The Grim Reaper AKA Death

Uberslug

Sorry if it's a little large.

CyberMonkeytron3000

If you were REALLY sorry you would fix it

lilchingch0ng

i'm not really digging the purple glow lining the interior of the hood, it doesnt make much sense. likewise the coloring style doesn't seem to fit the lineart imo, it would be more interesting if you used your values to define the shape, or if you used a cell shading style to better suit the cartoony-ness of the character.

Uberslug

On the interior of the hood, or on the skull, or both?

lilchingch0ng

well both technically, since there is no obvious light source, i'd understand if the glow was eminating from maybe some glowing runes or something, or if it was coming from inside the cloak. but as it stands, its just kinda...glowing along the inside edge of the hood. just doesnt make much sense imo. even if you kept it as it, the shadows on his face dont follow the fact that the interior edges ofthe hood are glowing, sure there is a highlight, but in some places its actually on top of a shadow, wouldnt the shadow be elsewhere if there was illumination being placed on it?

Uberslug

This is my reference, originally painted by Paul Kidby: http://img337.imageshack.us/img337/4758/deathtp9.jpg

There's a luminance there that I was trying to copy.

lilchingch0ng

i think you may be mistaking the reflection from his eyes. he does have some luminance i suppose, but it is very subtle in comparison to your rendition. so i guess my advice would be to tone it down some?

Uberslug

Something like this?

lilchingch0ng

yes better, but now it lacks definition.

now you need to define some clothing folds to add more depth to the peice as well as to help distinguish where there is cloth and where there is a hole for his head. Likewise, try to work on showing a litle of his spinal chord fading into the shadows of the cloak for further depth.

Highlander_77

This Death looks a little too.....friendly for my liking. I mean, he's DEATH. He's the GRIM Reaper. This guy doesn't look too grim if you ask me. Frankly, he looks almost apologetic. Like he's saying "I'm really sorry, but uh...I'm here to reap your soul. Yeah, I know, but it's my job. Gosh, I just feel so bad about this."

Of course, that's more of a stylistic preference than an actual critique of the art (except that I think maybe you were trying to give him sort of a mischievous grin...but it doesn't quite come across that way). The actual drawing is pretty good. The lighting, as has been already stated, doesn't quite make sense. But then again, when you're dealing with a supernatural being such as Death himself...well, you can probably get away with a bit more artistic license with a subject like that than you could in, say, a still life painting.

Golden Yak

Highlander_77 wrote: »

This Death looks a little too.....friendly for my liking. I mean, he's DEATH. He's the GRIM Reaper. This guy doesn't look too grim if you ask me. Frankly, he looks almost apologetic. Like he's saying "I'm really sorry, but uh...I'm here to reap your soul. Yeah, I know, but it's my job. Gosh, I just feel so bad about this."

That actually sounds about right considering he's based on the Death from Terry Prattchet's Discworld. The Discworld version of Death is a bit more humane than most reapers. He tends to get embarrassed when he's out of his element.

The drawing is definately the Discworld Death. Everyone else has already given some pretty good advice.