Curse

Odinius · Oct 06, 2011, 11:11 AM // 11:11

Thanks for all your replies people!
I'm almost out af clay and the store I usualy go to restocks next week which is way too late.
I'll try some other stores out of town today because ordering online takes 3-5days too.
Good news is I have enough for the mad king and the throne has hardened so I'll start working on him and the rest 'll have to wait a little.
I see some great things and good progress too.
7 more days people, chop chop!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minami

EDIT: Can we get a tutorial/short rundown on how you did the spider?
And how come it's so awesomely shiny?

Here you go:

@Arghore @Death by an Arrow

Thanks for your comments, I'm aware of the eyes but I made her after the HoM concept art and that one only has 4 as far as I can see (3 I think now after looking again).
I'll make some extra eyes though and see how they look on her.
Also the backpattern isn't that of an actual Black Widow it has a red hourglass on the bottom instead.
Edit: Looking yet another time I see I missed a joint on the legs, ah well too fragile to redo them

stouda01 · Oct 06, 2011, 12:35 PM // 12:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Death By An Arrow

Stoudah - awesome, I like how each post the paper seemingly gets bigger. I know its a sketch, so its acceptabley messy, but I dont think I understand whats happening in the scene. What I see is a human crouched by a cauldron with MKT's essence floating out, and then from left to right a necrid horseman, hand of _______, and a reaper? Im sure it will become much, much clearer as it progresses though.

hai, i guess i could explain few things before it gets more um, viewer friendly. So the cauldron is actually way back in the scene, like on this screen:

except on halloween, when there's cauldron instead of fountain.
And that hand belongs to Grasping Ghoul, btw ive never noticed they had feather on their arms. Also that human is Magi Malaquire (or the generic old people of kryta skin) And basically everyone in that scene, except for Magi is running to the cauldron because Mad King is about to appear or something

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rapturous Sauerkraut

What's the little creature in the lower right hand corner, under the ghoul?

That's frog in his halloween outfit

Rends with Tongue · Oct 06, 2011, 01:31 PM // 13:31

Death by an arrow@ I mostly use my hands and rubbing alcohol w/ a paint brush or Q-tip. The alcohol is also useful for removing smudges and finger prints. Wet-sanding and buffing are also options for post-bake sculpey, for getting it smoother. There are tools you can use to make it flatter/smoother, but after looking at it again I decided to leave some of the grooves in and made sure to imprint plenty of subtle vertical lines with the fan brush for a good, stoney feel.

On another, semi-related note, I ended up widening the shoulders after realizing mine was looking a little thinner/sloped than the actual statue was. I only got one crack in it while baking (which is to be expected given how thick/large it is) but super glue will handle it well; I just need to do the face and shoulder pads and bake once more before gluing. When I accomplish this, I'll take another picture before painting begins. I also made some really neat halloween decorations to adorn the shrine with, so I'm excited about baking those as well.

Odinius@ That's a really cool tutorial. After the contest, I may just have to see about trying my hand at a spider of my own, so thank you for posting it. Really enjoying your progress so far. And even if your spider doesn't match up 100% to the IG one, I think the semblance is there which still gets the point across as to what it is -- which is an awesome-looking Black Widow!

Ravenhawk · Oct 06, 2011, 02:05 PM // 14:05

@Minami - Thanks. About your piccie, Looks great so far! Only critique I have is that the face of the girl on the left looks somewhat off. I think it's how her eye was positioned. Might need to be a little closer to the nose.

@Rapturous - Thanks. Well she's kinda slapping him because he stole her headdress. yeah more on that later lol

@Odin - Amazing. I can't wait to see the finished version.

@Arghore - Yep I agree. At the end of this post I am going to show you my two background options. Forgot to mention that I haven't added any ambient lighting/shadings yet ^^" My bad! I didn't know that we almost had the same idea. I am not surprised though because who else wouldn't think of Costumes when it comes to Halloween. I hope it works out for both of us!

@Draken - Thanks. I do have a confession to make - I did not use any pose references except for Mad King in this pic. I will fix the anatomy and all during the rendering process. Thanks for pointing them out. ^^

@stouda - Looks pretty epic so far. Can't wait to see the next stage.

@DBA - Haha yeah, hopefully when it's his turn for the clean up it would be more obvious. I also forgot to color the headdress so that may have contributed to it. lol

@Maio - that looks lovely! I hope you do join.

