Oh, she's pretty

I think it would look good if she was inside a cathedral, with light coming down through stained glass windows?

You know, i just fell asleep a little while ago and started daydreaming, and had that exact vision. I think thats what i'll do. Cheers

Wow, Lady Nerevar I never knew you were such an artist Amazing work, I must say.




Wow, computer artist and musician, I'm sorry to say that I hadn't heard of you before Great work, I look forward to seeing it finished then.

I mostly draw on the computer nowdays, but I still like regular drawing. The way I start is by getting source pictures of the style I want, or if it's a person's form, a picture of a person making that pose. Then I do a few dirty sketches of how I want the figures to look. When I have that set, I get a sheet of Bristol Board and my fine pens out. With a glass shelf off my bookcase with a table lamp underneath it, I place my rough draft on the table and put the bristol board on top of that in the position I want the drawing to be. Then with whatever pens I want to do the drawing with, I draw the main object. Then I work the background into it if I am doing a background. No harm in tracing your own work, and I'm not brave enough to start a drawing in fancy pen. http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/9974/drawingmontstmichaels1.jpg

I'd say it looks cool, if it weren't for the fact it looked http://www.shawnye.com/last_descendant.html for an "original work". Call me suspicious, but looks like you traced the base, and just changed his gave him pants... :nono:

A few changes to my avatar.

http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/9250/tamanewgradedblue.jpg

Theres a colour version in the works as well. But i like the blue for now

wow, i must say i really like your images Ragholio, i'd be interested in knowing your process, especially if it involves photoshop

i play with photoshop myself but my current method gives me finished images that look quite cartoonish with the black outlines etc...

but i really like ur realistic method

please enlighten me if u will

How do you guys draw this good! Is it all by pencil and eraser/

Well, in Solidor's case, it's by tracing other's work and passing it off as his own after adding a belt. :stare:

lolzorz....

well i've created my own pictures by "tracing" someone elses work for the pose but then making everything else different before.


but i do state that that is what i did

Thanks.

I work with mixed media mostly and it can be very technical. I first start of with rough geometry in 3DS Max 2010 including placeholder objects such as raw boxes and cylinders etc. just to get the rough layout and composition. I also pay attention to the properties of the virtual camera, such as apperture width (usually 50mm is great for portraiture) and focal plane. After i've finished modelling everything I light my scene with a few omni lights and some spot lights through windows for some directional shadows etc. Then i'll do some basic texture work with an emphasis on shaders (specularity, bump, rimlight, skin etc.) rather than detailed textures. Then comes the most important and time consuming step; I render everything in layers in very high def (4096x2305). The layers are usually any objects and lights in the Background, Midground (the character) and Foreground. They all must be saved as sperate PNG files (to preserve the transparency channel). I then render a Screen Space Ambient Occlusion pass for each layer as well to add ambient shadow depth.

Next comes Photoshop. I composite everything in their respective layer order. Then i go nuts painting, masking, adding fake highlights, painting more detail into the hair geometry etc (all on an ever growing stack of layers as not to damage the original layers). Each layer is cloned 3 times; the first layer is filtered with an underpainting effect, the 2nd layer is filtered with a cutout effect at 25% and the 3rd layer is left as is but only mixed in at 50% to keep detail. This gives everything a more artistic quality. The final Photoshop stage is fake depth of field and the reason why i have foreground and background layers (this can be done in 3DS Max but the rendering overhead is way too much at 12 hours+ per layer) using the lens blur filter and a mask to control how much of the effect is on different areas of the image. When i'm happy, the image is flattened and reduced to 1920x1080 and saved out as a bitmap.

The next stage is taking the bitmap into Premiere Pro and processing it with an awesome plugin called Magic Bullet Looks. This plugin emulates the photochemical process of anologue film. In this stage i add things like lens reflections, film grain, curves, contrast, bleach bypass etc.

The final stage is back into photoshop for mastering. I clone the original as a new layer, and process it with an effect; lets say crosshatch. Then i mix it back in at about 80% and erase the area around the face and aother important details. Flatten and then export to a jpg and upload it to imageshack and devianart etc.

Long winded I know, but this all take about the same time it used to take me to do pastel chalk paintings when i was in art college 10 years ago.

I hope this gives you some insight into how i work

As promised; the colour version:

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/5263/tamanewgradedcolour.jpg

That is one very long process *jawdropped*

But it definatly makes the final image well worth it

if i ever manage to figure out how to use 3DS Max then i MIGHT try it tho no doubt fail at first

That's amazing, ragholio. I wanna see more from you.

Thanks guys. More to come. I'm currently illustrating one of Peleus's characters from his/her fiction "New kind of warfare".

Here is 'Ninnette' for Peleus from his/her ES fiction "New kind of warfare".

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/5859/ninnettecolour.jpg

Hope y'all enjoy it :icecream:

Wow. That's incredible. :blink:.

Holy Hottie-ness KK!!! I nearly had an election!!! :blink:

Ooops, I DID have one...



...and my opponent won! Gotta leave politics outta this -

:D

Eh dont liste to scow, I cant trace at all. I use thick paper, its impossible to trace with. I wont deny using tutorials to better my abilities from time to time though, its a good way to learn, and excellent to get back in touch with old skills you havent used in a while.

But I rarely use an eraser until the end of the image (clean up) and then i use a putty eraser, really soft, doesnt damage your paper. I prefer to use soft pencils, theres a graphite pencil you can get that acts like the coloured water pencils, I usually use that most of the time. To blend I use Cottonbuds/swabs ( whatever you call them, the things you use to clean your ears) on the smaller areas such as around eyes / lips/ ears etc. For larger areas i used cotton balls/pads (the things you use to remove make up). then after wards i use a sharp but soft led pencil to add in more detail and wash it down a little with a cotton bud so it isnt in stark contrast with the shading/blending etc.


I've been painting alot lately. My Nan got me some canvas' and lots of paints for christmass. I'm about half way through my 2nd painting, its a gothic style courtyard, trying to do a spooky scene but I havent painted in three years so it could be better. I wont be posting it up in this thread for two reasons. 1. Its not TES, 2. I'll probably get told i traced it, onto the canvas, with paint.

Well, she is certainly more of a femme fatale than what I imagined.
I turned my computer on just minutes before, checked the TES forum first (is what I do every day) and this pops up. I was gathering courage to open it for ten minutes or so. And when I finally opened it I could feel myself blushing.

Here's to you, ragholio. :celebration: I feel like I need to return the favour somehow.

PS. And I'm a he. I though the macho warrior of an avatar would look manly enough.

Heres a sketchy blue variant. I like blue...alot.

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/6030/ninnetteblue.jpg

It does have a certain charm to it, yes.

Wow, that is incredible! Amazing job! It's fitting that such an well-realised and intricate character has an equally well-realised and intricate portrait

PS. I love how you've used an in-game screenshot for the sky. Really lovely.

Any english forumers know a good place to get goulash (sp?) from online or in a franchise store. I cant seem to find it any where

Cheers.

But it's not a screenshot. I actually used three .DDS files from the Better Skies for Oblivion mod. 1 for the nebula/stars and then 1 each for the moons. I then used circular masks for the cutout and shadows (because the .DDS files were square). And then I was free to arrange them how I pleased on seperate layers.