loving the background! I HATE doing backgrounds. Too much work :P But I love how the palm trees and sand came out. Not wild about the tower, but it's within an acceptable margin, so I probably won't do tons more on it. Just getting down to her skin and dress, for the most part, plus any finishing polish. Decided to do without the black lines.

[Gabbrielle]

This is looking great! A little cc on the tower which you can ignore if you like Because the sun is the main light source, you need to move your shadow to the opposite side and highlight the rounded edge of the top of the tower closest to the sun which in turn will add to the illusion of roundness. I agree with you, the sand and palm trees look good!

I can't wait to see the shading on Arameah, she has such a pretty profile! And kudos on the braid...I avoid them because the thought of shading a braid scares me! lol

[Shadesiren]

Well, worked about 3 hours tonight, here's where I am now. After some fiddling, I decided the truth was I never liked the sun in the first place, so I got rid of it entirely. Changed her arm completely - it was bugging me from the beginning too.

Here it is, might polish a bit more, might be done, I haven't decided yet. Need LOTS of c/c, maybe up to 4, as I don't know how much 'better' I can get lol. EIther way, suggestions welcome!



Here's the full-size )or close to it)

[Starrydance]

This is looking great! Pardon the semi-rambling CC! <3

- Id 'brighten' the sands a bit. If its daylight outside (even without the sun showing) sand is BRIGHT! That color strikes me more as a night time shade.

- The 'tower top' visible over her shoulder doesnt quite seem to line up with the tower. Its a little to small and to the right ... or the towers too wide! Which ever! *laughs*

- I think everything else about the background is great, I love the bright blue and white clouds, the little details in the palms, and the decorated tower top.

- The perspective on the border around the window is a little off. I think you can mostly fix it but 'stretching' the right side arc out towards the edge of the piece - it arcs nicely and then goes 'in' to the window!

- On to her! I love that you moved the hand, I find her pose much more natural and reposed now, as she patiently waits for her prince!

- I thiiiiink the 'left' arm (the one we can only see the edges of) is at a slightly odd angle. Like if that was the angle, we could see her hand on her knee! And maybe her right arm is a little thin - but Im pretty bad with arms so take that with a grain of salt! =3

- Her boobs are <3 btw. Hah! ^_^ I love everything about her face, her delicate neck, and the rest of it! I cant see anything in there Id chage <3

[Aalyve Wyyre]

> me , so....

Her face is amazing....so serene and dreamy! And that neckline is wonderful! Her horns are way distracting for me though. I think they're very well done, but I think the white color on them is too bold of a contrast and detracts from her face....they also appear to be "stuck" to her head rather than coming out from her scalp. Tossing a few hair strands around them may help imbed them a bit...

Her dress....is GORGEOUS. YOu got the folds and highlights/shadows SPOT ON with this. (as a doller I notice these things about clothing.. ) I love the ribbon accent too!

Mahvelous job on this dear!

[Gabbrielle]

Do you mind a paint-over? Sometimes that's the easiest way to show some tips.

I would suggest upping the highlights and shadows in your picture. And, depending on your art program (what do you use by the way?) it would be a relatively simple thing to do using layers. First, pick a deep dark purple for your shadows, apply on a separate layer, use smudge to get the shapes you want. Then pick a white color for the areas that face the window because they would receive a lot of light from the main light source, the sun <---make sure to use separate layers because that makes fixing any errors much much easier. Also, keep in mind any ambient light that is in the room with her. It seems rather dim, considering the shadows you already have in place, yet some surfaces..such as her skin...would pick up that light.

Another tip I have, mostly because it's really hard for me to draw a straight line , is to use whatever type of application you have in your art program for making shapes. Most people have the pen tool in PS which works excellently, but if you don't have PS (I don't) there is generally a marquee tool which can help you make a shape: oval, circle, or rectangle. With architecture in a picture, it really is important to be sure that the shapes are technically correct. Does that make sense? I hope it does.

I really think she's going to be fantastic! And, with some of the wonderful help around here, you will bring your art to the next level...it's inevitable.

[Shadesiren]

A paint over? Totally intimidating, but I'm desperately curious now, so I have to say I wouldn't mind at all! Please do, I SO want to move up a step, I really feel like I've been plateaued for a while, and I'm not sure how to advance. Everything I know is pretty much self-taught, and I think my teacher just ran out of teaching materials lol :P

I use Paint Shop Pro v. 9. I LOVE it. I've been with paintshop since about v. 7. I draw with a .5 or .7 mechanical pencil (apologies to the artists out there that hate them, I've been scolded more than once, but I just LOVE the damn thing.)