@Sura - Thanks so much. Oddly enough, I dont find it hard editing when it's colored because I like color picking (pressing alt in photoshop) and at this stage the foreground is one layer (all the figures in this case) so I paint over them. May not be the best method but this is what I am stuck with in this particular piece lol. So yep, I can apply those corrections without any problems (aside from my possible inability to fix them because of limited skills). And yeah as I mentioned to Draken, I did not use any pose references 'cept for Mad King so I expected some anatomical errors myself.

About your piece - It looks amazing but I think it may just be too dark/high contrast. Like there's too much black? Maybe experiment in more colors for the shadows and highlights. I say this not because I am an expert though. It's because this is also an issue I have with my own rendering and have been pointed out to me in the past (I am still working on it myself and been trying to correct them in my latest few paintings - halloween entry included)

Whew! Now for updates.

Okay here's my two background options. I also started rendering/detailing a little more -particularly Mad King, Ghost in the Box and a little bit of the mesmer (Raiment of the Lich...finally found a bigger reference it's insane how much details I missed in that costume haha). I'll apply the anatomy fixes I receive as I go along each figure.

Note that this are all just local colors atm and there are hardly any shadows/highlights. I'll add them towards the end *is all over the place*

First bg is halloweeny. Second doesn't make any sense except for a little bit of GW2 touch. Need your opinion which one is better (as well as other crits that you might come up with). Thanks in advance!

Odinius · Oct 06, 2011, 02:07 PM // 14:07

I was supposed to finish His Royal Majesty today, but the kids have gotten their hands on some candy and went berserk from all the sugar lol.

Instead I updated the throne with all of them bones:

Now I'm off to the store and and work.
When I get home at midnight I'll try to make a start if I'm not too tired

KiyaKoreena · Oct 06, 2011, 02:35 PM // 14:35

Really crossing my fingers that I will have enough time this weekend to finish.

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@Ravenhawk: The first background is immediately recognizable and I like that one best.

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I think I need to set up a screensaver on my comp again showing off all the wonderful works here.

Arghore · Oct 06, 2011, 03:34 PM // 15:34

@Sura, couple of things i noticed, first you should check your lightsource, if i'm correct and it comes from the right/bottom then the further side of the chair isn't lit correct, it is to merky and in need of highlights.

Second thing is more of a general comment, although i do like the picture for its beauty, there isn't much going on in it (but various cool details), so i would like to suggest to try and work some more things in there; one thing i thought off was to have the chair carried by minions. This still doesn't void the fact though that besides the pumpkin there isn't much going on that is halloween'y ... maybe you can try and make the necro look like she has her halloween costume on (skull mask or something and some other details) ... then with the minions added the picture might become more about a Necro 'queen' being carried to the Halloween ball by her minions...

Then some details, the pumpkin misses a green stump on top, this might sound trivial but seeing you worked in a lot of details in the chair, it is missing as a detail on the pumpkin. You might also want to check some reference on the armor the necro is wearing, i felt that her boots and skirt were hardly detailed in comparison with the rest of the picture; Perhaps you could use this current lack of detail to try and work in Halloween details to the armor.

I hope you do keep a like for this drawing though, it looks realy cool! but as said above, it needs more stuff to it

@ Ravenhawk, I would go with the bottom picture for a background, the misty one, as this one keeps attention on the front scene, the other might become to detailed for a background and take away from the front.

two things about 'shoulders' this time, and both concern the males in the front, first the guy on the left in red. His right shoulder seems to be missing now you wouldn't see much from it, and i dont know the armor/costume to the fullest, but my mind tells me i should see some of his shoulderpad (given there is one on the right side). Then the other guy on the right in black. His shoulder seems to be missing aswell, or rather, his arm seems like it's tacked right on the side of his neck, my feeling says it need to lower a tad and go a bit further to the right to make sense. (by a tad i mean about the distance of the first 'band' of his shoulder'pad' in the direction of the right bottom corner)

And don't worry i changed my whole scene, i wasn't going after the costumes though, but i was thinking of doing a similar groupshot but then with a GW2 flavour to it, all the races around Mad King, a sort of 'See you in GW2, with halloween'-shot. But as i started scetching the whole scene changed :P and now they are in a forest around a campfire, having a devourer tail halloween dinner, with some stuff going on in the back ^^ - so we are cool

