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The hands actually look decent enough. However, on closer inspection, it does look like the fingers are directly connected to the wrist. Also the fingers look like there are no bones. A good way to fix this is to draw the structure of the hand before actually drawing the hand. This applies for the body as well if you draw it free hand. Everything can be broken down into component shapes, so you first construct the hands from their components, which are the palm, the fingers, and the thumb. The fingers and thumb can be further broken down into a series of cylinders, and the palm can be represented as a trapezoid or pentagon. To construct the hand simply place the components in the correct orientation and position, foreshorten if necessary. Then outline. I just realized I sound like Lego instructions.

The body looks well shaded and the shadows are correctly oriented for the most part. Everything else seems fine, though the lineart can use some cleaning up. The facial expression looks pretty good.

(As you can see, I'm not really good at concrit.)

I do agree it is necessary to know anatomy. As for hands, those are a b*tch to draw, but I will practice more, I really want to improve.

It's for Supernatural. I don't have a strict time when it happens, but it's before they meet Castiel.

I'm basing the story off of https://www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/80526/12/McCaffrey-Getoffthe_Unicorn.html

It's not done, but I have a feeling that what I have is garbage and needs serious re-working before I continue.

Also, the research I'm doing kinda makes me thing that Anne didn't spend much time researching that short story. I'm hoping no one notices the mistakes.

Andromeda ("Anda") Ethrax has the distinction of never being written in her original incarnation - she was supposed to be a descendent of the protagonists from The Future^TM, but I never wrote that story.

She then had a revival for some stories with a bunch of my characters meeting up, which is when I modelled her on Kaitlyn. At that point she ended up in a sort of '50s retrofuture style, with an honest-to-Asimov silver bodysuit (which deploys from her bracelet, because scifi).

Given how simple that description is, I decided to use this picture to try out some of Neshomeh's shading advice. Reversing which pencils I was using for which really helped! I also got to try out highlights, since the bodysuit has a base of light grey which could be left out for that. How well it worked... well, I'll leave that for you to judge!

(I'd also appreciate some comments on her hands; I had to sketch them both freehand, as the picture I was working from featured a pair of small children...)

I also now need to think about how to redesign Anda. Since she's both a resident of the far future and a powerful psychic, I feel like I should be able to do something exciting, but... I'm still not sure what.

hS

I'm having trouble getting a handle on my one character. She's a World of Warcraft gnome warrior. I kinda want her to be meta enough to know about corpse-runs and gearscore and being aware that she turned in VanCleef's head but can go back to the instance and kill him again.

My inspirations
http://www.darklegacycomics.com/165
http://goblinscomic.com/comic/07102005
A bit of Wreck-It Ralph.

I can't figure out the philosophy behind disconnecting and going AFK. How much of her personality is her, and how much is the player. Why would she go running down a road past mobs that she can't see the level of to get to a flight point when she shouldn't know that there is a FP there...

One of her hobbies is getting into the "behind" places. In Vanilla, there are a lot of places where the textures and terrain were just not polished because you're not supposed to be there. I want her to get to PPC headquarters by falling through the unfinished tunnel near the Ironforge airport.

I have figured out that she's not too keen on trusting technology. On the server I play on, there was a bug where her mechnostrider would constantly malfunction. I also want to have a story about the time she fell off the deeprun tram and had to run down the tunnel.

Have a bumper sticker! What does it say?

A good rule of thumb (lol, shush) is that the hand should be about the same length as the face from chin to hairline.

The body has lots of convenient lengths like this, such as the foot being about the same length as the forearm and an average person being about seven and a half heads tall. Here is a tutorial by my favorite drawing resource artist with some of these proportions included.

Everything gets exaggerated a bit when you're doing anime characters, but it's good to have an understanding of real anatomy anyway. {= )

~Neshomeh

I'm no expert, but...

First, "hardness" refers to the actual consistency of the lead, so the softer the lead, the more easily you can transfer lots of graphite onto the page. Softer pencils are for darker lines, harder for lighter lines. You want to use a somewhat hard pencil for light sketching/shading, then the rest for varying depth of shadow.

(Personally, I just use a regular old .5 mm HB mechanical pencil for everything, but I have drawing pencils...)

As for shading—again, not an expert, so take this with a grain of salt—but shadows are basically for one of two things: 1) where the light is blocked, and 2) where the contours of the shape recede from the light source and/or the eye of the viewer. Highlights are the opposite.

If you're going to finish a drawing in graphite, you'll want to pick your white point and your black point. The white point is the brightest/nearest thing, the black point is the darkest/furthest thing. On a face, the shine of the eye is likely to be the brightest spot, and the pupils and nostrils are probably going to be the darkest. Note these points are not necessarily literally white and black. They're just the brightest and the darkest shade you intend to use. Everything else is somewhere in between. It's all relative, depending on the brightness and directness of your hypothetical light source as much as the actual lightness values of the subject.

