Revised version toward bottom of page 1.

I thought I'd jump on the closeup bandwagon before it leaves

Plus, I think it'd be good for me to break out of my comfort zone. This is the second ever closeup I've done:



She's a character in one of my stories, a "ghost" of sorts. For attempt #2, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. Still, something seems odd about the eyes. Critique welcome... and probably needed

I agree, the chin seems to bulge out under the lip instead of in. I haven't seen this character so I don't know what she is supposed to look like. The eyes are a bit strange. Fantastic job on the hair.

You beat me at painting hair Merrak! The chin needs adjusting and maybe a little shadow in the eye sockets near the nose. She looks spooky but not entirely terrifying (knowing your work, that is what you were aiming for) I think you've done a good job there.

Closeups everywhere!

Nice to see a close character study from you merrak, you have done several semi-close faces before, don't remember seeing anything as close-portrait as this before though.

She certainly looks special and kinda spooky! I think the issue with her eye has to do with the perspective plane of the face being off. Her left eye (our right) is too close to us and the plane of her eyes are shifted towards us much more than the plane of her nose and mouth.

You picked a very tricky angle here, depicting the underside of the chin from a lower angle is very difficult since we are not used to see other people from this angle (well, unless you are very short I guess). She has a pretty large chin, but that is by all means not impossible to have! I think the shading of the chin is conusing the eye though - the "bump" in her chin is extending too far to our left, making it look like her entire lower face is skewed to that side rather than just facing forward.

The hair works fine, it's quite thin but since she's a ghost that is probably as intended. Overall she looks quite sickly, again this fits well with the ghost theme.

I suggest mirroring this image both vertically and horizontally, the perspective issues should come across more clearly then. Maybe use something like this pose from posemaniacs as a reference to get a handle on the facial planes from this angle?

Just some suggestion of course. Cool study, very useful to go, as you say, "out of your comfort zone", those are the images one usually learn the most from.
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Griatch

This looks a bit blurry and as Griatch mentioned sickly looking.
Good for a ghost though. xD

merrak: closeups are fun, we can't have enough of those ! i think your sort-of-ghost looks rather likeable, and i think you did a good job on the colouring. i can see that it's not a very easy angle to paint a person from, but i also think that made the picture interesting, this is a picture that speaks to my imagination!
what struck me about her eyes at once is that they are not looking in the same direction. far side eye seems to be looking slightly down, near side out is looking more straight ahead. it's something to do with the angle of the pupils.

Thanks for the comments

Maybe a little background would clarify what I was going for. The character is the one in this drawing http://fav.me/d5eyx9v. In fact, it's the exact same pose. "Ghost" is probably the wrong term, but I couldn't think of a better one. I've gone back and forth on exactly how she should appear.

I seem to have a penchant for picking difficult angles. Oops

@Griatch - Thanks for the clarification. I keep forgetting to try the horizontal mirror test.

Hopefully I'll get an opportunity to work on the chin sometime soon.

I made some pretty drastic changes to Vasigari.



Since she doesn't age, I figured she should look a bit younger. Technically, she's not a "ghost". In the story she's in, I went out of my way to resolve what she is. She just always "is". She asks the protagonist to prove the world doesn't exist.

merrak: this is a change! i see you've changed the angle and the chin looks good now, well done! i also like the shape of her nose, it has character . i think the top (around and above the eyes) and bottom parts of her face don't look right together, though - i get the impression they are painted in slightly different angles. it's probably some small detail that distracts me, like with the way the mouth was placed in your mara close up.
the more you write about your characters, the more curious i get about the stories!

Nice job Merrak. She looks far more real now.

I need to take a closer look at the posemaniacs reference Griatch gave me earlier again. I swear I'll get the facial geometry right one of these days .

Vasigari is just a minor character, but she's one of my favorites. I need to draw her sister sometime. Vasigari exists everywhere and her sister exists nowhere. They can never meet because "they live in mutually exclusive sets".



Thanks!

I still find myself tweaking her appearance. She's changed pretty drastically between every piece she's appeared in. I guess that's a big "F" in consistency .