[CyberArtist]

This is an image I'm doing for a friend of mine of himself as a vampire. The background is temp, there'll be something else there, and he'll have wings ala Razael from Legacy of Kain (before he's thrown into the pit). I'm unhappy with the muscle shirt and his likeness. The lower right is the refrence photo I used for the image (taken with my low end digital camera). I originally masked out the photo at the full rez to use as a template for the rest of the image so I could ditch having to do proportions but as you can see I didn't copy the actual photo in any way apart from that. The lighting in the image is from a different direction than in photo making the likeness VERY difficult (and a bad photo to boot doesn't help).

Any suggestions or reference images anyone has that might help would be greatly appretiated.

[Haarg2]

reference images of what exactly? presumably not your friend...

--h2

P.S. The whole gotherotica scene's likely to have vampire images, or if you need movies for ideas i think Francis Ford Copola's movie's pretty definitive...Oh, and I think Iain McCaig did concept art for Interview with a Vampire, so that's a recommendation in itself.

[Anthony]

Hmm...you friend doesn't look remotely like a vampire, so you have something of a task. I'd make it very dark and shadowy so that you can't see his figure(no offense, but vampires are perceived to be rather thin and wirey, and your friend isn't either of those), take some liberties with his face(ie; make thinner), cover his ears, and make his skin much more pale. And don't dress him in Matrix gear, try an older style. Hope that helps. Oh, and if Ian McCaig did do concepts for IWAV, then definately check it out-he's very good.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[DDrake]

Ummm, the principal problem i see are the pectorals (chest?)...

I think you should conserve a little more the curve that your friend does. I Think i�m not explainig myself.... You friend in the photo does a curve with his body, and you have lose that in your image. I think you should sketch more before coloring.

Also look at his left eye (right in the image), i think there is something wrong there.

Another thing that could be great is to change is clothes. I suppose that he want to be a "neo Vampire", not a classical, well, try to draw he with another style of clothes. Try a Gabardine(?�), boots, etc...

Another thing that could be great is to give more dramatism to the light. I think from down to up.

Last comment, The skin of a vampire is much more "white", try to desaturate the color of the head, and give it a little of blue.

That�s all

Are you going to draw the dog??

[ThE_JacO]

the work insofar isn't bad at all, there's several kicass pros posting here so anything under loki's or spooge's levels tends to look not as good as it really is here =).
aprt the shape comments (that i'd agree to basically considering that vampires have always been visualized as skinny and pale as wired dopes) you should work a bit on lighting, there's a few rules (nothing compulsory obviously but they come from the experience of really skilled ppl ) about it, one is that lighting from below with such an inclination to leave the ocular cavities dark and shooting on the eyebrowse give images a much more dramatical aspect, u could also leave the body less bright and add a "cut light" , that would perfectly fit the aura that's coming slightly from behind and would lit the rims making it more surreal.
don't get the abundance of advices as a need for tons of corrections though man =) it's just a few things they teach u in most art classes, be them classical or cinema oriented or for 3D artists.
good luck and congrats for the work insofar (the inmportant thing anyway when u rn't paid for a work is to enjoy it and to learn from it).

P.S. don't mind the sucky puntuation i'm kinda histerycal when i write posts in a 20*30 pixels window

[CyberArtist]

Hmm... I was hoping for more suggestions on what was already there vs. changing what's there. I'm making this image the way my friend wants it, which is an image of himself that he had in a dream. All black, clothes, big bat like wings. I'm going for a likeness before I alter the complection to something lighter and less red... which I might not do because my friend might not want it.

My friend is a large guy, so I was originally just doing a basic outline of him (the legs/chest took me about an hour to do, including the original masking and some other stuff ... and there's more detail there than you can see with out turning your brightness up probably).

The blue aura background is temporary. Serves mearly as a blue background so that I can see the character on the black (it being black so I can see the darker value changes more easily).

The image isn't intended to be scary. Different mood that lighting from under would destroy. There's more of a "releif" feeling to the image, hence the above lighting as if he's walking into warm white light out of the cold blue light.

Chest - Working on that still, but the pecs have already been fixed, as well as the shirt line which I'd accidently dropped down (which is wrong when the chest is leaning back like it is). He's also been made thinner, which he once was when he worked out, but isn't now that he works full time.

Thank you for the comments, though I was hoping for... more in the lines of how to make what's already there better as the current style is not going to change.

[Anthony]

Well dang, I don't even give the client exactly what he wants, even though they dish out some pretty good money for it! If possible reserve some artistic liberties.

However, I'll see if I can tell ya what you wanted. His waist is messed up. If he wore a belt, how would his stomach be? Judging from the photo, it would either A)Be too loose, or B)Squish his flesh out the top. If he has that shape, with his body getting wider as it goes down to the waist, he wouldn't have a 6 pack. So you have to decide if you're going to flatter him, or make it realistic. You can't half flatter him by making defined muscles on top of a completely different physique. His face is more round in the photo, and I would make his ears stick out less. A good way to do portrait type images is to play down any flaws, and play up any good traits. Don't be obvious about it, but just subtley improve-that way the person feels good about the image, about themselves, and about you, without feeling like you changed them on purpose.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem