New Work-in-Progress I've started

Eh, long story short, here's a piece I'm working on. I was thinking I'd post sequentially, with a new pic for each major step I take to finish it. So, the first pic here is the inks (well, technically, I should put up the concept art...I'll do that tomorrow). I'll start painting tomorrow.

I know the inks are a little busy, and then the corner's empty, but I'm hoping it will clear up when the painting seperates the shapes, and fills in the background with a skyline and setting sun.

Let me know what you think!

I think I'm very happy just to see new work posted here by you. :)

I love the level of detail you have here. Because your lines are so clean and percise it doesn't seem too busy to me at all. I assume the empy space will be sky anyway so that's not a problem. The way the sheets flow onto the floor alone is lovely. Something I don't have the skill or the patience to do.

The only point of critism I can see is her left arm looks like it has an extra joint, that its much further from her shoulder socket then it would be on a normal human. Her neck seems similarly displaced, but I can't tell if that's the effect you're going for or not. Maybe it's just my eyes playing tricks and it'll all look right in color though.

..........

it's beautiful......

may I print it and put it in my scketchbook

it doubles as a journal and scrapbook, but I am more interested that it inspires me.

in fact it makes me feel vindicated, I wondered if it would be worth my time to go into fine details and such, for a comic book.

Now I see that my work will be beautiful when I come into my own.

Looks good as usual, but she's just in a really odd position. Her legs especially.

Here's some of the prelim sketches, btw...That one where she's laced up was sort-of a different idea, but it might just end up being an alternative outfit.

Cool stuff there FuryFox, I like the sword too... it kind of reminds me of a mix between Cloud's Buster Sword and Rue's Blade from Threads of Fate (or the one in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance) because of the circular end :)

Nice work :)

Okay...here's the next step in the final piece. First, I pencil and ink the paper composition, then scan it and put the vectorized inks into photoshop. (visit www.polykarbon.com for a nice run-down on how to do this). The next step, pictured here, is really my least favorite, just because it makes the image look so awful...pretty much, I just fill in all the shapes with their base color. The colors are often subject to change, but it doesn't matter, because in the beginning I just want every pixel attached to its "shape." So...once everything's filled, I select the color and assign them all to different channels, which I label "pants," "skin," "hair," etc...

I find this useful, because it's easy to select shapes when they only contain one color. It can get troublesome once everything starts getting shaded and painted.

I work simple, typically, so right now there are only 3 layers: the empty background, the color layer, and the inks layer. Her transparent shirt is actually on its own right now, so that makes 4. I might have 6 or 7 by the end to deal with different effects, but I work more with channels than layers for this type of art.

edit: Ugh...it looks nasty. Bear in mind, color balance and that sort of stuff hasn't taken place yet...and the background is actually a cloudy sunset...orange is just the base color I'll work off.

Also...I think her anatomy is okay...the seam in her shirt isn't the top of the shoulder...trace her clavicle and it's more apparent (shading will define those shapes better). Also, her shoulder are shifted, and her neck is tilted a bit to compensate. As for her posture...character-wise she's supposed to be very much the tomboy, so I was trying to get her to sit like a male without any self-consciousness about it. It's a bit awkward, and not very "photogenic" since she's effectively slouching forward with her pelvis tilted up, but it goes with her character.

She looks awesome. And has freckles. What is there not to like?

Awesome stuff as always, Fury :D. I love her design. The sword looks like it could double as a hammer. Love the hair, too.

Say, you use channels to separate the colors instead of layers, right? I use layers for everything and I was wondering what's the difference in using either channels or layers?

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Originally Posted by mrdandy

Say, you use channels to separate the colors instead of layers, right? I use layers for everything and I was wondering what's the difference in using either channels or layers?

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Well, I hardly use Channels to their full potential...mostly, all I use them for is a sophisticated Masking tool...after I've filled all the shapes with color, I select a color, then pick "Save Selection..." ...there's an option to "Save Selection as a Channel," which I do, and name each selection after their shape (pants, skin, hair, sky, etc.) Then, anytime I want to load the selection, I just command-click the Channel (you can "Load Selection" too, but, you're losing a lot of the convenience).

So, they don't replace Layers, really, but sometimes they can make them redundant. Also, when you're working on huge files, using a ton of layers will really make the file size in memory jump (since the Layer has the same amount of functionality and color potential as the one you're working on), whereas Channels are just b & w masks that take little space at all. It makes a big difference at times.