Also bear in mind that the human brain is phenomenal at filling in details it expects to be there. You don't have to show every line on the face unless you're going for super-detailed true-to-life portraiture. Art relies on memes and signifiers the same way writing does, and lines on a face signify age. You do have the faintest shadow of that nose-mouth line there, and I think that's fine for the amount of detail you've got.

~Neshomeh

Welcome to the PPC, Smiley!

What're your fardoms?

Have two cents, so you can put them into a discussion later.

- Tomash

Given that this got posted in chat twice, it seemed worthwhile to link here.





So having done that, this is now a thread for random cute stuff, because that seemed like a good idea for some reason.

- Tomash

Welcome to the board! Have an extendable sword, the weight will change along with the size.

Out of curiosity, what fandoms are you part of?

Yeah, I'm gonna have to do something about the leading arm. I think it might be better if there were any way to know how big the mace-head is supposed to be, but there isn't. For all anyone looking knows, it really is the size of her actual head.

I'm probably gonna change the armor completely. I just threw on a Generic Breastplate to have something there and a leather skirt so it didn't look like there was nothing between the breastplate and her legs. >.> She has thigh plates, too (which I'm sure have an actual name I'm not recalling right now), but you can't really tell anymore. Anyway, in the RP where this actually happened, she's dressed up as Hawkgirl a la Justice League, and I think I'm gonna use that. Though I was surprised to be reminded how little that breastplate actually covers. Derik grabbed the edge of the plate at the neck at one point, but there is no neck. Just cleavage. *facepalm*

The hair is supposed to be braided, yes! I've yet to decide exactly how, but it's good to know the back part works for that. ^_^

Thanks!

~Neshomeh

Hi! I'm new here, and the wiki said that I should introduce myself here! Anyway, I'm Smiley! Nice to meet ya'll!

(Very quickly; I have about five minutes.)



Fun fact #1: I have no idea what Delta Juliette looks like.

Fun fact #2: 'Is sometimes a cat' has never been explicitly redacted.

Fun fact #3: The internet is stuffed full of cat pictures.

Fun fact #4: #AWizardDidIt.



Fun fact #1: I also have no clear idea what VixenMage looks like.

Fun fact #2: Just look at the name; clearly VixenMage is a shapeshifter.

Fun fact #3: OMIGOSH FOXES ARE ADONKABLE.

Fun fact #4: ESPECIALLY WHEN SLEEPING.

So that's the Baronial Council, in all their quirky glory. Next time, we get to see one of the other powers in Konti-Nyuum... assuming I can figure out how to draw her!

hS

(PS: Ha! Got it done in three. ^_^)

I've dropped a review over on FFn, because I know how it feels not to get any, but I also wanted to talk a bit more generally.

I liked this; when I picked Kaitlyn up after her shift yesterday, I told her about it. I also fed into telling her about your Mayhem in the DOM story, which still sticks with me nearly two years later. In fact, I've just gone back and reread it; it is still an incredible piece, and I still love the slow build in tension. Also the sheer frustration evidenced in 'Something was banished, something was summoned, and something was split'.

hS

Yeah, I know he's not around much; he still gets a Plortrait. I'm six images deep into a list of nine, I can't stop now!



Fun fact #1: At first I was really worried about this one, because I don't have a clue what PC looks like. Then it stuck me - he owns the mines, so I can put him in full plate armour and cover his face! Great... except his Cyclopaedia article describes how he cast aside his armour. Oh. :( ... in favour of face-covering black robes. Yay!

Fun fact #2: This the first time I have deliberately altered one of Scape's flags (other than leaving room for a ninth star in Eshakhar's). I figured the swords on the flag were the only ones available, so replaced them with the Sword of Jay for the picture.

Fun fact #3: Baron PC has way too many weapons! I've given him the twin daggers Xericka (left) and Gremlyn (right), because I haven't done daggers yet, as well as the maul Racalendaris, because giant hammers are fun.

Fun fact #4: I'm pretty sure the flag and maul are just floating along behind him, rather than being strapped in place. Baron PC likes to use subtle telekinesis, according to his history.

Two to go, and I know exactly what I'm doing...

hS

I can get into the Wiki, the Cyclopaedia, and Wookiepedia, but I'm seeing very long load times - about a minute. I have no adblocks or anything that could interfere with it, so I think they're just having a slow day. (On the plus side, once I'm in, I can navigate at normal speeds.)

hS

He's, um... _{he's missing something...} ^_~

Once again, I have to complement the facial expression here. Yue looks super excited to be in this fight; I'd imagine it's a training bout, possibly from before he turned against the Shinonomes. And the way his eyes stand out from the rest of his face really draws attention to them.

