Elf fantasy sketch

[bfowler]

** This turned into a full digital painting with numerous stages shown. Scroll down to see how it's coming along. **

I got a new sketchbook and thought I'd break it in.

[Wo-Nellie]

She looks very pious.
I like a lot of the details you got going on here though it does still need to be defined in a few places of course.

[bfowler]

Wo-Nellie - Thanks. Pious is a very good word and what I was going for. You're right about some things getting lost in the scribbles but I hope to separate them out in the painting stage. Here's the progress so far.

[The_Standard]

lookin good, i would say one thing in the sketchin stage the candles in the background don't seem to line up and it may just be my eye but I expect to see them on the same level.

Lookin nice really pushing your stuff in new directions with these paitings. I like the costume too its decorated but not overly so.

keep rockin.

[bfowler]

Standard - Thanks. Good eye on the candles. I'm actually redesigning them too. I usually change stuff a decent amount from my initial sketch when I round up some reference. I try to never start out with reference because I don't want it to dictate what I want the image to be but rather help me in realizing the image after I've decided what it's going to be. Man, that sounded confusing.

Anyway, here's me, rocking on.

[Keith]

I like it, when you go further with it, I think it needs a little more contrast or a secondary light source to make it pop out a bit more.

[bfowler]

I like it, when you go further with it, I think it needs a little more contrast or a secondary light source to make it pop out a bit more.

Yeah, I going to have the candles be a secondary light source with my main light being frontal but not as stark. For sure some more contrast. Saving those strong highlights for last.

Here's another update. Did the candles and spend a lot of time on the wall playing and learning how to texture it. I'm trying to keep somewhat traditional painted look but it's tough to do in photoshop. May try a layer in painter to see what happens.

[Archerion]

I think Cs4 fixed alot of the organic problems with the brushes too bad it expensive! Very nice work like that progress that you posted. Heh myself i have artists block IE cranky baby! Keep up the good work!

[bfowler]

Big update. Hope you like. I'm getting there.

[Cantpaint]

It's nice to see how you work up to completion. there's a lot to like in this picture but there are two things that look funny to me.
When you look quickly to the picture, the crosses on the bottom of the candleholders look almost like they're on her ears like earrings or something.
In your last version it almost looks to me as if her head is not attached to her body.
I'm not really sure why it feels that way but maybe her neck is a little long or a bit to skinny or maybe it's a combination of the shadow between her face and the necklace.
The face itself is gourgeous though