Mermen: Fighter Portrait

[Kestenvarn]

The water reflections are an interesting idea. I thought they meant the skin was wet, at first.

[kitty]

you've got a busy thread going on here!

forgive me if i reiterate things that already hve been said...

overall a really, really nice mermaid! and i really like her disaffected expression.
but on to the nitpicking: her left hand is very, very small and has six fingers... and her right arm is somehow short, the ellbow seems to be about the height of her breats while it should be around the navel. the pearlstring is rendered in a totally different way than the rest of the pic, you could easily skip it completely. her "top" - i'm not sure if it is green fabric or algae (which would be a really cool twist!), if it is fabric you need to render it clearly as wet cloth and if it is algae that should be clearer, too (more colour variation, loose ends etc). and while the light reflections are a really nice idea, they don't work yet, they need to be more easy "readable". or replace them with wetness, water drops or the like.

but overall really, really nice and promising!

[JAP]

her left hand is very, very small and has six fingers...

Hee i never noticed that until i read it, i wonder if it was intentional?
Either way i dont think its necessarily bad, since this is the first portrait of her species (that i know of)
6 fingers can be made one of thier characteristics.
Just a thought..

[Cernunnos]

I haven't noticed the sixth finger,
None of us noticed a hand with six fingers...
While the unique woman who posted noticed it at first sight...

to moderators, sorry for not being constructive.
to Sleepwalker, i believe and hope it won't be much work to remove it and apologies for not have noticed that while it was just lines.

I take it as a big lesson...
Argh JAP, it took me 10 mins to write!!! i post anyway!!

[xtifr]

That blue thing above the top of her four obvious fingers isn't another finger--it's the end of her GI-NORMOUS, double-jointed thumb!

(Seriously, it looks like it might have been part of the ribbon in the original sketch which then accidentally got colored merskin-color rather than ribbon-color.)

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The six fingered look may have been accidental, but I kind of like it. The merfolk are a different species, so why shouldn't they have six fingers instead of five? It gives them another distinction from the land based races.

[Sleepwalker]

Thanks for the compliments and crit. It's nice and useful.


About the six finger thing that was a pure accident. It was indeed part of the staff ribbon. I meant to paint it over but somehow I forgot and didn't notice it.

I was in a swimming pool today at about noon and I checked to see how the water reflections looked. You're right, the light streams are too visible. I should tweak and tone them down a bit. I'm going to experiment with wetness and maybe adding some water spray.

The sash is supposed to be seaweed, going to see if i can make it look more like it. I like the pearl band and id like to keep it if possible. I know I haven't worked much on it but that's also something I'm gonna try to improve.

I'll see to the arm length/hand size and the little other things.

Vendanna: She's supposed to be just above the waters surface, dunno how you interpreted it as underwater.

Captain swing: About my painting technique:
I'm using photoshop so I don't know the equivalent brush functions of Gimp but I imagine it would be pretty similar. Also I am a drawing tablet user but you use a mouse right? That might make the explanation of the way I paint moot but I'll tell you anyway, or anyone else interested.

I pretty much did it the same way as kitty explains how to do it in her portrait tutorial but with a few differences; I like using a brush with pressure set to width and with a low color flow most of the time (always hard edged, often with very low flow, like 4-8% unless I use 50% opacity, then its around 10-20% flow). If i make cast shadows I set a 50%ish opacity or lower and up the flow with some mode that works well, usually "multiply". I used a brush with pressure set to opacity with 50% opacity and 100 flow for some stuff, like the water reflection streams...

Hope that wasn't completely useless, dunno what more to say.


This must be the technically most advanced painting I've ever done... counter reflections, color variation, multiple light sources, different textures . good learning, still I didn't really expect it to take this long.

[kitty]

don't worry so much about the finger thing, it's something that happens easily. if you look at comics you'll find a ton of characters with four or six fingers or all those photoshopdisasters in professional adds...

and to the other ones laughing at your mistake: do it better yourself before snearing at an artist doing a good job!

[JAP]

Well just to be perfectly clear so that no one holds any grudges, the "Hee" in my previous post was directed at myself for looking at it along time without realizing it was something odd with the hand.
Looking forward to see the next version.

[Sleepwalker]

JAP: That was harmless, don't worry about it.

OK, I hope all the issues have been dealt with now. I toned down the reflections, enlarged the hand and amputated one finger. The arm has been lengthened and the pearl band don't look painted on anymore to me anyway. Also made the sash more sea weed-ish.

Tried my hand on some water spray and adding a bunch of subtle water drops on her body... Came out OK I suppose. It adds a bit of dynamism/motion to the picture though, I dunno if that is something that's tolerable in portrait art.

What do you think?


I get a 404 from that link you posted kitty.

[Lord.Bedham]

Very good i like it.

[Cernunnos]

Nothing to say but excellent, hope it'll get committed soon

[Kestenvarn]

I like the metal bands and the seaweed, especially the rips in the end trailing off the staff.

[kitty]

great work again!

she is pretty much there! and much better than only "tolerable" anyways! have i told you how much i like the subtle textures you used for the skin, sea weed and wood? good stuff!

now comes a series of little nitpicks, no real mistakes, but fixing those little things will make your picture shine even more...
* her arm is still short. her left arm is of perfect length - the ellbow meets with the belly button, her right upper arm ends barely below her breasts.
* while the algae top's texture is great it needs a bit more shading below her right boob and side of the body
* the pearl sting is much better now, too. but i still suggest toning it down a bit. atm it is the brightest part of the painting apart from the white of her eyes. generally darker, some shading to indicate that the part around the right side of her body is overshadowed and perhaps some colour variations.
* her fin could be perspectively pushed back a bit by desaturating and darkening it.
* the water spray you added is really a nice touch! it looks a bit massive at the moment. perhaps you could add some finer spray at the bottom edge? and the drops on her body aren't really water-y enough yet, too (i think they are too white and miss reflection and shadow).

(i add a little paint over in which i adressed some of these points quickly)

again, good work! just some detail fiddling and she is in!

[Sleepwalker]

Damn I knew it, there was still something bugging me with that arm. I'll make the changes tomorrow if i can.

Didn't know about that desaturation trick on the tail fin, thanks.


If your interested in the making of the textures;
For the skin I just used a special brush that came with photoshop that just sprays dots. Very simple.

The sash was all hand painted, no tricks except painting modes.

For the staff I used 3 colors: yellow, blue and gray, which I painted on in random but connecting patches using full flow and very low opacity.


I'm glad that you like it.