Ritual Lich

Stinkhorse

Been working on this girl for a bit now.

Toughest part is making sure areas are shaded while still having pop from the objects around them. It tends to get noisy. If anyone has some suggestions or tips I'd love to hear them!

AimBiZ

Superb line work! Really like the style. Was difficult to recognize where the head was though, but you still did a smart thing by giving the overlapping arm a white outline for depth separation. The different parts could be made more readable through coloring, otherwise I have no tips. Keep doing what you do.

EDIT: Actually, just spotted one thing. The uppermost knee seems to be drawn in two places, one covered by the dress and the other exposed at lower height which makes the calf look really short. The other leg is dislocated as well, needs to be moved to the right.

Stinkhorse

Awesome thanks for those catches. I've been starring at her for so long I don't always spot this stuff.

Suba

Same thing here, I love the style but it took me some time to actually understand what was going on. The fact that she has no eyes doesn't help.

What is she doing? I like the silhouette but the pose looks kinda awkward and confusing. Her right arm also looks out of place. It could look like it is actually on her back.
I'm pretty sure colors will help though.

Oh and I looove the bottom part of the dress. I like the fact that you used that part to make the eye rest from all the details. Great details btw !

Stinkhorse

@Suba: Thanks for the crit man! All really good points. I'm in the process of refining the shading at the moment, making it thicker and more deliberate. It should help a bunch of the parts pop a bit more. As for the pose, it's been fighting me for a while. I'm less than thrilled with the left arm, it's foreshortening has been bothering me but I'm not super sure how to clean it up. As for the right arm, I like it's extreme position, but I think, but you're right about it needing clearer separation from the back. I'm going to try and push out and uncover her right shoulder blade a bit, and then make her elbow pointier. That should help with the read I think.

If you have any suggestions for the left arm I'm all ears!

Stinkhorse

Also that calf/knee issue was just stupid and has been fixed.

Alismuffin

The concept is great and your shading is superb! It is a bit hard to read however. The detail is amazing though so I would never want to tell you to cut back on it to emphasize the face.. It could probably b achieved through colouring instead

Stinkhorse

I should probably have mentioned earlier, seeing as everyone is leaning on it for the solution, but the commision for this piece was for a hard black and white ink only. I've gotta make this work without color somehow.

At the moment I'm leaning toward a combination of heavier internal shadows, more pronounced line weights, and getting that right shoulder blade to 'pop' more.

If anyone wants to hit me with an anatomy paint over I'd be super enthusiastic to learn!

Stinkhorse

I'm still feeling out how the shadows need to be, but thicker and chunkier with white cut outs to mark edges and shapes. It's feeling good so far. Mostly I need to reduce the amount of super thin lines and greebly garbage. If there needs to be a shadow someplace it needs to be strong and immediate.

Stinkhorse

Slowly working my way up this lady's skirt. Her legs and dress are pretty much done. I need to apply some detail to her hair belt to separate it a bit, and I need to darken up that right arm to drop it back.

Stinkhorse

And she's done! If anyone had any anatomy concerns I'm still listening.

Suba

I actually like the left arm personally

You did really awesome dude ! Great work on the right arm. Maybe i'm used to it now but I think it is way clearer then before. Really cool character.

Stinkhorse

Thanks Suba! I think evening out the line work and reducing the amount of noise was what pulled it together.

Starting work on the next critter.