My latest digital piece (NSF56K)

Thrasher317 · February 2008

Hey gang,

It's been forever since I've browsed this forum. It's nice to see some regulars still active and doing some nice stuff. This is my latest digital work. It's a fan art piece for WoW. I used reference for some of the the warlock, fire, felpup and voidwalker. Everything else was done out of my head. If the image is too dark I apologize. I worked on it on my flatscreen LCD monitor so some older monitors darken the image up a lot.

Wanna see the close up details?

http://thrasher317.deviantart.com/art/Warlock-Details-75893899

Original piece can be here(if Imageshack fails to load):

http://thrasher317.deviantart.com/art/Warlock-75893795

Thanks for looking. Comments and criticisms welcome.

-Thrasher317

Forbe! · February 2008

I would like to see the entire piece without having to break hscroll.

Perhaps a smaller image and a link to the huge one?

NeoRedXIII · February 2008

agreed.

I feel like most of the characters are on different planes. The blue guy (voidwalker?) and horse especially seem to be clashing in comparison of where they sit in the space you've created. The blue guy is a bit hazy, but I don't know if that is what it should look like. I assumed it should be a bit more crisp, but maybe more translucent in areas? Directly behind the warlock the background is just a washed out background, a bit boring in comparison to the rest of the image. Maybe make it look like an explosion of smoke or include some lava. The details, especially on the lock are awesome. Keep up the excellent work.

MintCondition · February 2008

Wow that's pretty crazy. Very well done indeed. I'm not sure about the subject matter (as I have no idea what it is), but from the technical views, it looks awesome.

Brolo · February 2008

This might have been impressive if you had made this three separate pictures, one for each monster. As it is there's little cohesion between any of the parts you have going on here. There doesn't seem to be any real source of light, which could help a picture that's this dark. Right now it's so ambient as to rob depth from the picture. Your arrangment of your figures isn't helping that any - having them all in a line on the canvas is boring, especially sitting stock-still in the middle of the page. Even with their poses, they don't give much sense of motion.

The rendering itself seems inconsistent. On their own I think each one of these could work, but together they look like they were painted by three different artists and then pasted into one background.

At this point I don't think there's much you could do in this piece to fix the problems I see here. In the future, though, I strongly suggest you make lots and lots of small, greyscale thumbnails to get a feel for your composition before going in and spending time rendering. Try and use foreshortening, perspective, lighting and balance to your advantage.

Mykonos · February 2008

its hard for me to tell because the image is just so damn big and i have scroll and what not, but there doesn't seem to be much of a focal point and on the whole just very unorgonized - its like u copied and pasted three different figures from three different pieces and just placed them side by side.

Heres my suggestion, pic a character u want the viewer to focus most on and make him stand out with some constrast or sharpness or something, place it front of the others, make the rest sort of blend in with the bg a bit etc, making the elemental reflect alot of the volcanic red would help a ton, i would think.

other than that u did a fine job with the rendering

Greatnation · February 2008

Exceptionally well rendered. Also, an exceptionally weak composition. Some cropped and moving could fix it, but right now its dead.

All of the subjects stand on the same horizontal

There is no breathing space inbetween the subjects

The horizontals in the background make the motions sterile

The bubble of negative space surounding the clump of subjects is uniform, no activity

No borders are activated by the subjects

It looks like three different drawings in a mashup, the subjects dont relate to echother

Odd overlapping of subjects, IE the zombies hand with the fire over the nightmares leg

Again, phenomonal rendering, put really poor design.

koiz · February 2008

Its a rendering from WoW. Its not a zombie, but the warlock class from WoW. The blue blob is one of his demons that he summons, the nightmare is his summonable mount, and the felhound is another demon that he summons.

Greatnation · February 2008

koiz wrote: »

Its a rendering from WoW. Its not a zombie, but the warlock class from WoW. The blue blob is one of his demons that he summons, the nightmare is his summonable mount, and the felhound is another demon that he summons.

k?

DeeLock · February 2008

Edit: ...oh...

don't i feel dumb...

Sorry!

Mayday · February 2008

Dee: protip: koiz is not Thrasher317

Can we have a little tutorial on how you do fire?

Crazy Old Morise · February 2008

I really like this.

srsizzy · February 2008

Mayday wrote: »

Dee: protip: koiz is not Thrasher317

Can we have a little tutorial on how you do fire?

To me it sort of looked like it was edited in, but maybe you're just really good with fire. I agree that the various figures aren't really unified in the composition, but you render your work very well.

Thrasher317 · February 2008

Hey gang,

Thanks for all the critiques. I agree with everything you guys said. It was originally just going to be the warlock, and over time I just decided to add more and more, doing the background last. I ended up paying for it. The composition is weak, I agree, but I did this piece as more of a detail study than anything else. It was a lot of fun. Thanks for looking and commenting.

The 'smogginess' behind the warlock itself was drawn as I edited around the character's features, using that rusty color as background filler. You see, when I used to try digital pieces I would make everything on a different layer. This time I really wanted to draw everything on one layer to see if I could do it. I tried dozens of background ideas to incorporate the color scheme and after I while I just ran with the volcano landscape.

As far as the fire goes, I'm at work so I can't draw up a tutorial right now. I'll try my best to explain it. I looked at a reference photo from a Google search and then tried my best to mimic how the fire moved. Start with your dark reds and orange and do a small sized brush flowing up and around like strands of hair. They can intertwine as you see fit, but don't get too carried away. Once the reds and oranges are laid down, pick more yellowish tones(eventually white) and decrease the size of your brush as you lighten the color. Remember, most of the yellow/white tones will be located towards the base or source of the flame itself. Once you have everything drawn in, take a soft smudge tool and use it to blend smoothly and indicate paths the flames take. Fire makes really soft gradients in photo references so try your best to mimic the smooth shading. After that you can add soft glows if you would like. If you guys would still like a tutorial I can make one sometime soon and upload it here.

For all the people wanting to see a smaller version, here ya go:

Thanks again,

Thrasher317

Mayday · February 2008

Also, what's up with the 'base' of the blue guy? Does he look like that in the game? Really weird...

And yeah, I'm having trouble following the text, tutorial images would be super nice!

Penny Arcade

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