Sylph

[turin]

btw, something like this is what I'd do for the face. It's not that well done, but it gives the idea of what it maybe should look like. I moved her left eye and her nose slightly upward, make gave her a very small nose. I also redid some of the jawline.

[edit]
Err, this one.

[Rocket Slug]

Hi there, I've been lurking on the BfW art forums for a while (almost a year, now, come to think of it), and I've learned a lot listening to all your critiques of various artists. I've been too lazy to sign up, and occasionally I wish I did, because I saw a few points that nobody seemed to notice about some artwork. Well this is one of those cases and I've decided to start throwing my two cents into the pool.


Attached, is a few lines that I want to draw your attention to. First off, I'd like to point out how low the ear and earring is. I've outlined the head in black. Since the eyes and ears are supposed to be halfway down the head, I drew the line they're supposed to make in purple. The red line's the the line that the eyes and ears insinuate in the current drawing.

Second, the yellow line's where the neck and shoulder should be. However, if the wind's blowing the hair that used to be across the face behind, it's impossible for it to swirl the rest of the hair around the neck like that without disturbing the rest of the hair more. And is it just me, or does there seem to be too much hair (as in volume)?

And finally, I'm nitpicking on the blue line. Because it starts right at those intersections of lines, my eye's drawn to it, and I think that line's the waist. I'm sure you can fix that when you color, but like I said; Those intersections of lines attract too much attention.

Oh, and I suppose I can address some of the complaints against her left arm. The sleeve's too ambiguous on the folds. I can't tell where her elbow's supposed to be. It's also sorta unnatural to have those folds so small and close to each other. And as for the hand; first off the sections between the fingers after the pointer and middle finger are square and unnatural. Second, the palm's improperly shaped. Maybe it's because I'm a guy and I play the piano, but my palm's much more square. The muscles right under your pinky and thumb add a lot of shape to your palm. Take a look yourself.

So anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm just dropping by because I've seen too many amazing pieces of art that have some small flaw that I wanted to see addressed, but never occurred. I think my points have some validity, but since I've had very little formal art training, I don't know how seriously you should take my comments. Good luck, though. I'm loving the work; it's got a lot of character.

[RCG Tiburon]

wow, for a guy with little formal training you seem to know a lot. all those comments made sense to me.

[commanderkeen]

I think Turin's got the right idea. I also think that battlestar's second version is too detailed, and those lines just below the eyes on his second version make her look evil and the grin seems like a sneer.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The second version: The hip area comes through better now, except the fabric going between the legs. For it to really work like that, she would have to tuck it in there and pinch it with her thighs. The heavy wrinkling gathers too much attention to her crotch, and the position of the legs has too much "I need to go to the bathroom" to it.

... and breasts... hmm I'm pretty confused what people want to see changed on it.

The thing is, even for an "ideal" breast, a hemisphere isn't really a good starting point, but more like half-of-an-egg. In your picture it comes to the outline of the upper part of the right breast, which should have less curvature than the lower part.

[Airk]

Mostly an improvement, but IMHO the new face is really not very good. It is out of proportion, her expression is just... weird, and it is much too anime-ish. I think you need to redo, again, all the parts that were covered by the removed braid...

Erg. Pet peeve. It's not at all an anime-ish face, it's just not a -good- face. x.x

[Rocket Slug]

wow, for a guy with little formal training you seem to know a lot. all those comments made sense to me.

Thanks. I've only taken the regular art classes at school. But like I said, I've learned almost everything I know about art critique from Jetryl & co. on the forums.

And I didn't realize that turin's edit was still the first version, rather than the newest one. The hand issue's been fixed, but I still can't see the elbow. You've got the legs somewhat fixed, but like Sgt. Groovy said, it draws too much attention down there. You just need to suggest a dip, rather than make it look like she tucked her dress in between her legs. Just erase a couple lines where the legs meet and it should be alright. I'll try to hack together an edit if necessary.

[DrIdiot]

hey those are wicked good. any updates?

[battlestar]

yeah. End of semester, hadn't time to draw at all for over a month already.

[commanderkeen]

I don't really like the expression on her face. Kinda looks petulant... But faces are hard to draw.

[Sgt. Groovy]

The general shape of the face is now much more child-like (almost baby-like), which is bad, imo. Try to find a good adult woman face for reference. Faces are hard to make up.

[Iris]

Well, I want to congratulate you. You seem to be the first person here to at least try to draw portraits for one of the two cuttiest units in Wesnoth.

Keep up the good work. Your portrait already looks great to me.

[Changeling]

You need to move the whole face up. The hair came down too much. You might want to shrink it and move the face up. And like Rocket Slug, I've pointed it out for you on the picture.

[Redeth]

A quick edit that might help.

[Zhukov]

Redeth has it.