@Odinius, i realy like your stuff, keep it up ^^ ... ah i see the spider reference now, so it looks ok, and i didn't miss the legparts tbh, it just looks like a real cool spider ^^
@Kiya, i realy like the red, it makes the whole dress 'pop', just one thing, do promise me that you wont set that mask on fire for the actual entry picture, hmk ! ... if anything it can be added in post processing photoshop

@In general, hmmm only 7 days left, not good, to much to be done so i better get started :/ ... i'll post some progress lateron

... also i wanted to remind you guys (and Verene in particular) to also let me know if you want a party after the whole thing is judged. I already asked gw-en if they would be willing, and i got a positive response (they actually loved the previous parties for the cool crowd you guys provide), so let me know and we can start planning a date and a place

Star_Jewel · Oct 06, 2011, 04:32 PM // 16:32

@Ravenhawk: I like the original background. I agree your "Halloween motif" one could steal focus. And the one with the GW figures blending in to it makes the BG a little...mm..."muddy"?

Have you considered just playing with the color levels of your fog? Picking a color that you don't use much in your character drawings (like green?) and tinting your fog that color?

Also, if you tune your greys to be different shades/depths, that might make the individual armors pop more.

Minami · Oct 06, 2011, 06:33 PM // 18:33

@Raven: Thanks.

I know there's something wrong with her face, been trying to fix it while I was doing the line thicknesses. Hopefully I can start coloring today, and post a WIP as well.
Also, I would pick the second, smokey background for your pic. I love the shadows in there, very Halloween-y feel!

@Odinius: Wow, thanks for the tutorial! Really cool to see how something like that comes together! Clear nail polish, huh? And here I was thinking it's some special hard-to-find super duper clearcoat spray thing.

It looks the part ^_^

Sura · Oct 06, 2011, 06:58 PM // 18:58

@Arghore and Ravenhawk: thanks a lot for the feedback! Your comments gave me the motivation to open the file again

. I got rid of the contrast adjustment layer to lower to contrast and added some details and changed the colors yet again.

@Arghore: Your comments were very interesting and informative to me, thanks for that

. I actually had the leg and skirt armor pretty detailed and true to the original armor design. And then i rage-deleted the file because i really hated it

. I felt that the details made the picture too busy and unbalanced. It's my personal preference to have a clean and simple style. I added some details back in now, added two more minions (very sketchy so far) and some chains and cropped the image to get rid of all the dead space. I hope it's less boring now :s. The pumpkin and the far side of the chair are lacking at the moment, i know that. Those are areas which i haven't addressed at all so far.

I really have a hard time to capture a halloween feel as i actually never celebrated Halloween

. All i could think of was pumpkins and skulls.

@Ravenhawk: i like the second, smokey background better! I think the first one draws the attention away from the figures. Moreover the colours clash with the figure-colours. I like that the second background gives the impression that there is a larger army in the back.

UnOrthOdOx · Oct 06, 2011, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Still trapped under a curtain of rain here.

Entire month's worth of rainfall in 2 days, with rain/snow expected tonight, clearing up by Saturday.

Everything still stands, though, that plaster wrap is tougher than I expected. 50 MPH winds and rain, no problem.

Did get the decapitation and reposition done, but can't apply the color till the weather clears.

@ Ravenhawk, I prefer #2, but I'm colorblind, so that should be taken with a grain of salt.

Rends with Tongue · Oct 06, 2011, 08:21 PM // 20:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minami

@Odinius: Wow, thanks for the tutorial! Really cool to see how something like that comes together! Clear nail polish, huh? And here I was thinking it's some special hard-to-find super duper clearcoat spray thing.

It looks the part ^_^

There are also common acrylic paints that can be used to give surfaces a pearl or matte finish; as well, there are glosses designed for polymer clays that are usually available in the same aisle as the clays. Clear nail polish is still a nifty solution, however!

stouda01 · Oct 06, 2011, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Made some basic coloring to the whole piece and first details in mechant area.
Here's only the 'kinda finished bg stuff':

I hope i can finish painting the background tommorow max. I really want to have super detailed foreground

Quote:

Originally Posted by KiyaKoreena

Really crossing my fingers that I will have enough time this weekend to finish.

good luck and whoa, that costume is so spot on so far, im just wondering how are you gonna do that whole head on fire thing

Thistle Xandra · Oct 07, 2011, 12:05 AM // 00:05

Just stopping by real quick to say I updated my progress gallery for those following it

I've decided to go ahead and do the cosplay instead of just submitting a pic of the costume, so that means I need to be done by Sat at the latest so my hubby can help me get some day time pics on Sun :O Sooooo much stuff to do still D:

Once I'm done with my costume, I can help proofread some of the lit entries

It's so awesome we have so many lit entries this workshop!

