WiP female warrior

[Andail]

Not a very original theme but I've been lacking ideas lately.



It was hell to find good references for the hands, so I ended up taking cellphone shots of my own in weird positions, so I can't guarantee they're very anatomical...

Large parts are still pretty unfinished, so if you have any ideas, please share them.

I don't know really what the purpose of different skin tones was, I just thought it looked cool. Maybe there's a single sun ray hitting the hands, or maybe there's warmth coming up from the sword, I don't know really.

Latest edit:
Added details to the sea, added details on her neck (sinews/muscles), other minor changes

[FruitTree]

it's neat!
love the dark colours

if I got any crits it's that it seems she's holding the sword very loosely (is that even a word?)
I think repositioning the thumb of her left hand could fix that

otherwise pretty damn awesome! good job

[loominous]

Looks great!

Are you planning on taking it towards refined realism like the face or keep it sort of collage like/stylized? I personally really like the contrast between the refined face and that scribbly hair, but it's good to know the direction when providing ideas/comments.

Beside smaller things that might be taken care of when you refine it, I guess what feels less good is the background design, which feels unexciting with the symmetry and design of the castle n hills.

I sense that you probably don't want to attract attention to the background, but it just feels needlessly unimaginative and makes the overall impression of the upper region/composition quite dull. Perhaps by adding some more space for the valley thingy on the right (basically enlargen it towards the center), we could get a better climpse of the landscape, which would provide a bit more depth (though I'm a fan of limited depth), reveal what kind of landscape/world we're in as it's a bit hard to tell atm, lessen the overall symmetry, and finally would also provide a sort of triangular composition where we'd move between the face -> hands/sword -> distant hills. Atm the sword kinda leads us straight off the image, the only thing sort of picking it up being the rightmost distant hill. I guess this could be replaced by some attention grabbing details on the right side of the castle though.

And of course, the camera has to be dramatically lowered!

[Andail]

Fruittree, yeah the grip issue is a valid point. I really wanted her to hold whatever she's holding very loosely, so that there would be an element of gracefullness and balance rather than force. When I decided for the sword, the loose grip remained. I might change the thumb in due time.

Loomy:
Yeah the background is far from finished, and right now I agree about its dullness. I'm not sure what to put there. At first I had the ambition to depict a huge siege, and extend the canvas to the right (that would also give room for the sword) but I don't want it to be too messy. Also, I have this aversion to very wide formats, since they're forever doomed to be resized in forums and whatnot.
I agree with the background depth, and also with your reservation against overdone depth; some people simply can't get enough of overlapping layers and tend to add a dozen layers of distant hills.

When it comes to realism, I think I'm going to strive to give most central objects a very detailed, refined look, but the hair alone is probably gonna take me two days to sort out so I'm ignoring it right now.

Oh and how could I forget the lowered camera angle! After all, lowered camera angle to picture composition is what Gandalf was to the fellowhip
Ah well, next time!

[ThreeOhFour]

Oh, very nice!

I really like the clarity you got with the face, great work

[Ghost]

Reminds me of the Icewind Dale character portraits, very crisp and moody. Good work!

[MoodyBlues]

Wow, this is fantastic!  Great job on her face - she's purty.

Only thing that popped out at me was the redness of her hands compared to her face, which has "cooler" tones.  Is that intentional?

[Nikolas]

Small silly comment (as always I go "realism" when not being able to pinpoint anything else...):

I love her makeup. she's up the hills, ready to fight and mascara, eyeliner, lipstick and chick colouring is all there!

[SpacePirateCaine]

The art itself - technique-wise - is awesome. I certainly can't see any problems with it. The colors and lines are clean and certainly seem to achieve the effect you're shooting for. Once I read that you were using your own hands as a reference, it did start to look to me (unfortunately) like a man's hands on a woman's body, but that's hard to correct, and probably just me thinking too hard about it. I certainly wouldn't have thought so unless told.

One thematic nitpick I do have is that she's holding the sword the wrong way. I studied Kendo for a fair number of years, and regardless of handedness,  when using Japanese blades (as the reference material is pretty obviously a katana) the left hand should always be gripping the pommel area of the hilt tightly, and the right hand holds the grip close to the handguard more lightly, like so:



The strength and 'chopping-power' of the sword is carried by the left arm, and gripped most tighly with the pinkie finger of the left hand (Which is why in disgrace, traditionally, members of the Japanese mafia have their left pinkies cut off). Even southpaws are taught to hold the sword in this manner, so someone who has some swordfighting knowledge is likely to pick up on this pretty quickly.

Even in wakigamae - the low stance where the blade is held horizontally to the side/behind the body, this is maintained:



Of course, as it's a piece of art, it's not like you need to be 100% accurate, but I thought I'd point it out.

