After weeks of work I'm almost done

[Noadi]

Thought I'd post this before I finish the final touches to see if anyone has any last minute c+c. Once the regular forum is back up I'll post the finished result in the Finished Works section.


All I have left is to finish the swirling leaves and the bushes in the background.

[BlckHwkSphere]

I like the leaves swirling Very smooth on everything, but that may be a bad thing. Most of the things in the picture have the same texture, one thing that you should change, IMO, is the texture of the grass. That's about it though. OH! And her right sleeve could use some more shading.

[Surt the Destroyer]

Looking very nice.

Only suggestion I've got is to maybe tweak the hue of the background layers. Perhaps nudge it toward blue a little as it looks a little monotonous as it is.

[buttmunch]

[ftp][/ftp] nice pic, u mite want to change the face, it doesnt look very natural and the owl/pigeon thing is a weird color but over all very well done

[silvir]

You've got too much pillow shading going on here, namely on the right (our left) sleeve and hand. Add more folds too, no clothing is ever quite that flat.

[DrDerekDoctors]

I think it looks great. Really nice shape and I like the desurated and low-contrast look of it. And I don't think it's pillow shading at all.

[Dogmeat]

I agree with the pillow shading comment, with a little better shading it will definately stand out better.

[Noadi]

Hawk: More texture huh? Well I've spent so much time dithering the grass I'd hate to change it now, do you think a few randomly placed tufts of grass would break it up enough?

Surt: Yeah I'm not completely happy with the colors so I will be tweaking them some.

Buttmunch: It's a falcon not an owl and definitely not a pigeon. Photos I used for reference for her had similar colors so I thin it's fine (besides I had to conserve colors at least a little there are 106 colors in that pic).

Silvir: I'm really not happy with that arm and especially the hand, I'm woring on fixing them. Hands are definitely one of my weak points in any art.

DrDerek: Thanks, I'm pretty happy with the general feel of the colors even though I'm going to slightly change some of them.

[Austin]

Well, like Ive said before, you have definate skill in the shirt and the majority of the bg (willow and flower especially) but your skin shading is just odd to me. I dont like the ultra contrast thing, especially with the harsh line between really light and really dark colors.

I almost prefer the way you used to do it with 7 or so skin colors with low contrast to this method you use now. Heh, the edit where I corrected the anatomy might have been a bit harsh, but in the other one I used your color scheme and line art and made the coloring work much more smoothly. I guess the weird thing about it isnt so much the intensity of the contrast as the placement.

Haha, but I know my edits stirred up some anger last time so I'll just focus on the good things, right? Nice job on the shirt, spear and great job on the leaf effect.

Some stuff I just noticed, the background looks streaky (like there are oddly placed lines of color), and the dithering on the grass doesn't seem right, almost looks like a bad compression. Also, the pants are sporting the same effect with the blurred shading, especially around the crotch and the line between the legs.

If you are determined to keep the current skin shading style (which you seem to be), you can still make this a very solid piece if you work on the background. and pants a little.

[Samson]

1. Re: the pigeon/owl -- if it looks like a falcon, flies like a falcon, and screeches like a falcon, it's a falcon.

2. Re: the shading -- I don't know that I would call this pillow shading. I'd just call it classic Noadi. There is no one correct way to do something. I'm obsessing over a giant image right now that's only 6 colors, all of them grayscale. Could it be in full color? Yeah, of course. It just wouldn't be *mine*.

3. Re: the colors -- yum! The overall blue-green feel makes the forest feel quite magical, I'd say this is exactly where I'd expect to see this character, with her FALCON and enchanted spear.

Kudos!

[methinks]

Austin: I don't think that you should hide with you opinnions here behind because of disagreement in general. In fact I think that your edit was maybe too drastic but still it was an edit and IMO this could have led Noadi to making face look better. Still she (guess you're fem) has every right to say that she thinks your edit does not suit her idea for this pic. I also think that it could be improved but I leave here room for you, Noadi :]

Anyway was bit lazy to C&C before but I have to use me last minute:
1. There IS pillowshading but only place where it is d**n obvious is *her* right hand and palm. Extend shading more and remember that cloth is hanging loosesly so it does another band (S shape). Uhm... If you don't get what I mean I will try to explain it more clearly. Anyway you could add some folds to her arm, down oh her t-shirt, a fold or two to trousers and one to the othger arm. OK make more folds everywhere X]
2. I think that falcon is not too 3-d. It is very flad, lacks shading. Both wings seem to be at the same angle and light should be falling straight at them.
3. Face could use some tweaking. I would use slightely less pink hue. Her lips are very pale and she is so vital it looks a bit strange, heh still you can pass on that.
4. Leaves are excelent idea and nicely done but still they could be more random. They go so straight as if on a line :] More randomness in distance, direction of single leaves and maybe more floating around would make this pic more, uhm.. 'natural'. XP
5. Yep add some textures on tree trunk and grass.
6. Flowers are nice but outline around flakes stands out too much. You need to balance contrast on this pic a lot. On girls face too.
7. You can improve grass growind on the trunk's base. More contrat and texturing there it si so flat and onecoloured.
8. Pls try to make her head a bit less round. OK, do it your way X]
9. I like background but instead of simply one coloured shapes you can give it some blurred and dark, not too mcuh contrasted shading and texturing, like a fog effect heh.

