CHoW#320 :: Dranok the Pale - Centaur Warlord

[Havok Reed]

Very sweet stuff guys!

Just want to let any newcomers and renewed participants know, to puh-lease read up on the rules in the two sticky threads, "Big Guide to ChoW" and "New to ChoW?". There have been issues with people not reading them, so, do your self a favor and read them to avoid future problems.

As you were!

[jsn]

...yeah, I agree!,...THIS CHoW is gonna go NUTSss!!!,...with FiBERrr!!!

Will be adding axe n armour soon!
Quick sketch!
(probably should look at reference)

[Viking Raider]

.... O.o wow!

[jsn]

...and some armour!!!

[Cyberman]

Hey great topic, maybe I can give some feed back later, but this is mine so far...

[Venger]

Sadly I don't have time to do everyone, so I'll just pick out a few.


Cloud-Yo: Dude come and play!
V3T: Don't be put off by other peoples work, you have a huge room to bounce ideas off here. play, learn and get better. See if you can join back in…
Partisan: Great start, feels very natural!
Pixeltuner: ha ha sweet progression.

Loads of other good ideas coming out too!

Made him more 'Warlord-y' and gave him some more obvious troops. I'll only get to play with him for a couple of hours sadly, to much work on.

[Partisan]

Venger thanks Mr.Hanley ^^

update going to sleep now

[Heliux]

my start. :]
watch it here if you're around tonight. ;d
http://www.livestream.com/heliux

[Abrazuno]

This is going to be awesome just judging by the posts so far

some rough thoughts, gonna clean it up just trying to get some of the energy going

[MasterTroglodyte]

He's kind of almost maybe a warlord. lol. Though I guess size counts in war. Hah! Maybe I'll nudge him into something more phallic, er, manly.

[mystik1]

I am very interested to see what comes out of this one. Great work everyone so far!

[Atreides]

Woohoo.

First activity ever.

[worjord]

On Cloud-Yo!'s suggestion I'm turning up the heat.

[Partisan]

Sean McClain hey ^^ thanks for the input and I know its sounds a bit harsh ( but there is no way to say it so it doesnt sound as harsh) but you are wrong on this one ...light doesnt behave like you painted it there ....diffuse light really quickly dissolves - even strong refelctive light - so that about 1,5 m above the ground if you have a strong lightsource from above this light source simply outshines the diffuse light plus you have to take in account the diffuse ambient light coming from the sky and created by larger areas around him in the end the effect you get from the ground reflective light is still there but really weakened down. I do know that what I have here is still a WIP and far from finished ( and yes the metal parts indeed need some work I know ^^ ) but what you offered there is simply not how it would look, and again sorry really trying to not sound dickish. Concerning the spear what you have ist a flat surface one tilted into the viewers direction ( therefore dark) and one tilted slightly downward therefore the reflective light ( the spear has 4 surfaces shaped like a chequer if you would cut through it).

Maybe I can actually help you with this lighting situation ^^ I saw that in many of your pics you have that ...hm I wouldnt call it a problem but lets say .... a little fallacy when it comes to lighting you often times exxagarate the lighting to a degree where it starts looking out of place ( and again as this whole thread is about learning - and yes I include myself even though I refuse this particular advise - I thought it might be ok to give you that hint.)

And a last time sorry if it came out wrong really not my intention to piss someone off or to come across as a dick. And again thanks for your effort

maybe some masterpaintings to reinforce my ramblings ^^

this first one just shows that even with a really strong and exaggerated lightsource ( therefore the very bright sky ) you dont necessarily will have strong reflective light in the shadow areas that outshines everything (even on metal parts that is not the case)
Jozef von Brandt - Cavalry Charge


This second one is more of an overall statement as it shows how subtle light can act even in brightly lit areas like a desert. and how a strong lightsource in front doesnt create a bright sky in every situation.
Jean Leon Gerome - Arabs crossing the desert


just observe these two you can learn a lot from them. In the end I know that what I have is not finished yet by any stretch of the imagination, just trying to help out here ^^

regards
Seb

[matias]

Thought I'd better post, been real wishy-washy on this one, but think I've got one I want to follow, although I've thought that twice before already!

Jworley Awesome revision man, I did like the first one (ben Franklin ) but the new one is savage!!
Venger Nailed the warlordyness!
Partisan I think your lighting was pretty spot on, I was reading him having a darker complexion as well, rather than just unlit.

