[Nex]

Hi.. I just spend some hours trying to get the pic below to look somehow acceptable. Since I am still a novice in Photoshop I would really appreciate some help here.
I am very unhappy with the look of the hair here.. and the shading is somehow still not right.



- Nex

[Optical]

Method Mane's wallet calls romeo must h4x0r "the feel good h4x0r movie of the turbine"
Juiceman2 calls it "the juciest pancake of my lobotomy"

Keanu Reeve's calls it "whoa"

aunt jemima calls it "the oracle of my sarcophagus"

freaky mIRC guy calls it "the internet fuzz on my mr.tails modem"

Nicely dressed warlord calls it "the genghis khan of the new willenium"


------------------
http://www.eccentrix.com/artist/0ptical

[Frost]

Hey Nex, that's a very good start.

In my (not so well respected) opinion, the eyes are a little high, the hairline very far back (especially for a girl -- if it's suppose to be a guy, my apologies, cause it the face really has the shapes and definitions of a girl).

The eyes (from most things I've read (even including some old kid's mag called "Dynamite!" when I was about 7 years old (some 20 years ago), which included some lessons on drawing faces from some guy doing stuff for Marvel I think), anyway), yeah, the eyes should be half-way from the chin to the top of the head. the nosebase halfway between chin and eyes, the mid mouth halfway between nosebase and chin, etc.

Hmmm, keep in mind that making faces and heads are the hardest things to do, because this is where we judge people from -- their expressions, their looks, smiles, grins, frowns, etc. so disproportions are very noticeable as we all know what a face looks like very well. In this case, I would just move the eyes a little lower, that's it. (oh, and I find the eyes are quite nice btw, though a bit angry looking, with the protruding mouth and jaw)

It's looking good.
frost.

[B]

unless you're making a klingon, the hairline needs to come down a tad, and the skull flattened a bit,.
possibly the ears brought forward a tad and the eyes inlarged ever so slightly,.


my opinion,.


b

[A.Buttle]

Unless she's supposed to have a huge underbite, I'd push the lower jaw back a bit. The upper lip should stick out farther than the lower lip.

------------------
And remember, gravity is not your friend!

Joe Dillingham
[email protected]

[Chapel]

Basicly what they said.. if its a guy your making then the chin should probably be a bit bigger.. the space between the upper lip and bottom of the nose should be a little smaller.. and the bottom lip should be a little smaller too. Just a few tips.

------------------
-Chapel
Brian Reber
http://www.geocities.com/chapel_t9/

[Nex]

Thx for the comments.

- Chapel, B, Frost:

It should be a woman (of african descent).. I guess the hairline is a bit confusing (because its too high). I could not find a reference picture anywhere from this perspective, so the shadows etc. are off.

My biggest problem(besides getting the anatomy right) is gettin good curly short (very short) hair on her head. There are many tutorials for long hair but with curly hair its something different..

- Nex

[Chapel]

Ahh.. ok I could see that now. In that case. That's a hairy neck.

------------------
-Chapel
Brian Reber
http://www.geocities.com/chapel_t9/

[hennifer]

hey there. one bit of advice that i'd give is this:

when you're drawing, especially digitally, you have to decide if you want lines around the objects (comic style) or not. you're kind of 1/2way inbetween, with these really faint lines. if you want a more painterly image, get rid of them completely. if not, don't be afraid to draw some big-ass clunky black lines.

along the same kind of theme, don't be afraid to use some contrasting colors and lots of strong shades on the face/hair/etc. if you look at any established portrait-painter, you'll see that the faces they paint aren't full of smooth flat colors.

in fact, really good portrait artists use some crazy colors in skintones. at the art gallery of ontario, i was looking at some 15th-16th century portraits and they all had a color that was ALMOST neon orange in them. and it worked!

[Nex]

thx again for the creative input!

- Nex

[Daedalus IIIrd]

Just thought I'd add my $0.02

The bottom of the hairline is too close to the base of the ear.

People don't have hair directly behind their ears (at least not from what I've seen )

Also, short hair usually stops where the neck starts (the pit between the skull and the neck, if that makes any sense)

Hope it helps...

[Oscar Alexander]

Without having read the above replies:

* Ear is too far back (and lacks realism)
* Invisible mandible (lower jaw)
* Eyebrow too light for a male character
* Eye needs more shadow surrounding it
* Nose is too sharp for a negro
* Missing Adam's apple

This may seem like a crapload of comment, but they're actually pretty easy to fix. Tip for the ear thing: The top of the ear should be on the same level of the eyebrows, the bottom of the ear should be at nose-level.

I hope this helped.

[Nex]

Thank you all very much for all your comments and critique. Since I am still quite new to drawing in photoshop I could not correct all errors in my picture. Nonetheless here is my final version of it:



Thx again for all the help.

- Nex