Here's some small portraits I drew for a testbed game I'll be releasing before the month is out. Technically, I had to learn to draw things that resized well (T2D pretty much auto-scales everything to whatever size it needs to be). Most of my earlier art used crisp, thin lines and sharp color, so it was a bit difficult to learn to let in the fuzz. This is the sort of thing I ended up with:
Time to draw? 30-45 minutes per face.
Fullsize:
Shrunk:
If you were playing a free game, how would these portraits (literally portraits: framed an all) strike you?
6 comments:
They're provacative enough to have the porn effect, but abstracted and subtle enough to dodge the "M" for "Mature" rating.
I like them. They have a definite style: water colour meets anime. They feel light and fresh. They also look good in both scales.
I wish I could draw. Curse my lack of tallent.
Patrick: I think you're overthinking, here. I'm talking quality.
Duncan: Thanks!
I tend to critique artwork pretty harshly, which some people love and some people hate. I'm sure you can take it, but I thought I'd make sure you didn't think I was just being an asshole.
The linework is quite good, but I don't think the colour is working.
For starters, the airbrushy, soft-edged method tends to look amateurish. I had a similar colouring technique when I began digital painting, but I found a huge improvement in my art when I began using mostly hard-edged brushes, using soft brushes only in moderation.
The key to visual readability in any size is value. These pictures have a fairly shallow value range, mostly near white. The darkest value in either picture is the robot's blue ear-piece. Contrast draws the eye (bet the word value I bolded up there is still drawing your eye), so the ear-piece is where the viewer's eye goes immediately. Not the ideal place for them to hit right off the bat.
The bubble gum girl has a better balance of values, and the eye tends to hit all the right spots. But a bigger range of values would give the picture more kick and make it much more readable at small sizes.
I also get the feeling that the robot girl would look much better if the highlights on her skin weren't outlined. The highlights tend to read as seperate parts of her skin.
But as for your question of what I would think of the portraits in a free game, these problems probably wouldn't bother me much. They're fun, and higher quality than the art you'll find in most free games.
Hope this was helpful!
Eric Poulton
Yeah, that was good. I give similar critiques.
Just as an FYI, the robot was the second portrait I drew, bubblegum girl the most recent. So... I do learn. Over time.
The problem with high-contrast art - and especially art with sharp edges - is that when you shrink it, it becomes unpredictable and artefacty. I need to avoid that, and I haven't found a way to do that with sharper paints.
Haha I'm an optometry student, I used your pic in my project "Chew away glaucoma!" It had the right amount of vapid sex appeal.
I cited you of course.
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