I think there's something subtly off about his proportions, though: it looks like his head is to scale with his arms, but his body and legs are a bit too large for them. Might be worth taking a look at.

I really have to comment on those trousers, though - the rumpling is very nicely done. Not overdone, but clearly and cleanly evoking exactly what you wanted. Nice.

hS

Yeah, I have trouble with noses when they're tipped up. I also have trouble with shading in general, which... hey, you seem to know about this sort of thing, can you help?

My problem is that I can't get properly 'light' shading to work. You can see I've tried to get the shadows running down the front of Connie's cheeks here, but every time I try, they end up looking like old-person wrinkles. Same for the shadow under her lower lip (though in this case I think it kind of works, because of how weird her mouth is being).

I actually have a set of pencils of different hardness, and my assumption has been that softer pencils are intended for shading, but they seem to lay down darker lines the softer they are. Should I be using one of them for the main lines, and the harder pencils for shading? (Or, I guess, should I be using soft pencils for shading and then inking the hard lines to darken them?)

I'm not even going to get started on colour, though I probably will be redoing and colouring this one unless Prompt #3 turns out really well.

hS

I think the key is not lining things up directly in front of each other - you lose the depth. If Gall had her arm slightly bent, or her arm at a slight up/down angle (which people generally do - holding your arm straight out horizontally feels very unnatural, though I guess less so when you're swinging a heavy object), you'd be able to see part of it and avoid the 'maceborg' look. (The way the shading on the side of the mace joins with the armour to look like scar tissue doesn't help... ;))

Apart from that, I was immediately drawn to the hair and the (visible) hand. I know the hair is only roughly sketched in - you can see the shape of her skull under it - but if you ignore that construction line, I think it looks very good. It speaks to her character, and actually looks curly. (Is that a braid behind her ear? It kind of looks like one; I might need to crib that sometime.)

As to her hand, it's good! I think the shading might be slightly off - it looks like she's got a substantial pad on the non-thumb side, which I don't think is right? - but that's nitpicky; just looking at it, it'd good.

I feel like there's something going on with her armour, which I think comes from treating it like cloth. You've got it near enough in the plane of the page at the shoulders, but skewed round with her hips further down; a solid plate (metal or leather) wouldn't do that. It would... I guess it would ride up on the back shoulder? Not sure.

In contrast, the skirt works very well, and (though they're only loosely sketched) her legs also worked out. They look leg-shaped, and capture the dynamism of her movement.

hS

I use uBlock, which actually blocks ads better than Adblocker and I haven't had any issues with Wikia.

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I can reach it.

I don't have Adblock, but I do usually block Javascript, which usually keeps the amount of ads I see to a minimum as a side bonus. Wikia seems to live quite happily without Javascript, so that's something to consider if you're forced to let all of Wikia's traffic through.
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On second thought, I have decided not to create the meme I wanted to create originally, as it would likely get me hit with a frying pan (and yes, hS wielding a frying pan and/or doing something with pancakes is going to be a running joke whenever I feel like inserting a reference to the PPC in a creative work I do. Or it could be some other reference. But you get it.) Nevertheless, I have a feeling it can be useful, and as such I have bookmarked the page.

As a return favor, below my signature is a list of the names of medieval-ish songs that can be found on the royalty-free music website incompetech.com. You never know when Plort needs a soundtrack. (Also, if you go into the "Soundtrack" genre on the site's search tool, you'll probably find something fit for fantasy that I missed.)

-Twistey
---
List of Medieval Incompetech Music:
"Heavy Interlude"
"Lord of the Land"
"Master of the Feast"
"Celtic Impulse"
"Angevin"/"Angevin B"
"Thatched Villagers"
"Mischief Maker"

And one that's less medieval but still medieval-ish and very cool: "Crunk Knight"

Recently I tried to visit the Wiki and, although I managed to get there, within seconds the screen was replaced with the following message:

"Something interfered with this website loading

This could be a temporary problem with your network, or due to your adblocker

Try:

Check your internet connection and reload the page
If you are using an adblocker disable it by clicking on the adblock icon in your browser toolbar
If the problem persists, consider leaving a message on the adblock user forums"

I tried other branches of Wikia, and got the same message. I have adblock on as a default with pretty much no exceptions, and upon Google searching, I saw reports of Wikia banning adblock across the entire site in past times, so I'd like to ask: Is anyone else having this problem (just to determine that it's an adblock ban and not something on my machine) and if it is a ban, what should we do about it?

Thanks!

-Twistey