[Buckethead]

She also seem to be holding the sword in a very incovient way. Unless she isn't running. Like I thought she is.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Aside from the relative low detail of the background compared to her face/hands and sword, I really like what you've done here.  It gives a clear image to focus on, which is hard to do if everything has lots of little details to draw the eye.  What stood out to me as a bit odd was the tilt of her body, specifically the left shoulder and torso area, which look very flat.  I think that allowing for some natural female curves and perhaps a larger bustline would go a long way to improving her visual depth.  Overall, I think it's a very moody and well designed picture, and I'm guessing you used some kind of reference for the face to get it that lifelike!

[Andail]

Most of the face is pretty much built from scratch, which is why it looks pretty generic. These are some pictures I've looked at for separate parts of the face and shading and stuff.

[Evil]

Yeah, the left shoulder leaning thing bothers me a lot. Her right arm, though awkwardly placed, looks alright. It looks like you used a reference photo and I'm somehow visually convinced that this is correct. Her left arm looks like it's digging into her side. Perhaps pointing it out more so we can see it will better balance her stance.

I like the loose grip of the sword, but the weight isn't balanced. Her right hand needs to be "pushing" down more to keep the balance of the sword. Now it looks like it's going to fall out of her hands. Another option would be to move the right hand down and adjust the angle of the sword. The way that it's positioned right now is cropping the image weird.

The background isn't terrible. I do think, however, that if you lowered the "camera angle" of the background the pose might look less-... shriveled? Moving the stream lower in the image would push the figure more upright and make the castle look higher up, which might be more interesting.

Her face is very pretty. Something about her mouth doesn't look right, though. I think it's just the contrast between the skin and lips. Blending the edges a bit would make them look more like natural lips than covered in lipstick.

Did anyone else immediately think it was G4's Morgan Webb?

[loominous]

Think the background looks a bit better, but the generic mountain thing feels needlessly dull.

I was thinking more along these lines, where you catch a glimpse of "another section" of the world.

2 min crude edit:


So instead of these layers of mountains that hold no interest, you get more of a sneak peak into in this case a lake environment, which I made quite warm, just for contrast/seperation, which doesn't really work with the current palette, but could be made to work.

The new hill messes with the composition a bit, and I prefer the old diagonal running from the ground up to the castle on the left, but I just wanted to illustrate the depth idea.

Her face is very pretty. Something about her mouth doesn't look right, though.

Think it's the highlight/specular which is placed too high for the light angle, giving the lips a very flat look. (there are other highlight issues in the face, but they seem rather unimportant at this stage in the process).

[Andail]

Ah, that's brilliant!
I never thought of placing the horison that high, allowing more landscape behind.
(And you who mentioned lowered camera angle and everthing!)
The weird shapes and the lake is definitely something I will go for...it's a bit Mona-Lisa-esque with the landscape just rolling on in the background...

I have absolutely no gripes with the "new" composition, although as you say the simplicity of the original diagonal shape is lost, but what the heck really...

Edit:
Uploaded a version with new horison. I was reluctant to add as much highlight as Loomy used, as I envision the light source "in front" of the scene, shining down against the woman. Also made lips blend a bit more with the face.

PS:
Ok, I've spotted the anatomical issue with the shoulder/arm...basically her left shoulder (the near one) is positioned too low and too close to the chest. It should be lifted and moved out a bit. Of course, this will cause problem with the lower arm and plenty of other stuff...
An option would be to lower the head and move it towards the other shoulder, but that's an equally tedious task...

PS 2:
Made one attempt to correct shoulder issue. I think this is an improvement; not only does it look more anatomically correct, but she also assumes a more defensive stance which I think makes more sense.

[Jakerpot]

i liked it  i have a tablet, but damn! i'm stuck in pixel art, i can't paint something like this... And BTW, what the heck is a WiP?

[Trihan]

Work in Progress.

[R4L]

Wow, that looks incredible! Also, she looks like Morgan Webb.

[Andail]

Hm, I recognise that photo, I might have used it for reference early on. Interestingly, I have no idea who Morgan Webb is. I guess I should change the face to avoid the resemblance, since two people have pointed it out already...
To be continued.

Latest edit: Changed/added details on hands
Ok, finally gave up the idea of having her skintone that icy and cold, and gave her a more natural tone instead. I think I lost a nice effect, but overall the impression is better now, I guess.

Also changed her face a bit to make her less masculine, and also reduced make-up, which was why I think she resembled this Morgan Webb so much.
I hope this is an improvement...



Oh yeah, I flipped it horisontally to refresh the view, but forgot to change my copyright and name...lol

[Dualnames]

Wow, that looks incredible! Also, she looks like Morgan Webb.

Thanks a lot for that. I was trying to find where the hell I've seen that bitch..