Anyway this pic is great but could use a lot of serious work. Please do not give up yet. If you are tired with this put it away for a while but come back to this later. It is improving more and more but, meh, you do want this to be best as this is AFAIR title sreecn for game :]

[edit]
samson did reply in between me writing this post so:
1. yep blue colour enchants the pic but Noadi could use more contrast between grass and background it is so blurry. Less blue grass, rest stays with this hue. Maybe even some parts can be tweaked in different dirrection.
2. It is pillow shading on her hand I think it is a bit unfair to say that this is just a style. Opposing to drawing in grayscale which is obvious choice hand is still not well developed which Noadi truthfully agreed. There is no reason to say that everything that someone doesn't liek about one's pic is just a style, only if it is really obvious choice. Like you cannot say that burningsnorlax should draw his strag bigbelly poses. I think that this is just discussion over picture improvement. It is good even if Noadi, or any pixeller, will not use it. Nice to know how others would like to do it. Doing it the other way is a good practice for improving technique too, so yes - colour your pic. You don't even have to show to anyone. Just practice. heh.

[Krut]

Yah , i agree that style is not an excuse for pillow shading...its getting old , and it never looked good in the first place.

The dithering is pretty nice , but some alternating patterns would really make it seem more natural.

Anatomy is not very well executed...and what the deal with the X-ray pants ? it looks like you could see her bones .

[Noadi]

Methinks: Wow that's like a Tsugumo or Tenshi length crit, thanks. Yeah that hand is awful I'm tempted to completely start over on it rather than trying to edit what I already have. Hmmm...now that you mention it more folds really would help.

The falcon has shading but I think the problem is the contrast I went a little too low-contrast even for me. The colors for the face are going to stay since it fits the character well (one of those things where backstory influences the character design a lot).

Actually the last thing I want with the leaves is for it to look natural since it's a magical effect, the leaves motion is being directed by magic rather than by a natural wind.

I thought about adding more texture in the background but decided against it because this piece has already taken me much to long to do but I might change my mind. The flowers are a bit too contrasted I need to tweak the colors on it.

Actually I wasn't angry over Austin's edits I just didn't care for them. The "anger" was someone else who was rather harsh but I don't thin actually angry.

Now for everyone else.

Austin: Actually all my female portraits have used 6 skin tones and 5 lip colors so there is no difference in the nimber of colors for shading (the one portrait that had 7 skin colors was a male portrait). It's actually the background which is making the face look more contrasted because I used all the same colors as for the ingame portrait of this character. Before you always saw my portrait on pixelation's dark blue rather than on a more muted bacground.

I'm not sure what you mean by streaky? Where is it streaky and how because I'm not sure quite what you mean.

Guest-Krut said:

Yah , i agree that style is not an excuse for pillow shading...its getting old , and it never looked good in the first place.

I don't care if you like my style or not but at least be polite about it.

Not sure what you mean about the pants could you explain more?

[Krazex]

Guest-Noadi said:

Thought I'd post this before I finish the final touches to see if anyone has any last minute c+c. Once the regular forum is back up I'll post the finished result in the Finished Works section.


All I have left is to finish the swirling leaves and the bushes in the background.

Wow, that has become very nice Noadi.

[methinks]

Guest-Noadi said:

Methinks: Wow that's like a Tsugumo or Tenshi length crit, thanks.
(...)
I don't care if you like my style or not but at least be polite about it.

No problem. BTW this was the reason I haven't c&ced your work I knew it would take long as this piece has deserved it.
Anyway:
1.Falcon is not only matter of small contrast. Wings are at totally different angle to light I believe, unless I'm mistaken :] They look as if position straight towards us and this is the problem. The sam with falcons 'legs'.
2. Hand is not exacty awful, morelike it is just a base starts. You have to define it's 3d shape and shade it, I believe this is all. Palm is quite different thing, it needs bigger reworking... or maybe not. Right (our view) half of palm looks bad, the left half is ok. ANyway your hand is simply typical example of pillowshading but I believe it can turn out very well it needs only some heave shadowing to define shape and folds.
3. I didn't complain about skin tones that much :]
4.Texturing background isn't really what I hae meant. It just needs some more definition, behind mist you could be able to distinguish shapes only but they would be a bt blurred (but don't blur outlines much, atad maybe not obligatry though). Still you would see some patterns on tree trunk. Barely distinguishable patter though. I dont really knoiw how to explain it, background is almost perfect... Anyway bushes need more definition, they are rather close to your character (what is the name BTW).
5. Leaves. Darn it editing them is morelike my priority :] By natural I've meant that it doesn't look like magic, heh, not that I have seen magic meself :> Magic wind is still wind and leaves would go a bit more random. I do not say they need serious alteration, just that you could add some more leves 'farther' from this 'leves stream' and that some of those leaves that are already there could go at a bit different angle. Wind is choatic and powerful force, heh, but anyway this is your choice how will you do it. Ordered way doesn't givce the feeling of a very powerful magic..

Again - great piece.
I believe that Krut never wanted to be harsh, he is probably one of those oneliners who strips his words from any emtions only to leave essence of C&C which is almost never good. I hope that he kinda tried to reply quickly and didn't choose words carefuly. Ok waiting for edit :]