Thomgirl's Digital Ruminations

Banj... you are the man. I could kiss you right now. I actually tried transforming the star, but Corel's perspective option is a bit fussy. I'll just have to look up a video on youtube or something to see how the pros deal with it.

Don't use the perspective distort, use the regular distort option for the transform tool. That way you have individual control over each of the corners and can manually align them with your guides.

Thank you so much, Banj! I was having a dickens of a time trying to work with it. It'll probably be a week before I can get back to doing my portraits again. My mother in law is moving in this week and it's prompting me to get a bunch of spring cleaning done. Next time I post, hopefully I will have put your advice, help, voodoo to good use! I cannot thank you enough!

Been a long while again. I had a commission come up and once I finished that, it took more out of me than expected. Add that on with summer happenings and I found myself once again on a bit of hiatus. Apparently, that was unacceptable, because I fell down the stairs and have now been forced to recover and so figured I'd get back to work on pieces that I needed to. Needless to say, having pretty much all day for the past 3 days to just work on art has been very productive. As always, crits and suggestions are appreciated. Hope everyone is well and if you celebrate the 4th of July it was a good time!

I really like that first one. It looks a bit different from your usual elf-style portraits and it shows a different kind of character/personality too. The strength expressed in those shaded eyes is very impressive.

I can only agree with Val

Valence wrote: I really like that first one. It looks a bit different from your usual elf-style portraits and it shows a different kind of character/personality too. The strength expressed in those shaded eyes is very impressive.

Well, that would be because he's not an elf He's a human character and I've had the privilege of spending many, many years getting to know through a variety of role playing adventures. So that being said, I also feel he's my strongest work to date. He is also the most recent, so hopefully that's a good sign of growth too He does look the best though in a drawing state. I'm hoping everyone shakes out well in color. They're all meant to be part of a grouping of characters inspired through The Lord of the Rings online game to which we've built some rather extensive stories upon. The elven archer I did a little bit back was the first of that grouping and there will be more to come.

If the human though reads the strongest, I will not complain about that since he is a very central character to the plot development. The primary protagonist alongside the elven spear maiden at the bottom. He was also the most fun to draw with all his facial characters and since he's aged, I didn't really feel compelled to care about portraying the sharp, clean features that elves are generally associated with. Though there is one elf up next that I may take a similar approach with since his face is 'lined with the weight of the ages, his expression writ with severity.'

The elven sword 'dude' is actually undergoing a lot of work right now, but mainly on the sword and attire. After designing and re-designing (which has included a massive amount of study on actual swords and what's practical, what's not so forth and so on) so many swords now (the human's went under a few iterations as well) I'm wondering if I should take up a serious study on just drawing the damn things in their own right. My hand cramps with spasms at the thought though...

I'll probably go on a horse drawing binge after this just refresh myself :p

Anywho.... a little update, still lots of work to go.

And finished the drawing phase of this guy.

I like him better now with proper clothes I'm probably old fashioned or something but an elf with bare upper arms just seemed wrong somehow (though I should probably say male elf, and I bet there are plenty painted with just armbands or something... but, still...)

I can't help but feel that there's something slightly off about his face, though. Maybe his further eye should be a bit lower? Not really sure I can tell what it is.

I find it really difficult to spot errors on line drawings, they usually only become noticable to me when the colours and values are all blocked in. But because Charlotte mentioned it, there are now two things that sort of catch my eye.
First the iris of the eye looks a little fat. In profile it's usually a narrower ellipse.
Also there seems to be a large gap between the ear and the cheekbones. Usually (for humans, if not elves) the front edge of the ear sits halfway between the front and back of the head and here it seems a little too far back so just selecting and nudging it forward a bit may help the structure.