[Partisan]

matias indeed that was the idea ^^ as he is outdoors a lot the skin is darker , trying to impliment the pale part with warpaint ^^

[ardentsideburns]

tried to focus on the death aspect ... i should work better on his horse half anatomy but i wanted to think of a general design before..
urgh so many awesome entries already, this one will be though XD

[Eph]

Oh man, so much I don't understand about lighting.

Side-thought: Is it just me, or do horses look like ducks on stilts when viewed from an anterior perspective?

[Partisan]

Eph a rule of thumb about lighting ( in most scenarios ) that helps alot: the lightest area in a shadow area is always darker than the darkest area in the light ( even with ambient or reflective light in the scene this stays true)

so for example a bounced off light that hits a part that is in the shadows is still darker than the darkest part of something that is facing a lightsource ( even if the angle it is facing at is at the brink of facing away, but those areas need some special work on their own ^^ ) that little rule alone is something that may help profoundly in your understanding of light if you always check for this.

another little rule that helps in times is : Do it, then tone it down. The way our brain works in perceiving things is sometimes twisted and to make a scene clearer to us it starts to exaggerate things. An example would be that many people struggle in getting the proportions of the human eyes and mouth right, which is just because our brain virtually increases the size of these things as they are major landmarks for recognition, so when you paint something as you see it and then look at it what you have is you painted the mouth and eyes too big and are now looking at them and your brain again further increases their size. Its a common problem you can see in many works of todays conceptart. and its the same with light, the brain pushes the contrast up in some scenarios to make better reason of things and if you draw it EXACTLY like you think you perceive it you end up overdoing it. Its a thing you actively have yourself to force not to do and to double check a lot, before you get a habit of doing it right from the beginning ^^ ( I am far from it myself and its really hard to always focus on it , sometimes resulting in redoing faces for example a couple dozen times because I cant get the size of the features right.... yet another joy that is the learning process in painting ^^ )

hope it helps
Seb

[Vaejoun]

@Matias: Nice sketch, looking forward to your next step. A lot of nice ideas in here.
And as I try to get serious about this business, I will do something again too:

1st sketch: I put a lot of work into his face. I wanted him to have parts of a horse, only a human head felt a little too easy for me and I didnt want to cover such an important part with a helmet either. So here we go.

[jsn]

Little updating...

[IDP]

As he's supposed to be from a mountain tribe I thought I'd go for a snowy vibe.

First sketch thingy;

[Uncle]

possibly too evil looking. horse legs went full retard on me. looks like a jacked up turkey.

[elephant´s stroke]

What i have so far, a lot to do but i feel kind of confortable with this as a base. I find very tricky to find the right proportions and the blending between the anatomies....please any critique will be awesome to hear!

[Quinn Simoes]

You guys are blowing me way, great work so far.

Just a couple notes before we get to far into the week:

Eph right now yours is reading as a skull head, please keep in mind he's not literary dead, but only appears that way because of his pale skin and fur.

Uncle I agree with you the glowing red eyes are indeed making him come across as demonic and or evil. Explore some other ideas, I didn't mind the white eyes you had in your previous sketches.

Hope that helps.

[Eph]

@Partisan: Wow... that does help. Even tried googling up some shiny metal objects, and reflective surfaces seem to follow your rule as well. Although I'm not so sure about differing colors though, it still seems like black objects facing light, will have less overall brightness than the same object but white facing away from the light. Or maybe my brain just doesn't want to accept it?
I dunno. Thank you for taking your time to teach a poor nubsicle like me. I'll try incorporating it into my stuff until I figure it out.

Edit: @QuinnSimoes: Ahhh but it never says he's not not dead.
Edit: Oh wait nvm "among the living". Now I feel like an idiot.

[Ironbyte]

Update...

[Spellsword95]

Partisan: Damn, you stole my horse I had same photo in my reference folder, looks like I'm gonna use another one :p Fantastic WIP, by the way. Can't wait to see it finished!
Uncle: Evil look is just perfect, stick to that. It gives him the right mood. Great work so far.

*

Here is mine. Early WIP. No hands, axe and armour yet. Just posting it to have some process shots for later.

[V3T]

Atreides yours is just the most unique thing here in every sense lol.

I did what I could. You guys kick ass though =]
The Celts have a saying.. 'If the Gods decide it is your day to die, all the armor in the world won't save you'

[Viking Raider]

You guys are SICK!! But I can't help but stay in and struggle through this Y'all are putting out stuff I'd consider "finished" and here I am just ready to shout how excited I am about the shoulder armor. Such as it is...


Getting more refined (for me!)...

I just want to thank everyone who's in this one because I've really been studying your pieces in stead of admiring like normal and I am learning a ton just in the last 2 days! This is addictive.