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Galder — Protecting the Family (updated)
#armor #blade #character #child #children #danger #digital #digitalpainting #elf #fantasy #male #oc #originalcharacter #plate #sword #warcraft #weapon #worldofwarcraft #wow #characters #elfmale #kaldorei #nightelf #elffantasy
Published: 2017-08-18 18:12:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 1023; Favourites: 54; Downloads: 0
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Description
Commander Shadow is one of the most benevolent night elves you could meet. He is kind and always tries to solve any trouble peacefully... Unless .. someone makes a wrong move against his loved ones. He would lay down his life to protect them, but you could rest assured that it would take considerable force to stop him from keeping them safe.'Protecting the family' took me much longer to finish than my previous pictures, and frankly, it might be the most complex one I have produced so far (complex for my standards, it clocked near ugh MANY hours of meticulous detail work). I have tried to learn new things here, fighting with composition, backgrounds and different material painting. Working and reworking things, until I was happy with the final result. I hope I haven't completely failed.
I have used a pose reference for Shadow, thank you CroquisCafe <3
An attempt to fix most of the issues I have been made aware of
. this is probably the most 'radical' version of the re-shade I came up with. Perhaps I should not go too dark, but I loved the two pairs of glowing eyes peeking out of their father's shadow.
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Comments: 19
This is far from a failure! I think you nailed it especially with the colors, it's what first caught my attention, in fact. It's true that the light source is a little mysterious (the children could have looked better if they were a little darker, since they are in his shadow (heh) like Rosakaz said) but I really like the light coming from the right, by increasing that and decreasing the light in other parts you could have made the man stand out a bit more as well as created some intensity in the picture. The details are absolutely awesome and his face is great. One thing I'd double check is his anatomy, or rather the size of his head compared to his body, I'm not familiar with this character but considering he has a family I assume he's an adult, and his head looks a tiny bit too big for the body of an adult man. Overall though, I think this is a really good piece and you shouldn't worry about taking a longer time. Efficiency is important but so is learning and at least for me, the longer I spend on a drawing the better it becomes and the next time I draw something as complicated, it will be a lot faster. I'm especially glad you took the time to create a proper background, I think it brought your piece on a whole new level!
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Thank you for your comment. I'm really happy that there are kind souls around here who don't mind stopping by and sharing their thoughts on my work
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Thank you! I swear, he is otherwise a docile fellow, as gentle as a lamb
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An angry lamb then! Or.. a slightly upset lamb?
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Great job with the background levels!
The light source seems to be coming from Shadow's left hand side so I think he'd lay a shadow on the children since it's a bright light (unless there's light coming from the children's right hand side). That might match the overall lighting better and also bring the focus to the Commander.
Other than that this is looking good. The metals and the cloth look nice too. They have different reflections like materials like that should behave.
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Thank you for you comment. I can see it clearly, now that you mention it. I did try to shade them accordingly but wasn't forceful enough and it's way too insufficient, considering the direction of the light and their father right in the way of it. I need more practice
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No problem! Oh, one thing. How do you work with layers? Do you paint everything from lights to shadows to the same layer?
I tend to use shadows on separate layer in multiply so it's easy to change the opacity and find the perfect amount of shade. Here I think I'd try to leave some light on the children's face's, just because faces are important, unless the commander's body should completely block the light. With the right amount of shadows to the children's right hand side you can tie them better to the background, which is a lot darker around the kids.
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It varies from piece to piece but I tend to have a seperate layer for shadows and lights. As you can see on the boy's face and his elbow, I tried to evoke just that, but was not forceful enough. The girl's face and hair should be reshaded completely. I think the culprit might also be my final messing with levels(something I need much more practice with).. which might have hurt that area a bit as I brightened the image overall. I'll try to rework it.
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Alright, that sounds good since it's easier to edit later if there's something to fix.
When I use levels I usually add dark end just a little bit, occasionally add light but never touch the middle tones. Too much dark makes the image kinda heavy and clogged. It's sometimes a bit tricky to get work but my advice is to not go too crazy with the adjusting.
Good luck! ^^
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Thank you for the advice. Yes, I have noticed when I played around with the adjustments, in small amounts it looks good, in large it is just devastating. I will be really careful with that in the future, as it can easily ruin all the hard work I have done on shading/lighting, even if it 'looks' good at first glance.. but only at first glance
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Maybe it took effort and time but you can feel proud of it, as you got a really good result.
I have praised your expressiveness before and it is really remarkable here again both in Shadow and in the children.
The background is beautifully done and it doesn't steal the spotlight of the characters but adds to them, the poses are great and the details are too.
Great job!
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Thank you for your kind words. I have realized that this was one of the first projects that had more than just one character in it, and found it very rewarding to draw. Whipping up one character in a vacuum might take fraction of time to finish, but I have definitely learned much more from this one.
Also, thank you for coming and sharing your thoughts on my work, it means a lot to me <3.
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My comments aren't always thoughtful but I don't like just commenting to say "wow, cool" as it shows support but doesn't seem very constructive to me.
But I love commenting art pieces that I like when I can say something more than just "cool" even if it's something stupid xD
I am realizing too how much a background even if it's simple, adds to a picture. I suck at backgrounds but I try to improve. Now I am on a really big project with 6 characters (the WiP is on my scraps page IIRC, or maybe on my B/W RPG stuff).
As I got many trades and commissions lately it's progressing slow (I always give priority to works for other people)
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Yes, I understand. For me any comment is welcome, as it shows that the person at least showed up to support you
Backgrounds are pain, but I think I might be at least getting a general sense of where to head with mine (other than a trash can 
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Your backgrounds look nice to me.
And I love people dropping by just to say that they like what I do, but when it comes to me doing it I feel like I need to say something more
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Well, thank you
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I might drop a different meaningless set of letters on each profile and see what happens like:
Weeeeeeeee!!!
Eyyaaaaaa!
Hooooooo!!!
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