Calling it a night...

[telophase]

...and I more-or-less finished the face (well, until the rest of the picture is done and I go back to add finishing touches) and made a start on the hair.







And then I noticed that the picture as is looks really nifty when small. XD




P.S. New icon, spurred by the discussion of his snarly sneer in the previous two entries. XD

Comments

[blades-of-ice.livejournal.com]

I know nothing of DN, but this picture rocks my socks. You have mad coloring skills!

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Thank you! XD I'm learning as I go - I'm still sort of vague on where I'm going with the hair, and have refused to think about the leather of his glove - but ... I'm pretty durn happy with it. XD

[tirwen.livejournal.com]

I found an anime you might like - Saiunkoku Monogatari. At this link (http://shadow.randomfandom.com/), you can find some info plus translations if you're stuck with only finding unsubbed versions and don't speak Japanese.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

That does look interesting. Thanks! :D

[azure-reverie.livejournal.com]

We Suck (http://a.scarywater.net/suck/) are subbing that one; they are up to ep. 9 I think.

[azure-reverie.livejournal.com]

That looks amazing. The expression is perfect.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Thank you!

[twosen.livejournal.com]

Aw man, blades_of_ice said EXACTLY what I wanted to say --> "I know nothing of DN, but this picture rocks my socks. You have mad coloring skills!"

That and... what's the 4 stripes at the left of the pic for? What medium do you use for this?

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D Thanks! I'm doing this all in Photoshop.

The stripes are to set base colors. It's something I'm trying with this picture that seems to work fairly well - you lay down two skin tones, then pick your general light and shade colors and use a low-opacity brush to scribble over it, and use the eyedropper tool to pick colors from the bar where it's beens cribbled on. That means the colors are harmonized: the purple for the shadows doesn't look out of place, since it's got some of the base color mixed in to it, and so on.

The more yellow bars are where I tried to do that for the hair, but it failed miserably didn't work quite as well and now I've got a photograph of a blonde woman open in Photoshop and I'm taking colors from that, as you can see in this updated version of the picture (http://telophase.livejournal.com/646750.html). XD

I've got purplish for the shadows and yellowish for the highlights (opposites on the color wheel). The red tones are because it makes skin look more like skin and less like plastic if you put a saturated color at the transition points between light and dark. You can see that on his left jawline (his left, our right), in the shadows under his nose, very subtly on his cheeks, and on his upper lip.

[twosen.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks muchly for the technical details! I love learning stuff like this, even though I don't have Photoshop or the time or skill to use it...

Don't think you failed at all! The hair looks great now. *bows to the master of mad colouring skillz*

[telophase.livejournal.com]

:D I love hearing about art technique, and talking about it, too. XD

Thanks!