Arghore · Oct 07, 2011, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Name: Arghore
Art Form: Digital Painting
Idea: Cosy Halloween dinner with danger lurking
Progress Gallery: Instate one when i have more progress.
Real Life Prizes: [V]
Official Contest: [V]
Workshop Awards: [V]

There that takes care of my entry in the competition as i am well on my way

First scetch is done and I am already on my way of making it a reality

... just a quick A4 with pen, then scanned the image to make it digital...

First progress to appear here in a few... any feedback welcome

Things may still shift abit as everything finds it's place and the yin/yang of the picture starts to flow

positioning keeps things in balance... I used the scanned image as a sort of a template and basically 'color' it in with detailed drawing... in case anyone wanted the technical details...

Death By An Arrow · Oct 07, 2011, 12:28 AM // 00:28

@stoudah everything suddenly makes so much more sense in that picture now that you've explained it. However, did you change something when you went to add colour? The scene looks a little... shifted to the left compared to your sketch, and it looks like right now you'll lose the horseman/left half of the screen. Though, I could just not be seeing it yet (like last time :X) Not to say either the sketch nor the painting are bad. Both look really solid

@bebe As far as I'm aware you aren't aloud to make anything that is copyrighted/the intellectual property of someone else.
Ex: Last year charlie used a 'The Shining' motif as his painting, and he won. I was thinking of doing a star wars costume- destinies edge crossover but deemed it infringing on intellectual property so I ditched it. Personally, I'd say try to stick to the game/lore as best you can just incase but if its the only idea you've got, with not much time left it may be the best choice for the official contest. However, I don't believe the workshop has any restrictions on subject matter as long as it is halloween themed

@Maio join, that sketch looks great! Depending on how much time you have the 13th deadline might come up quick, however the workshop doesn't end until the 22nd and we've got plenty (if not better ;]) prizes to go around. Plus, theres no better time to make and get your art critiqued

I really like the kitty on the ladder :3

@Sura your picture is progressing very nicely. I would say that you should push the shadows on her skin a touch more, as when its flipped horizontally her skin really stands out to me as being bright compared to the scene. I think the chair itself should also get more hightlights. A stronger colour light from the pumpkin/colouring of the pumpkin might help too. [this was looking at your second last update, the pre-red one. sorry

)

Rends and Odinius - thank you

is the clay that expensive? It sounds like you guys go through a lot of clay, but Id imagine it would be a little too costly for me :x

Mina - The second background with the smokey-fog for sure; it lets the characters take the stage.

Arghore - I would like to attend another party, theyre always fun

Its all dependent on time/day of course, weekend being better than weekdays. If its a day I work I won't be able to attend likely, but I'll see what I can do.

Sorry anyone I missed Dx want to get homework done asap so I can work on my painting for atleast an hour tonight.

bebe · Oct 07, 2011, 01:02 AM // 01:02

Thanks Death By An Arrow. I am not entering the official contest.. just this fun little gwg one. As far as what i'm using I kind of thought of an idea of using Minecraft as my media.. something different but something I am very used to using. (=

Arghore · Oct 07, 2011, 01:05 AM // 01:05

Well we already have a minecraft entry

... atleast i saw one a few pages back ... so if atleast your idea isn't the same thing then sure go ahead and go crazy ^^

bebe · Oct 07, 2011, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Oh! Cool! Didn't know someone else did such.. mine will be like more 3D? than just a flat imagine.. if you can figure.. haha.. mine is on a actual world with me carving out my platform I need then building slowly on my server. I will also allow (if anyone here has MC) to come to my server to see it in action.. (=

Arghore · Oct 07, 2011, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Well i don't know about viewing it in action, but if you have photoshop or equivilent (gimp will do), hit [prnt scr] every so often and paste the image in photoshop then save it for your progress