C&C My attempt at Ben Jordan

[InCreator]

Well, I'm trying to find a nice-looking way for large portraits and older Neo-geo style seems to be most appealing.
Here's Ben... what do you think?


2x:


First one is original from Case 6, another one's mine. Did I overdo contrast? Does it feel totally wrong? If so, what should I change? The mouth took most time to draw, and I still kind of feel that I should change it somehow.
Personally, I find Grundislav's original cuter and younger...

EDIT: The green edit: Redrew mouth... better?


2X:

[Babar]

As you said, the newer version looks older and dirtier.

[Stupot]

Actually, he looks as though he's just come back from a summer holiday in Greece...
...which works.

[ThreeOhFour]

I think Grundislav's version looks more innocent partially because his eyes are very wide. I think if you tried widening his eyes he'd look much more innocent and younger.

[Neil Dnuma]

lol @ Stupot

The Green-yellow paintover

I also feel you went a bit overboard with the contrast, so I was curious to see it in a bit more conservative version. Also changed the yellowish hue a bit, and tried moving a few pixels. I feel the "pointy hair" is a Ben Jordan trademark, so I extended that a bit, moved the nose 1px left and started simplifying a bit (maybe someone better at pixelling can demonstrate a result with fewer colors...). Otherwise, I feel your changes are very good, you only overdid them

[InCreator]

Thanks, I tried to follow your suggestions, lime edit

* Gave Ben a nose job
* Widened eye to original size
* Fixed shading here and there
* +20% saturation, +10% red, -30% contrast
* correct haircutâ,,¢, but old hair color. Isn't he a readhead?


2X:


I didn't want to lose contrast too much, because shading face in SNK/neogeo style was a hell on earth and there's no point in this, if I'd blur everything. Selfish, eh  Also, if I draw some more, like backgrounds etc (not saying that I will... yet), my style is usually quite contrasty, so everything has to fit together well.

Anyway... Is it better now? He looks kinda sad now...

[Cino]

I think you can get rid of the sadness by moving a few pixels in the corner of the mouth.

Something like this perhaps:



2x



But I also feel that the high contrast makes him look much older.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Here's a paintover I did of the original that might give you some ideas.  I didn't really follow through with the shading all the way (it needs more contrast) and I'm not terribly happy with the expression but it might help you to get a good selection of colors and a better feel for shadows and highlights.

1.  Made the skin more realistic by altering the color and adding some creases and shadows.

2.  Altered face structure slightly and raised mouth.

[InCreator]

Thanks, ProgZ... Holy, he looks SO much like my grandfather in his youth...  :o And myself a bit, too.

I totally love what you did with his eyes. And a bit simpler shading? Maybe that too. Sadly, I'm not really sure what color should his eyes actually be. And I will definetly use hints on hair, I wasn't really sure how to draw hair.

Since there's possible fangame in the way, I might redraw him several times until I get everything right. Though it started as fan experiment and all I have is primitive story idea and full sprite & closeup right now, I think that if there will be a game, it would be a dark and painful one - a horror title, and high contrasts and somewhat possessed/painful/dead-serious look is what fits the best this time. You know, the Gabriel Knight atmosphereâ,,¢. I even based my story so I couldn't mess up the characters in Grundislav's world nor make any changes to it, and it also excuses any mistakes I might make But there's alot of work ahead of me before any of this becomes downloadable.

Back to paint program!

EDIT: The Blue Edit



2X:


* Blue/gray eyes (dunno if it's correct, but might be explained with paranormal disease )
* New hair. Improved shading alot
* Some shading simplification and bugpixelfixes
* Happier look. He still looks kind of insulted, but he does also on original image, so...
* Ignored ProgZmax's eye shaping, though I liked it better. But they make Ben too old and lose innocent look.

[voh]

Here's a paintover I did of the original that might give you some ideas.

The first thing that came into my mind was that I didn't know Grundislav himself was a paranormal investigator

[Afflict]

I like Progz's take on it, though it is a much older more mature Ben Jordan (or a brother), which I can totally picture with a leather jacket 

Anyway ProgZ as always has done a really awesome job.

@ InCreator I really don't like the colors you are using atm. I would go with lighter tones.

[Blue]

I like Progz's take on it, though it is a much older more mature Ben Jordan (or a brother), which I can totally picture with a leather jacket 

Anyway ProgZ as always has done a really awesome job.

@ InCreator I really don't like the colors you are using atm. I would go with lighter tones.

Agreeing with all that.
I think the white dot in this eyes is much too white. You should either make it more gray or go for something like ProgZ's imho 

[InCreator]

I'll see how it turns out. I had few doubts about eyes by myself.

But I don't think I'd want to change skin tone to anything lighter, simply because it wouldn't match anything else then, like the sprite. Low saturation is anything but my style! Also, it works quite nicely with hair color right now.

EDIT: The violet edit



4X:


* Changed eyes
* Skin tone as light as possible (+7%)

I think I'm near calling this image final.

[ManicMatt]

Yeah thats came along lovely! One last thing perhaps, the part where the neck meets the clothes. Compare it with Progz's picture to see what I am getting at! Well, that part looks unfinished with missing pixels or something. *shrugs*

[ThreeOhFour]

Wow, that's definitely a lot closer to the original. Good stuff. It is a bit of a shame to see the high contrast version go, but I think this lower contrast version works a bit better.

I agree with Matt about the pixels on the neck around the collar. Apart from those, I'd say its done.

[Andail]

Too much pillow shading, too much gradients, too many pixels astray. The shadows and highlights are spread out everywhere and there's no real focus.

Also, his facial expression is completely...boring. He needs much more personality to be interesting to look at.

Dunno, tossed up another version:


I probably changed a lot of his appearence here, but painting portraits never seemed like Grundi's strong side, so I took some liberties.

x2:


It's a matter of preferences of course, I but I think this kind of shading is more old school adventure. I also tried to give him some sort of facial expression; in this case the young sceptic investigator thinking through his clues.