This thread is meant to post the on going progress of my General Portrait from the DW IV 2D Mini Challenge. I plan on finishing this by the time the main challenge begins (March 12th). Unfortunately, I was unable to finish my General in time to submit a final portrait for the judging system. My withdraw from the mini challenge wasn't extremely harmful or damaging but it did pull me down to a certain level of failure and personal disgust (sort of).

I hate not finishing on time, especially when I know there could have been a hint or chance for qualifying... If only I could have sketched and painted the damn thing faster (which sounds simple enough). Right?? Fuel to the flame! This disqualification has been a slap in the face to myself. An eye opener for the main challenge, which will start in only a weeks time. I don't intend to let anything get in my way of productive creativity starting the 12th of March.

The purpose of this thread is to complete the entry I withdrew from because I own it to myself and as corny as it sounds to Polycount, as well... Mainly because I failed to pull through and finish strong for the green and black.

Sorry Guys...


(WIP)

If you can't read the text in the image it says "Note: Area surrounded in the highlighted box would be the dimensions taken from the original image size for the War General Portrait Challenge."

I'll start posting updates to the entire concept. Since I have until the 12th of March I intend on spending most of that time painting since the design and layout is pretty much done. I'll spend at the most a day or two polishing up lines and perfecting layout.

Till then, Crits welcome!

Update. Full on painting now.

Crits!
Crits....
Crits?

Hmmm, phone must be broken...

Nice concept Wicked-J. "it" looks a bit to "diplomatic", maybe give the greentooth orb some more malicious illumination? Think that some more shadow on is face and torso would be a nice contrast enhancer. So you see all the nice details more.

Good work so for tho. Keep it up!

This is turning out nice, keep it up. So this is some off-the-cuff feedback for ya,

I feel that the colors are too desaturated. I believe greentooth is taking interest from your painting, he's looking pretty generic, I think, if you wanted to have greentooth in there, you should try and redesign him to match your character more. What you have here is a classic example of "contrast in detail". When I wrapped my head around this concept, it really was an ah-ha moment for me. You may have already known about it, but the idea that contrast wasn't just white vs black... that there were NUMEROUS design elements to find and use against their opposites and overlap their effects with another to create interesting movement in composition. I feel that your detail work is pulling the eye downward. Typically I've found, when it just comes to viewing ornate detail, I'll see silhouettes first, ignoring highly detailed areas, moving to less detailed areas and once I'm more familiar, I'll search the details. I just wanted to bring that thought I was having to light.

If I were attempting to paint this, I'd become bothered having to paint through sketchlines, especially lines as ornate and detailed as yours. Two approaches I use for something like this, hoping your lines are on their own seperate layer, I'd tint the lines to a color that isn't as jarring as black line, red typically works well, but since there are cooler colors being used here I'd try green or blue. The idea is that the lines won't be as noticeable if I miss them with a brushstroke, the goal is to turn the sketch into a painting, so you have to render in such a way the lines become apart of the painting...
A second approach, I'd copy and hide the sketchlines so I'd still have them if I needed them (there is good detail info you've sketched in there) I'd blur everything a tad and start painting overtop it all.

Again, great work so far, nice display of good draftsmanship, The tenticles turned out rad.

Belltann: Thanks, I would like to eventually have green tooth lit up with more interesting lighting effects but I just giving it a quick paint over to get a color scheme I could agree on. I think I changed the colors a good 10 or 12 times. I think it's the drapery that maybe causing the diplomatic look you refer to. Yea I think that's it, the drapery is reminding me of a roman politician the more I look at it.

Killing: You're right on all aspects. Fortunately for me I've adopted a healthy habit of keeping everything on separate layers. The lines are being faded as I paint over them (split image below). The desaturated colors were applied but I think the only layer I'll keep the same until the finished project will be the BG. I've got a cool idea now that green tooth obviously needs some change. The tentacles from the very bottom of the image will be almost hidden in the dark and eventually becoming completely visible as they move upward into the light. I want to generate the effect where you can still see them in the dark by their slimy surface reflecting light.

Always over the top great advice.. And I'll f*** around with the colors as far as highlighting goes, should be interesting.