3 piece WIP

panduck

Hey, guys!

I'm overall relatively new to PolyCount, but I'm glad to be here! A project I decided to start working on is incorporating 3 of my characters in a composition similar to the cut scenes from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. My intention is to have actual dialogue as well as an environment in the background.

For this particular scene there will be 3 characters, each which I'll be working on one at a time until I get them perfected to the best of my ability.

The first one has been quite bothersome. I've been wrestling with the lower body and I know some facial tweaking needs to be done as well. For awhile I've been struggling to break myself out of the "anime" syndrome and incorporate more realism in my characters.

I have outlined my rough sketch, then the rough line work, then the more "finalized" lines.

That being said, C&C to your heart's content! Fresh perspective is good for all of us. Thanks in advance!!

BagelHero

Question; are you using a tablet for this?

panduck

Hi BagelHero,

Thanks for coming by! Yes, I am using a tablet! I thought I might try making my own lines by hand since I've always been so reliant on using the pen tool in Illustrator.

BagelHero

Hey, no problem.

I'm just asking, because there seems to be no pressure curve to your lines. Is this intentional? It seems like it would feel quite unnatural to draw that way (plus it's one of the big bonuses tablets have over using a mouse or pen tool to draw).

panduck

My original intention was to have all my lines the same width/thickness relative to the level of detail. But I'm really glad you pointed that out! After looking at the Fire Emblem character art close-up I noticed the lines are actually significantly varied, but they are very subtle.

Sephiran's character art is a great example:



I will most definitely experiment with these varying lines to see what kind of results I can achieve. (:

BagelHero

That's just regular tablet lines, with a small brush, probably zoomed in a tonne and with a high pressure curve.

Even if you ever want to have a fixed width line on purpose, I recommend not crippling one of your tablet's core functions, and instead using a brush made for the purpose. One of my favorite brushes for the longest time was this technical pen brush where the difference in pressure was really minimal, but it still felt silky smooth and natural to use. Still, this reference lineart looks to be something you'd accomplish with regular strokes.

Looking forward to seeing more.

panduck

So I re-inked my character with tweaked tablet settings. Turned out my tablet pen's tip was too soft before, so I couldn't get any line variation.

New one is on the left, the old on the right. What a difference!

BagelHero

Theeeere we go. Lookin' good!

nickcomeau

So the line thickness helps define your shapes a bit more which is great. One thing though you may want to think about is anatomy. For example, the anatomy of your forearms is a bit off (his left forearm). Great reference for forearms: http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/268/6/8/68940fa98512acf73113c3981ab75ebb-d4aw56s.jpg Also, it seems to me that the torso doesn't really line up from above his arms to below his arms. Try drawing it without the arms there first to get the shape right first then go back in with the arms after.

panduck wrote: »

So I re-inked my character with tweaked tablet settings. Turned out my tablet pen's tip was too soft before, so I couldn't get any line variation.

New one is on the left, the old on the right. What a difference!

panduck

Thanks for your feedback nickcomeau!

The reference you posted was really helpful. I ended up using it to draw the muscles in the forearm and then went from there. Definitely a change for the better so far!

I also fixed the left torso area so it didn't look so misaligned. I simply just brought that contour inside a little more.

Also added a couple missing details to the hair and fixed the nose as well.