3 October - Added Mara, Sanreils. See below!

I thought I'd draw the portraits of the characters from my work-in-progress, An Ember in the Wind - since I spent so much time drawing landscapes from the story.

I have two five so far! And I'm pretty pleased with them, so I think I'll color them.

1. Mara, the protagonist. Her hair hides things I'm not good at drawing, like ears and shoulders.



{ Link to Bigger Version }

2. Sanreils, the temple courier ~ He'll be a challenge because he has blondish hair. I'm not very good at drawing hair, and black hair seems to do a better job hiding that



{ Link to Bigger Version }

3. Matta Deis. Not much to say about her at the moment



4. Sid, the "permutatorically challenged" knight.



5. Dahes. Eh, I'm not as enthusiastic about him, and I'm not super with ears. But I think he'll turn out okay.

Excellent line drawings. They have faces that are easily distinguishable from each other and have a definite character. This will probably come out more when they are painted. I sympathise with you about painting hair.

Very nice drawings Merrak.

At this stage they look really good! The first one reminds me of an actor that I don't know the name of but was in a show I liked! xD

The best thing I do with hair is get a bristle brush make it really small and turn opacity down using black then going over the hair in the directions it's pointing then go over it with white. After I add some shadows.
It's good for light colored hairs like blonde and some shades of brown.

Nice work so far!

merrak: i really like your line drawings! i understand you like making paintings of them, but i hope you keep the original line drawings too, they're beautiful.

The characters are looking very good.

Added two more! (Top of thread)




I won't get better at painting hair without going for it, though

@conbagui @he4rty, molly

Thanks!


@AnMal~ I'll certainly keep them around. I'm pretty happy with the outcomes



I finally tracked down some good hair/bristle brushes for GIMP. I need to figure out how to make brushes in MyPaint, since I don't want to have to switch back and forth between two programs more than once.

The mistake I keep making is painting each strand individually. In fact, I forgot to block out clumps of strands for one of the drawings.

For that I'd say make your "blocks" then do what I said only in MyPaint, you can still turn transparency down with brushes.
Depending on the color you can overlay black and white using a bristle brush in GIMP, I think for black you could use burn and turn transparency down.


Your new sketches are very dynamic!
The last one's eyes and mouth seem a little skewed though, but depending on the story that could be a good thing!
Good job!

>> The last one's eyes and mouth seem a little skewed though

That was intentional But I'm not sure if I'll keep it that way. He'll probably be close to the last one I do. I have the first two nearly complete. Burn seems to work pretty well for dark colors. The geometry of hair is the hardest part for me. Strands tend to clump and overlay each other.

I found a pretty good tutorial about hair geometry online http://www.stanprokopenko.com/blog/2010/03/draw-hair/

Pretty good explanation of the hair geometry Merrak, thanks, now to appy it...

That's always the tricky part

Updated 3 October!

Added Mara and Sanreils. Hair is kinda iffy, but I'm pretty pleased with the rest.

Wow! Is that the same Mara you've been drawing?
If so she got a super good looks upgrade, wow.
I think she looks very nice! But can use some more dynamic shading, her skin looks flat against her very lovely hair (good work there!). Her lips might wanna be a bit deeper in color to make her mouth more attractive. Depends on her role in the story though.

Sanreils's hair looks good! I think it could use some more highlights, though.
His eyes look a bit unfinished imo, and his lips look a bit weird imo.
His overall appearance looks like an old game! Not pixely but just not overly...realistically defined? I don't know what it is exactly. Depending on what you want that might be a good thing!

Nice work so far!

Btw are there any other images of your Squirrel? He's so cute!!!

WOW MERRAK!!! These are awesome! You learn fast.

Thanks I added a bit more shading, although I started to get some banding so there was a pretty tight limit. The lighter parts of her face are a little brighter now.



I'm not sure if darker lips look right. I don't think the character would go out of her way to make them darker, although apparently things like lipstick did exist at the time the story takes place. Not that I shoot for historical accuracy, anyway - most of the drawings have towering skyscrapers. In any case, I may end up reverting them back.

I think Sanreils just needed to have his edges softened a bit. I upped the saturation of his hair, too - the paler variety seemed a bit too unnatural. Also, more highlights!





Thanks But I don't upload all the goof-ups

These are some very nice studies/portraits merrak! You have improved a lot with your portrayal of human subjects. The original sketches overall feel a bit like rendered 3D models actually (if you didn't already, using 3D is a good way to quickly test out perspectives and facial planes (usually not expression though, programs like makehuman make dreadful facial expressions in my opinion)). I'll try to give some constructive feedback below.

The more fledged-out version of Mara is the best one you've done of her so far. She looks younger than before here. It's also the first version I've seen without her having a reclining chin, something I had gotten used to in this character. I recognize her but it does change her face quite a bit. The hair works well; I like black hair too - it just feels easier and I have an easier time to add highlights on black than on blonde. In your full-painted version of Mara I do feel her eyes lack a little touch of life. This, I think, comes partly from her eyes being fully open (she looks attentive, like she's just seeing something interesting outside the frame), but also because of their pale colour. Only slightly narrowing the eyes may be worth experimenting with - a lower eyelid will shade the eye a bit, bringing even the bluest of eyes into shadow and thus more definition and impression of inner life. Whereaas you are realistically correct in the lack of a clear highlight here, darkening the eye and adding a slight highlight for contrast might also be worth experimenting with.

The Sanreils character's the anatomy is good, I do feel the edges are a bit too sharp, causing his face to feel artificial and almost 3D-rendered. The hair itself is also good, but I think you need to attach it more clearly to the character and colour scheme - it feels a little like a wig at this point. Consider for example showing some hair attach to his temples, using blending to have the hairs "come out of" the skin. Like Mara, his eyes are also a little dead; I think even a touch of highlight in them would make wonders here. Just some opinions of course, this is overall looking good!

Anyway, it's a cool lineup; cool that you go into portrait work a bit too, it's challenging but it's looking very promising so far! Looking forward to seeing more of the cast getting finalized!
.
Griatch

merrak: you're making some amazing progress! and so much has happened to these since i last looked at the thread that i almost can't believe it's the same thread . i like the second one of mara a lot, but i have to agree that the dark red lips look a bit too much. we've got used to mara having lips with a high colour but in this 3d-ish style it looks wrong. i also agree with griatch that her face has changed a lot with the shape of her chin - but she's still recognisable as mara. i like the first version of sanreils better than the second, actually. i was wondering why, and i'm not sure i have an answer but i think it may have to do with the more realistic highlighting/shading of the hair in the second clashing with the wig-feeling of it. maybe reducing or at least changing the shape of some shade under the hair in the forehead would take away a bit of the wig look? i also think his eyes in the second version could use a bit of darkening to contrast with the highlights and give them more life. experimenting a bit with size and shape of irises and pupils too might do much for the eyes.

i'm looking forward to seeing all of these finished, but it looks like a gigantic project! and of course, since i'm of a weird and obstinate nature, i still love the line drawings and the "flatter" and less realistic versions of mara better .

Who does?

Fantastic Merrak. You mastered the hair.

All nice
The colored look very close to Poser renders, a bit weird effect, i can't say if good or bad because is sort of double edged

The similitude with Poser or MakeHuman renders , especially in Sanreils but also in the first painted version of Mara was the first impression , really nicely done i found surprising that you recreate with digital painting starting from lineart a look so similar to Poser figures