Darlla - stuck a fork in it 10/15

Very fitting title, she looks so feminine and ladylike in that sig :).

It looks like you softened her features some; the effect is very nice. Barbarian females can tend toward harsh, angular features and she manages to look very pretty without looking less barbarian :D. My theory is it's all in the eyebrows :X.

Yeah she had a straight eyebrow which made me sad =/ So I arched it some which made me happy. I smudged out her freckles, all 5 of them (/rude eq) but I wanted to add them back in and put in a hawt quote about them but I couldnt make them look realistic enough =(

You know how you arched her eyebrow on her left? Well, the little bit that shows on her right doesn't seem to be going at the same angle. You should angle that one so it's all prettyful too.

Oh, and the key to defining sections of hair is shadows and highlights. Lethe's hair tutorial gives some really super awesome tips.

I think I like the second one best Mae. The hair looks more realistic to me.

Vex showed me a pen tool version that looked way better so I'm going to try that, but I'm seriously investing in a wacom.

I have a wacom tablet, but its the gimp small one. 3X5 or something like that. The good thing is they are only like $99.00. Well worth the investment IMO. :)

Mae did it again.

:)

I'm no expert at such things, but what I would do...



Take that brush @ around 50 percent and use that to smudge the whole length of each strand. If 50 is smudging too hard bring it lower; go slowly and gently, doing this can kind of be like using a sledgehammer to squish an ant. If you're losing too much texture, take that same brush @ like 10 percent or so and erase along the grain of the hair. If it looks too translucent duplicate the layer. For smudging the ends, even though every tutorial I've read says to smudge down the length of the hair, I think it looks better to smudge in upward strokes just a little bit.

That makes it smooth for me anyway; my problem is usually getting enough texture and highlights. I'm stingy with my light colors, they scare me :-o .

Something to try anyway...might or might not like it, and I'm still new at this stuffs and all.

What's the pen tool technique?

That's the thing, Veri...I do EXACTLY that. I need to try another technique. I managed to get that smooth like with my sig but for the life of me I can't figure out how to do it on a larger scale. =(

Dmmt, I'm feeling the terrible temptation to log in and take screenshots so I can play :\. I bet it's at least partly a matter of finding the right brush. Didn't think of the scale issue, an' making that brush bigger would just be sucky...

I'll bet making a custom brush would work. OTM to play :X.

Oh and the pen tool is the calligraphy looking pen that's at the bottom left side of the the tool panel. Its hard as hell. I cried a little while Vex walked me thru using it. Oh a tip, dont try it out underneath another layer...I about broke something thinking I wasn't doing it right. :oops:

I havent tried using the pen tool for anything but cutting out toons. I never thought it would be usefull for something like that. :) Learn something new every day. :)

You use the pen tool? Zoinks. I saw a tutorial on how to do that, to get the lines at least, but I use the magnetic lassO.

I learned the pen tool in Illustrator with the help of a wonderful teacher who made me trace 760346703635067 clip arts to get it down. Was curious as to how it was used in this context :D. I've never really understood the vector elements of Photoshop though...I usually switch to Illustrator to do that stuff. Should probably figure out how all that works.

And I have a theory for a big smooving hair brush. Might take me a while to nail down though.

I do the same, Veri. And for the same reason. I had a teacher who made us trace photos of gothic architecture. Before that, the pen tool was like Chinese arithmetic to me. Now, I love it. But like you, I can't get the vector elements of PS to work the same for me, so I just switch back and forth.

I saw an awesome tutorial on how to use the pen tool to vector. Gonna have to dig it up.

Photoshop hardly has the capabilities to vectorize images that illustrator does. As for the pen tool, I am a firm believer of hating it =P. I rather use a custom brush and use that to ink stuff. A technique you could use to do the hair is to redraw the hair with one base color, draw the outline of the hair first and then fill it in. To do the texture of it take the dodge tool set it on a small ass brush, around size 2, and draw hair lines in, the dodge tool should be set on highlights and like 55% exposure. Once you have enough hair strands in there, switch to the burn tool and do the same thing as you just did excpet not as many lines, just a few lines here and there, it should start looking like hair. Then Take your dodge tool back out and set the exposure to 70% and a large brush around 30, and do some highlights where they are needed. I probably didn't explain that the best but I tried so forgive me =P

Mae the biggest thing I noticed on this picture would be the hair is free standing and is not resting anything on the right side of her head, it should be at least be behind her ear to be back like that. The eyebrows are excellent. The right eye does not close on the left side though, most eyeliners connect. The Armor is "Stuck" to her body which is usually a bad thing, cause it will be hard for her to get it off :/. Vei does a great job of making sure the armor is usually looking like it is actually "on" on the person and not stuck. The space between her lower jaw and ear is a little large, but not a big deal, the jawline does look a tad big. There should also be a tad more shadow below her chin and jaw, because her face is so bright you assume a bright light source manaufacturing a deep shadow. I love her nose, great job. Last thing would probably be the smile, its a great job editing the lips for a smile, but you didn't do anything with the cheeck texture, since she is smiling there would be a tad wrinkle. :) Great Job though Mae.

You said you were thinking about investing in a Wacom... do it. :) They help so much in just about everything, plus you can put it in your ear and look cool.

I'm marrying Keero.

WTF? Put a Wacom in your ear?!

Then pen for it silly ^_^. Instead of a pencil in my ear I always have my wacom pen =P