I thought I should try my hand at doing some hi-res characters, since I've only really done lo-res. So here is my 1st attempt:
I thought that if I explained the procedure, it would be easier to find out if I'm doing something wrong, because basically I'm doing exactly what I do with lo-res, except much bigger.
1st I drew the outline of the character, and filled in the basic colours:
(http://babar.squarespace.com/storage/pictures/onearm.gif)
Using the outline as a guide I took a darker skin colour and shaded that in with the paintbrush. I then took a lighter skin colour and used that for the highlights:
(http://babar.squarespace.com/storage/pictures/onearm.png)
I dislike that it looks so messy, and seems exactly like a lo-res picture, except more blurry. Also, I don't think the shading worked well with the cheekbones bit, and the part where the bones (muscles?) stick out of the neck. Aside from that, the same method of shading doesn't seem to work well with clothes (not shown)
I made the hair and clothes outlines on a separate layer to add later, so please excuse the obvious anatomical inconsistencies ;).
I'd really appreciate a step-by-step.
(BTW, just as a heads up, all of the links in the first post, and many after that in the tutorials thread do not work)
Now i'm know professional and unfortunately i'm not doing a step by step, but I think that your catching a lot more HI- Lighting Areas on his head, theres no light showing on his right(left) arm or foot, also in the first one the tongue is showing in his mouth, in the second one it looks like just a red blotch(not meant in a mean way). Also I think it looks kind of messy because there is no outlines in the second picture so it just kind of all blurs together, for example in the first one there is more definition in his ribs and the top of his stomach to show how skinny he is.
Personally I like the chracter and colors :) hopefully he'll appear in a game soon.
Is this the look that you want? or do you want seperated colors like vector art?
(http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b273/exposedcircuitry/paintover.png)
thanks for the advice, remminycricket. I realise that the shading on the rest of his body is incomplete, I stopped when I saw it wasn't looking all that great. I want to try doing it without outlines (heh...for some unknown reason I hate them). The tongue was supposed to be sticking out of the side of his mouth (as if he was concentrating on something), but that didn't work out all that well, either.
Postmodern_Boy, thanks very much for the paintover. How did you get there to be such a smooth and gradual change of shades (I'm specifically noticing the forehead)? Please don't say you used a tablet!
Tablets make things easier, but you can get gradual shading with a mouse too. Turn down the opacity of the brush so you can get fine differences in shade with each stroke :)
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I don't have a tablet, almost anything that can be done with a tablet can be done with a mouse (it will just take a couple minutes longer) :) mashpotato is correct, low opacity is very important. Soft brushes also help a lot for shading. So the two best tips I can think of would be to use low opacity and soft brushes for color blending. Layers and selections can be used to help keep things clean. What graphics program do you use?
Nefarious, no he is not supposed to be naked, I've just not added his clothes yet, as they are a whole other problem. Even the hair has not yet been tackled (except in a very basic drawing of outlines and colours). I tried fixing up the ear a bit, although they are supposed to be big.
I'm using Photoshop 7, and I tried what you said with low opacity, but it ended up taking very, very, very long....I'm afraid I cheated and used the blur tool.
(http://babar.squarespace.com/storage/pictures/onearm2.png)
His pose is not so good, he should fall backwards like this. If you move his right leg, it'd help. Also, the way the feet is pointing outward is not very natural (unless you're Chaplin, maybe). Still, it's an interesting character. But why is he pointing at his missing organs?
EDIT: Sorry, just read he'll get some clothes.