Here, Rory is just mesmerized by looking in James eyes under the light of the aurora, and has bursted the bubble of his personal space looking at them. People don't like to look in James's eyes for too long and he's not used to making eye contact. Rory is determined she can see the thread of the universe in there, which might be what bothers everyone else. However, Rory also has a rather extraordinary imagination.
So, I've settled on an inking technique (Illustrator, pencil tool). However, I struggled with coloring the lighting in the piece, just because I had to be crazy and make it at night. Below is a second version with a different color overlay, mostly desaturation with some blue tints. I like both, I think they just convey different emotions. I do prefer the top one.
I had another version (my first attempt) but it made James look Undead, and as he is neither a zombie or a vampire, that just doesn't sit well.
Definitely like the first and last ones best, but not sure which I prefer of those 2.
ReplyDeleteCan always do what I do and check the lighting tutorials on DeviantArt for a bit of extra help with ideas.
This gal shades in a similar style to what you're going for so may help you tweak it: http://ninjakato.deviantart.com/art/Simple-Lighting-Tutorial-PART-1-295098767?q=boost%3Apopular%20lighting%20tutorial&qo=2 *scratches head* Coulda sworn she had part 2 up. Hm. Now need to find who did the one on mood lighting and such. And of course the DA search stops working. -.-
(Though I'm all squee I just found this one: http://drag-5.deviantart.com/art/Lighting-Tutorial-82388860?q=boost%3Apopular%20lighting%20tutorial&qo=1 like, dang)
Not the one I was looking for, but this works. This one suggests to adjust the saturation before adding the shading, which may work better so you can play with more colors in the hilights: http://browse.deviantart.com/?order=9&q=lighting+tutorial&offset=72#/d31cq04
ReplyDeleteActually, I do the values with the saturation really low. It is the "mood" of the shadows I was nitpicking on. I like the first and last too, and I think which is "better" is a matter of style and color choice, more than one being better. I lean toward the first quite a bit now, but it leans toward a "staple" for doing shadows in the modern comic world (blues/purples).
ReplyDeleteActually, I don't want a bazillion colors in the highlights. Actually, they are only one color here because I'm going for dark. Everything gets desaturated at night, which really makes the highlights similar colors. And, truth be told, I'm settling on a style for comicking, and I think more than three values in most cases would get both tedious and excessive.
The highlight and shadow layers are actually one layer of one color with blending applied over it. I've found this gives me a better shot of the lighting looking "natural" (for a cartoon style).
LOL, basically, I'm following all those steps in those tutorials and adding some of my own, haha.