[Staff Sarge]

... it's faceless (plus no visible eyes), wields a sword, has a dark full plate armour and it levitates. Oh, and don't miss out that evil cape. I'd say it's evil.

I'm trying out new stuff here, again, so tell me what you think. Is it?

[Eric Pommer]

Hey Sarge,

It's funny, when the page first loaded, I could only see the hood and the 'wings', and I was damn near blown away. When I scrolled down though, the rest of the figure didn't work for me anywhere near as much. Let me see if I can figure out why...
I think the lighting on the cloak is much more dynamic than that of the figure, though I see he is mostly in shadow. I think things are off a little anatomically as well. The legs look a little short, and I don't buy the posture of the arms for some reason.
I'm trying to think of things that would help. I think you need to make the armour more interesting, either through colour or shape. I might suggest adding lots of jagged lines to make it look as evil as the cloak. Dull down the sword so it isn't the brightest thing in the picture.
Anyway, I love what you've done with the cloak. If you rework this one, I hope you show us.

Hey, I just saw the earlier version of this in the WIP section. A few additional comments: I like all the additions you've made to the cloak (damn, love the cloak). The additions to the figure have helped, but the difference between the left highlights and the others is still too great. If there is ambient light in the sky (and it does seem rather bright) then there could be a lot more highlight on the armour.


------------------

Mindplaces: Artwork by Eric Pommer
Character Portraits, Mythic Fantasy illustrations
http://www.mindplaces.com

[This message has been edited by Eric Pommer (edited March 18, 2001).]

[Isric]

What a beautiful cloak. That 'look' is wonderful

[Essobie]

The sword looks like it's crystal or translucent to some degree... but it isn't obvious. I think it's because the brown on the shading of the sword is very close to the hue used in the cape right behind the sword.

If it's a crystal sword (which would be cool) you might go with more a more bluish tint, and make it more glass-like. If it's metallic, I'd alter the shading to maybe reflect some of the purple in the armor and bring out more edge in the blade.

The entire composition is excellent, and the flowing cape is really sweet. =)

Essobie

[Staff Sarge]

Eric, Isric, Essobie (S.O.B.!), thanks for the comments so far. The armour looks a bit dull (= non-evil) I know but I'm practicing some tricks how to render metals and other shiny materials. I'll revise the anatomy too when I'll get back working on that armour.

I'm not 100% satisfied with the cape, I tried to make it unevenly transparent and make that light sharp.. it still looks too blurry (= non-evil).

About the scimitar, I originally planned it to be something made of an unnatural, white substance. Some of its properties included inner white glow, a bit like phosphor. Maybe I'll turn it to a mundane scimitar, without any glowing stuff. It'll lower its evil-factor but maybe the pic will work better that way.

I'm moving on trying different techniques with new pics so the update on this won't be coming very soon.

[wayfinder]

i think it's more.. fluffy - than evil.

[Lukias]

Exactly as Eric said, initially I thought Whoa! but the body doesn't do the cape etc justice.
The others comments sum it up

[Kool]

That's cool man...Especially the cloak ...it gives a special form to your pic..keep it up!

[Kaput]

I agree completely with the other posts. The cape is awsome but the body is dragging it down. There are many thing that you could do to it but I would make the armor transparent and more crystal like and not purple better yet I'd make it spiritual like. Like fog... or better yet...ahh nm

Awsome, awsome cape and hood, it's telling ya "Dammit, I've kicked so much ass in the past that kicking your ass isn't going to make a damn difference"

Kaput

[waylon]

I dig the improvements, but I still think the highlights look inconsistent. (err, wait, Eric already pointed that out.) I think, as a whole, the body looked better darker. You know, that whole "what you can't see is scarier than what you can" deal.

Actually, I was just thinking... Are the white highlights on his shoulder and breastplate supposed to be reflections of his sword? If so, it's not entirely obvious, because I think the reflections aren't quite right. Work on those a bit more, and I think it'll look a lot better.

Also, your description of what you wanted the sword to look like sounds exactly like a picture I drew about half a year ago... I don't know if this is exactly the look you were going for, but I like the way it turned out in my pic. http://fear.incarnate.net/~vlad/sijun/lunar_warrior_final.jpg

[tayete]

The cloak rocks! Amazing!

[Staff Sarge]

I've posted an update on this picture at WIP:
http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum4/HTML/000848.html