(click for DA version)

Elf in the bath house was done for RAP 24 - "a bath house". Done in Krita in a few hours. I was aiming for an Indian type of elf-look here. I'm in a mood for making counter-light these days, it makes for an interesting effect to have a bright light behind the character.

Comments and critique appreciated as always!
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Griatch

Very nice. The first thing I noticed was your character's 'wet body'.

I think the back lighting was very well done.

Nice, Griatch, but it looks too much as a "plastic" doll.

Thanks, she's quite wet here indeed.


This was the main exercise here, glad you like it.


Interesting, would you care to elaborate on why you think so?
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Griatch

There is no skin texture, too smooth, like when a photographer uses Photoshop or Gimp with an exaggerated smoothimg procedure.

Hm, while I don't think you get as much detail as normal when the skin is wet, I see what you mean. I could look into going over her skin with a second pass to make it a bit more uneven. Thanks for the feedback!
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Griatch

Another amazing piece of work Griatch! Can you tell me what is the darkest value you use?

The darkest one here is black (for her hair). but for most of the image I try to avoid use solid blacks but brown-reds (for the darkest parts of her skin) and various hues of blue for deeper shadows. This image I made the color balance reasonably accurate at first try, but I have (after feedback here) started to auto-contrast the image about halfway through, which can darken some parts quite a bit sometimes.
Not sure if that answers your question. Is there any particular answer you are looking for in this regard?
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Griatch

That answers my question perfectly. Many artists say don't use solid black so I generally don't but if it works, why not?