All your comments are amazing! I've copied them all into a MSword doc so I can refer to them for my next steps! Thank you for the encouraging compliments, and double thanks for the suggestions - now let's see if I can actually DO them! lol

[Starrydance]

You can do it! <3

[Shadesiren]

Here is the initial result of trying to implement most of the suggestions. Corrected the window, the sands, the tower, and redrew her arm. Twice lol. If you look at the previous one, her left arm (our right) was bent oddly ABOVE the elbow. This corrects that and the slightly too long upper arm.

I sorta tried the new layer of shadow and light, but I'm going to have to play with that a LOT more, cuz what I got so far makes NO sense lol. Wish me luck on that one!

[Gabbrielle]

Oh boy, I know the frustration of being self-taught! One of these days, when my littlest goes to school, I WILL be taking art classes!

Ok, a little explanation..one of the things that light does is reveal form. As 2d artists, it is essential that we get the lighting correct so the right form is found. Otherwise, our drawings continue to look flat and unless that is what we want...we need to use light and shadow to define forms. On several separate layers, I applied color (Never use black or white, color=life) to areas on Aramunzle, the tower and a little golden color on the sand. I also used a deep, dark purple on the area under her horn to help lift the horn out of her hair and define it's shape a little better...also there's a highlight on the horn where the light from the window hits it. I also included ambient light from the room she is in.
This was just a fast once over...I'm pretty sure I didn't get all the surfaces that light would hit..for instance, the windowsill at which she is sitting. I want to point out too, that the time of day would change the light. Sunset would be more golden, high noon more whitish.

[Shadesiren]

Ok, I tried it, I'm liking what I see, for the most part. It makes her boobs look FRIKKIN GI-NORMOUS, but well, they ARE, so I guess that's fair. I love the bright highlight on the edges toward the window, they DO add a lot of depth. I'm not comfortable with extreme lights and darks, as far as shading goes - I'm afraid to push it much. Don't want to OVER do it, so I end up under-doing it. But I learned a lot playing with this one so far. No matter how I did the light you put on the right hand side of her neck (Her left), it just looked like someone smeared deodorant on her neck, so I had to let it go for now. I still have to define her left hand.



THANK you guys, SO much for all the help. The paintover was a big help, letting me see exactly what you had in mind. I still don't 100% get the 'no black and white' rule, I know it's best to use all colors and stuff - there's a lot to that, like what colors to use with what, and how to blend them properly, etc, so using the purple and the light reds and purples was a great learning experience, too. Seems bizarre to put purple shadows on hair that is 100% red. But it works, and I'm starting to get the idea finally

[Aalyve Wyyre]

Great improvements! I'm still having a visual "problem" with her elbows not matching up. I'm horrible with anatomy though, but right now it looks like the arm nearest the window is freakishly longer than the arm close to the viewer...

Take a look at the length of the arm from shoulder to elbow on each of them and I think you'll see what I mean (I hope! because I'm horrible at explaining! hahaha)

So lovely dear! Great job on it all! Isn't it wonderful to learn somehting new with every piece??

[Shadesiren]

It's funny, I had exactly the opposite problem with the arms, originally, kept making the near arm too long. I've measured over and over, and they're axactly the same length, should to elbow, elbow to wrist, so I'm thinking it's a perspective thing. Might be the way her right arm trails down instead of bending so sharply, not sure. I know to ME it still kinda looks like the near arm is longer lol.

and yes, it's WONDERFUL to feel like I'm actually learning something! I was looking, and really, I haven't done very many of these full on paintings, (I paint with PSP kinda like most people do with oil, I just can't live without layers and ctrl-z, so I'm still afraid of REAL oils :P)

I still have work to do, but this whole thing makes me SO glad I got involved here

[Aalyve Wyyre]

ahh then it must be a perspective thing (optical illusion much? )

It's been wonderful watching this progress!

[Shadesiren]

Well, I think I might cll this one technically done - I might rework her left arm sometime - I'm STILL not happy with her hand, but I'm going to call this done for now.. I need to work in some color besides RED for a while lol :P

Here's what I ended up with until I decide to work on it again :P



Still open to C&C but I'm excited about the June/July project, so I'm ready to put this aside for a little bit.

[Aalyve Wyyre]

Lovely lovely!

(you peeked?!?!)