an indian woman portrait

[Dave Gilbert]

How many pics can I post in one day?  Here's a character portrait that I've been futzing with over the last few days.  An indian woman, named Rajshree.  I'm trying to keep her expression on the sad-end of neutral.

I'm really unhappy with the nose thus far.  She looks like a Mrs. Potato Head.  I'm trying to make her a bit more attractive.  Not super hot, but somewhere up neat the "nice to look at" level.

Here's my progress thus far:



edit 1: Made the neck slimmer, and adjusted the eyebrows



edit 2: Changed her expression, and lowered the facial features so she's no longer looking "up"

[ManicMatt]

Ignore my colourings.

Okay, maybe I made up nose up too high, just take off some details there.

And my bit inbetween the nose and mouth looks a bit like a moustache, so sod that too..

Tooked her jaw in a little bit.

Widened her mouth slightly.

[vict0r]

Made the nose rounder/more natural, and removed some weird black outlines from her hair.

[ManicMatt]

Try as we may, all three of our drawn noses aren't right.

Vict0r, yours would be fine if she was facing slightly to the side.

[vict0r]

Actually, if you look closer she is actually facing slightly to the side. The mouth is 3 pixles closer to her right cheek, than to her left one. Same with eyes.

Hah!

[Dave Gilbert]

That nose isn't bad Victor, and definitely looks more natural than my inverted "V".  Actually, I originally intended for the right side of her face to be covered a bit by hair, so she's not turned to the side.    Matt - I love the eyelashes!  An awesome touch!

[Mr Flibble]

Just a reference image for ideas.

You might want to highlight her hair somehow as well, it sorta blends into the background at the moment.

[Dave Gilbert]

Thanks flib.  I originally used this as a reference:



She's not traditionally dolled-up in a sari or anything, but I wanted her to have indian features.

I know what you mean about highlighting, but I want to get her "right" before I start shading/highlighting her.  It saves so much time that way.

[Mr Flibble]

I saw that image when I was looking but I went past it because I didn't think it was "stereotypical" enough to charicature. I think the main features that would make her click in your players' minds as Indian are the eyes. Typically, Indian women have large, oval shaped eyes. I might do a paintover if you don't mind...I've got nothing better to do 

EDIT:




What I did

• Made the shape of the face symmetrical.
  
• Reshaped the eye area
  
• I resisted for ages but I finally gave in and added a third shade pf brown.
  
• Added some hair.
  
• She was smiling, but I realised she looked better like this.
  
• Added some little ears, which you mightn't be able to see depending on the brightness of your monitor.
  

I was going to add a little red dot to her forehead, but since you didn't include one I assumed she didn't wear one. Her neck might be a little thin in retrospect.

[passer-by]

More than the eyes I notice the eyebrows on faces, they are more characteristic and they tone the eye expression and the cheekbones. Maybe you could do something with her eyebrows so she looks more "Indian"?

[pslim]

I did a paintover, using vict0r's paintover as a base.





I changed her hair from gray to brown and tried to keep as close to the original style as possible.

-tweaked the overall shape of the hair. Some places just didn't seem to flow naturally.
-shortened the height of the head and brought the nose more toward the mouth, as in the reference photo
-made the bulb of the nose more narrow, as in the reference photo
-gave the eyebrows more arch
-hid the right ear behind her cheek to go with the slight turn of the face
-made her lower face narrower (though it could still stand to be even narrower, imo)
-highlighted hair to give it more sense of shape


Hope this helps.

[ManicMatt]

I'd say lighten the skin tone, it's too dark.

[Babar]

For some reason, pslim's edit seems to have the most "indianness".

Heh...I used to have vicious arguments with my room-mate about the nicest looking way to draw noses. I think the consensus in the end was an flattened U shape (or bowl shape) for the front view.

[Dave Gilbert]

Psim's edit, with Flib's shading = awesome!



I made her a bit brighter, and also gave the poor girl a shirt to wear.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

[pslim]

Fun, fun! Looks great, Dave.

I just noticed that the women in both of the reference pics have apple cheeks. It might be worth experimenting with shading under the cheeks to suggest that? Just a thought. 

[Dave Gilbert]

To be honest, I like it as it is.  In the scene she's in, she expresses emotions of sadness and anger.  What's great about her current edit is that she could be either of them.

Aand... witness the magic:

[The Ivy]

Just some ideas (thought I'd include a "before and after"):





She didn't strike me as looking especially feminine.Ã,  The big problems were the heavy shading around the eyes, the prominent jaw, and the "line" mouth.Ã, 

In my edit I also changed the shape and colour of the eyes a bit, raised her eyebrows, widened her neck, rounded out the shadows in her face, raised her shoulders, and cut down on the heavy nose shading.

Hope this helps!

[Exorph]

and the "line" mouth.

If gthere was one thing that always annoyed me about Disney cartoons is was the complete lack of lips on the male characters.. I personally have never seen any difference between how male and female mouths look unless lipstick is used.

[sergiocornaga]

I think The Ivy's edit looks a lot more Indian than most of what I've seen so far.

[passer-by]

I think The Ivy's edit looks a lot more Indian than most of what I've seen so far.

The cheeks are still low, though, maybe less shading under the outer corners of the eye and towards the temple? What does she look like with arched eyebrows?