Hieros Gamos, Fakemon and More

[megaMasquerain]

Gonna start working on designs/silhouettes for the other homunculi to get a break from these four, but I'll still work on these as I get critique.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

hope it gives you ideas.

[megaMasquerain]

hope it gives you ideas.

Oh my god that is amazing.

Would you mind if I nabbed your idea of having the fire on a black body? I have ideas to make it my own, I just really like the way that looks.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

yeah go ahead (it's not really an original idea), as long as it's the idea and not the edit
disappointed by your dwartle because i didn't expect him to have a shell but rocks on his back, a bit like a goron (at least that's how i understood your idea). other things that i'd like to mention but it's very late here so that'll be another time.

[megaMasquerain]

Nope, I don't edit edits. I put yours next to mine for reference.



Didn't get the same effect as yours, so it's not nearly as badass looking. (But then they might end up looking too similar, so I guess it's for the best?) Kept the metal and added some extra chains.

As for Dwartle, I want him to have a shell, but perhaps I could make it more rocklike. He's the one I'll be screwing around with next because I'm not terribly happy with how he looks at the moment!

[Gwen]

That is fantastic.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

salamandra's far more interesting to look at now! your palette isn't quite there and some colours aren't that visible or are redundant, but i can clearly tell what your intentions are. if you have a program with a colour swapper, you should be able to fix this relatively quickly.
it might help if you worked on anything but a white background. it will help in many ways (contrast, hues...).
a tip for anything that creates light: it starts white and progressively loses its purity (pure=full level of saturation, not mixed with any other colour; 40/240/120 is a pure yellow in paint, for instance).

[megaMasquerain]

Salamendra: Cleaned up the fire a bit, changed the palette



EDIT: More Dwartle edits, courtesy of some critique from Damian at PxC

Dwartle: Lots of edits! I loved the facial hair and walking stick that Elk gave it so I tried to replicate that, also took Chris2Balls's advice on the crystal formation.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

these are looking good!
dwartle's crystal formations look like a strip,try and layer it a bit more. his belly's shading could do with some revision: shade it as a whole rather than strips for now. once my hands thaw i'll give him a go.

[megaMasquerain]

Aww, I got your post just as my mom is yelling for me to go. :c We'll see what happens first - your hands thawing or me getting to my dad's house, ahah.



EDIT: Danubine feels the need to be slightly more modest after being stared at in the pool by a lecherous Dwartle, and as such has covered up her mammary glands with a seaweed bra.

So much for the original concept of Danubine being androgynous. She'll be all female, and Dwartle all male I guess.

Gors's edit helped me shade the wave. The skin shading/colors are experimental at the moment.

EDIT2: BynineB redesigned the Sylphen line for me. He made the outline to this, I just shaded it:

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

get the highlights out of the hair, and the shading off danubine's body (including her bra). i think it needs to be redone.
you still seem to be shading in rings/bands.

[megaMasquerain]

get the highlights out of the hair, and the shading off danubine's body (including her bra). i think it needs to be redone.
you still seem to be shading in rings/bands.

I don't understand what you mean by shading in rings/bands. Banding? I see some but I'm not why that would cause me to have to redo the entire body.

Someone told me I shade too circularly once, is this related?

Sorry if I'm asking stupid questions. I just have no idea what you're saying.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

it's the way you shade that bothers me. here, i've found a few, but there are many more:

it's the shape of your shading according to the form in which it's in, it's also where you put your highlights... now there are probably several reasons to this: the first would be you're not sure of where the light source is, the second how it impacts the subject; the third would be you still need more practice on refining your pixelling technique (pixel clusters and such). i recommend you go look on pixelation for helm's "tutorials" where he talks about several things including pixel clusters.

[megaMasquerain]

it's the way you shade that bothers me. here, i've found a few, but there are many more:

it's the shape of your shading according to the form in which it's in, it's also where you put your highlights... now there are probably several reasons to this: the first would be you're not sure of where the light source is, the second how it impacts the subject; the third would be you still need more practice on refining your pixelling technique (pixel clusters and such). i recommend you go look on pixelation for helm's "tutorials" where he talks about several things including pixel clusters.

Alright, I read those tutorials and a lot of it went over my head but I did my best to understand what Helm was saying in the context of "why does my shading suck"

What I'm thinking is wrong is that I shade things according to how they look from a certain angle and perspective, rather than thinking of how they look from every angle and applying the lightsource that way. Unfortunately that's how my mind works and I haven't yet found a way around it. (I blame autism. Autism fucks everything up.)

For example: Helm's little face-plane guy.
In the same situation as Helm, I wouldn't do the face-plane step (another issue, I can't seem to wrap my brain around any kind of anatomy and have to work from direct references at the exact angle of the piece I'm trying to make, which is why I LOVE edits), rather, I would just jump into shading, shading as I saw fit from the current angle with the lightsource I specified, ending up with something like my Vriska portrait.

Am I correct in my hypothesis? If so this is a fundamental error in how my brain is wired and I'm not sure how/if/when I'll overcome it, but at this point all I can do is try.

I feel like we're getting to the crux of the issue however, and that makes me feel accomplished, at least knowing -what- is wrong, you know?

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

i don't really understand what you mean, but visualising your model in three dimensions in your mind's eye certainly helps pin down the shading. this is actually why i personally have difficulties doing some of my pieces.
what helm's done in the image you've posted is fragmented a man's head into a simplified blunt volume. this type of picture is good to practice creating lightsources on, since you're basically filling the faces and the edges with a value.
drawing your model in several different angles helps you visualize it in three dimensions (if you do four drawings from the front, the back and the sides for example, or several views from 3/4, etc).