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I really like your style. The only thing that bothered me somewhat was her left eye (our right) which made her look a bit stupid imo (crosseyed).

If it wasn t intentional here s a quick attempt:

(also edited her right (our left) eye a bit, giving her heavier upper eyelashes and removed the mysterious white square in the upper middle)

Scaled:



Hope it helps

I like the new version and the new character.

If you want her more sinisterlooking you might want to make the corners of her mouth point downwards.

One thing I forgot to mention about the agematter is the lips. To make her look younger you could give her fuller lips, a sign of youth or plastic surgery. Bigger eyes would probably also reduce her age.

About the new character, if you want her more realistic/cuter looking you might want to reduce her headheight a bit and center her eyes vertically so they re about in middle of the head.

To explain the shading, here s the headshape that I pictured in my mind as I shaded:

Please excuse the sloppiness;



Hope it helps

I like it. The main issue as I see it would be the flatness of the face.

Here s a quick attempt to make it more 3d:

Scaled:



Orig size:



The blue squiddling is just to show where I ve edited.

I think the pic is selfexplanatory.

Hope it helps.

My, my, that s some astounding rendering Pessi.

I m guessing you tried to stick to the shape of the original pic since I think I ve spotted some anatomical peculiarities.


Here s an attempt to make it more realistic:





Scaled:




The modifications:

(i) the eyebrow seemed too centered in the middle over the eye.

(ii) the left corner of the eye (our point of view) seemed to have a very distinct tearduct of it s own.

(iii) the eyelashes seemed almost as many close to the (real) tearduct as on the other side.

(iv) the tearduct looked very small and squeezed in (I think it still looks a bit too small in my version).

(v) the upper shadow/eyelashline looked too thin.

(vi) the convulsion line above the eyelashline looked a bit too shallow and close to the eyelashline


Anyway, I hope some of these more or less guesses from my part proves helpful.

[Rince:]

Rince:

When you use only one tone of shade n make it that dark it tends, in my experience, to make the person look very skinny, skinny in the way old folks look, if you re not very careful.

Another reason that she looks a bit old is that her eyelashes are very few n distinct, again like old women.

When it comes to shading a good start is to study how the human face is constructed. The shades defines the shape of the face and if the shades are wrong the face will look distorted.

Once you get to know the shape it s just, not that s it easy, a matter of litting it with one or two lightsources and shade the parts that the light doesn t hit directly.

Here s a quick sketch of the modelhead I pictured in my mind when I shaded your pic:



There s a really good book called 'Drawing the head and hands' by Loomis, on the subject that s also free. You can find it here:

http://www.fineart.sk/

(The server is down at the moment. It may be available at other places.)

I m reading it on n off myself n it has proved very helpful. He s written other books as well which I can also recommend.


Eric:

I agree that the style became inconsistent. If I d have began with the hair etc I think the change would ve become too big to be useful from an educational point of view. That n the fact that I m lazy.

Glad you found it useful. Here s a small update:




After looking at her again I realized she looked too coquettish.

Only altered her eyes n mouth.

Initially I only had some minor modifications in mind but once started I got a bit carried away (turned out a bit too generic):

Btw, no features has actually been redrawn, just modified, except for the eyebrows.




The process:



I hope the pic is selfexplanatory.

The difference between the second n third frame is that a cheekbone has been added as well as the bone around the eye (whatever name that one has)

The difference between the fourth n fifth is that a second shading tone has been added (under chin, under mouth, under nose, above eyes).

In the sixth frame the head has been shrunken vertically by loosing horizontal space in the middle of the nose and in the chinarea. (giving her less of a horseface)

The body in the first frame of the second row has been stretched horizontally.

Hope it ll give you some ideas.

Edit: Added some explanation text

It has some sort of consistency which makes it very likeable imo.

One matter would be the colorintensity which makes it a bit hard on the eye.

To fix it now in mspaint would take some work but for your next pic you could try using the colors in the lower section of the colorchart which shows when you click on a color in the lower menu n then 'define colors' (see pic below)

Just to clarify, the arrangement doesn t have to be orchestral.

Btw, I really liked the intro Archangel; wish you d made it longer.

I ve got a soft spot for grand arrangements so this weeks goal will be to:

Create a large arrangement of a fairly well known theme

(i) The bigger sounding the better. (Note: not louder, think width not volume)

(ii) Whether the grand effect is accomplished by use of distorted guitars or timpanis is up to you.

Enjoy

Better watch what you say Andail or I have a feeling you ll be hearing from their legal department.

(i) The strong contrast in the face makes the rest seem still too flat imo; that or his forehead is really glossy.

(ii) Another shading issue would be the lightsource placement. His face seems lit from above while his shirt looks as if lit from the left.

(iii) A perspective thing would be the socks that looks too tilted imo (towards the viewer) (especially the left one from our point of view)

(iv) His legs looks a bit too fat or muscular, not matching the rest of his body as I see it - especially in the backview. Perhaps cut some pixel in the kneearea.

(v) His pants looks very wide in the waistarea. I m guessing his shirt is tucked in but the extra pixelwidth is too much imo.

(vi) Since he seems pretty muscular or fat his forearms looks disproportionally thin imo.

All in all I really like it, especially the face.

What I ment by mood/sound was more if you want a big or small arrangement.

I m not good at neutral arrangements so I put together this simple n pretty cheesy string/brass arrangement in quite a haste so it s pretty weak.

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517123/Downloadable_2/heartbeat2_orch_arr.ogg (~250 kb)

Anyway, I hope it might give you some ideas.

Here s the .mid file; please note that it doesn t work when played with a standard soundcard and has to be modified to play correctly (= it ll sound wierd if played); I just included it for scorereference.

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517123/Downloadable_2/heartbeat2_orch_arr.mid

[Modified version:]

Modified version:

(had forgotten how the melody went (ending still the same though since I m to lazy to finish the real one off)

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517124/Downloadable/entry_mod1.ogg

(midi still not GM adapted (all channels will play piano)

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517124/Downloadable/entry_mod1.mid

-----------------


My entry:

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517124/Downloadable/entry.ogg

.mid file if anyone s interested:

(Note: the midfile isn t set on General Midi so it can t be listened to without modifications)

http://w1.865.telia.com/~u86517124/Downloadable/entry.mid

Edit: the new version

Thanks :)

I ve played around with it a bit and found these alterations interesting (you ve most likely encountered them but anyway):

(i) To get rid of the gradient effect I disabled "Other dynamic" (not familiar with the english name for that feature) which s below "colordynamics". It can also be done within the "other dynamics" tab.

(ii) I found enableling "formdynamics" to be an improvement.

Apart from the colorintensity that has been mentioned a couple of times I think the biggest issue is the flatness of the pic.

Although there are some shadows present I think you need to define the form of the objects with shading.

Taking the trees as an example, they re basically spheres. So in order to make them appear threedimensional, determine where the lightsource would be and shade them accordingly (at present it looks like the sun is right above the beach).

If you re unsure of how to go about doing this, hold a spherical object (ball, orange etc) under a lamp and study the shades in different angles.

And btw, the shadow below the bush suggests that it s hovering above the ground. I d skip that one or make it thinner.

Some thoughts:

(i) I think you should decide whether to use outlines or not. At present it gives the pic an inconstistent look imo. The main example of this would be the candles that if any shouldn t have dark outlines.

(ii) The chandelier looks out of place imo. I think one probable reason is that the saturation level seems relatively too high. Another reason might be relatively too strong contrasts in the reflection.

Yet another thing could be that it seems to float in the air. The proportions to me suggests that it would be attached roughly at the place where the current chain ends. Hence the plate on the roof would show.

(iii) the doorhandle looks very small in proportions imo and lacks 3d elements.

(iv) the fireplace, not mentioning the inside of it, looks odd to me. The highlight and color suggests to me that it s made of lead or something similar which seems strange.

All I can think of at the moment.

On a more positive note I agree that it has a certain CMI quality.

Say, these custom brushes you ve created, would you mind sharing them or explaining how you went about?

My, my, I seem to have upset you.

Although I did mention Eric in my post my aim was set on the relatively skilled part of the forummembers and not on him specifically. If he s the regular contributor of thorough criticism as you say he is, it was unfortunate that I d include him.

My point was simply: What harm does oneword/praising posts do if they re complemented with some thorough criticism from skilled people who re capable of providing some insightful comments?

The idea was that we re all reduced to gasping smileys when confronted with superior skills. So if Watterson was to post something, we d all probably be stuck with openmouthed smileys or more elaborate text versions of it.
That is, we d all be short of constructive criticism so the thread would have to be empty if the current rules were to be followed.

To a complete novice Eric's pics would be in the relatively same league as Watterson to a fairly experienced artist. Hence, the novice is stuck with the same praise/openmouths posts which the rules forbid.

So if the novices are prohibited from expressing their admiration of Eric's pics using a smiley or a textversion we d all be prohibited to express ours of Watterson in any way.

Unless you re advocating doublestandards that is.