The WIP thread

Poutine_Paladin

Dusk, not that you should care about votes or anything, but mark me down for blue.

Everyone is doing fantastically, by the way.

arsheesh

Made a bit more progress. Decided to give Mara a Leather Vest. Still got a bit of work to do on the vest but I thought I'd show the most recent progress: "WIP":http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz351/arsheesh2/Mara_WIP_4.jpg.

Poutine_Paladin

Fantastic, sir. Keep it coming.
Man, this thread is really making me want to give this a try. It looks like fun...maybe a bit frustrating...but rewarding in the end.

FrankSirmarco

Nice work, Arsheesh! I love the metallic and leather textures. Very nice.

gaaran

That's looking fantastic Sheesh! I think my own endeavors are going to be put off until after the holidays, what with finishing Christmas up/cleaning up, and hosting one rad new years party, I've got my hands full :P.

Duskreign

Well, I haven't had a lot of time, but I set aside about 45 minutes tonight and started work on the background. "There's no detail yet,":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/32399/CPD.jpg and I don't have the highest hopes for it yet, as backgrounds are my absolute weak point. However, I promised myself this would be a complete, painted piece, and it just wouldn't look right if the good detective wasn't standing in a police interrogation room. There will eventually be a table in the foreground, but I want to deal with the background first.

As for the suit color, I haven't decided yet, and I realized that it was something that could wait until I got closer to finishing. Thanks for the idea, Rase! I am definitely going to make the tie a contrasting color to the suit, but I don't know what color I am going to go with for either one yet.

I am hoping to have this done within the next few weeks, as I have a number of other projects lined up, plus I took a commission job from jmoeray, so I want to get some momentum going.

Arsheesh, your leather is very reflective, which is excellent. Is she going to be wearing any more armor, though? Otherwise, those pauldrons might be a bit excessive with just a leather vest underneath. Then again, I'm probably not seeing the big picture, and you have a plan for that already.

Gaaran, I'm looking forward to seeing how Leliana turns out!

Poutine, grab one of my line-arts and start painting!

DarkMagus

Dusk is there an emoticon for "jaw hitting the floor"?

Looking phenomenal!

RaseCidraen

Anytime Dusk! I love how it's coming along! You say backgrounds are your weak point, but I call you a fibber of the highest calibre. Clearly your weakpoint is underestimating your own abilities!

I absolutely love what Arsheesh is doing with his armor - the texture is simply amazing!

arsheesh

Dusk, your painting just keeps getting better. Did you do some more work on the clothing? The shading turned out really nice. Also, I like the background so far. Regarding Mara, you're right, the pauldrons do look a little strange there all by themselves. Originally they sat on top of chainmail. Then I decided to cover that with a vest. In our game she wears fine elven chain, so I plan to paint that underneath the vest, but even with the chain I wonder if the pauldrons are a bit much. Don't know, I'm sort of just winging this as I go. Thanks for pointing it out though, it gives me something to think about.

gaaran

Looking good dusk! Also, sheesh, those pauldrons are too awesome for you to get rid of them :P.

Poutine_Paladin

Arsheesh, if you loose those pauldrons, you have to promise to use them on another character, because they're awesome. Dusk, I'm going to need some instruction on how I go about "grabbing a line art and start painting" as I think I should've established by now that I'm not really a technology guy, but maybe I have not made that clear, or been confusing about it, because my skill-set is VERY strange.

arsheesh

Thought I'd revive this thread. I haven't actually done any more work on the Mara WIP, though I do intend to finish it at some point. However, in my Tales of Darkmoon Vale campaign I'm running one of the two parties (that's right, there was a schism among my players and now TDMV is _Two_ campaigns rolled into one!) through the "Silver Skeleton":http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20061017a adventure WotC put out several years back.

The main character in that module is a Succubus named Eludecia who turned from evil as the result of falling in love with an angel. In fact, she even became a Paladin for a good. However, her former master punished her by destroying her body, coating her bones in silver, placing a _Ring of Regeneration_ upon her skeletal finger, and then setting her bones within a Gelatinous Cube. Yeah, she's continually being simultaneously regenerated and digested... sucks to be her. At any rate, the party just freed her bones from her gelatinous prison last session and tonight are about to discover that the silver bones will soon become a fully regenerated Succubus. I wanted a picture of a slightly more modest, more innocent looking succubus to use as my adventure log banner for the next log I write; however, a web search turned up only a bunch of demonic vixens, which I guess is what I ought to have expected. So, I decided to come up with my own image. This "Succubus WIP":http://i843.photobucket.com/albums/zz351/arsheesh2/Darkmoon%20Vale/SuccubusWIP1.jpg pic is taken right as Eludecia regains consciousness. I haven't gotten to the wings yet, but one of them shall be wrapped around her upper torso (I told you she was modest!).

We'll see if I actually finish this one.

RaseCidraen

Arsheesh, she reminds me very much of Fall-From-Grace, who has a very similar outlook on life. Your art is phenomenal!

Poutine_Paladin

Awesome, Arsheesh...just too bad about the modesty (haha).

I can't help but wonder what happened to Mara, though...did you solve the conundrum of the armor/pauldrons?

I'm still looking forward to having a go at this whole thing sometime when I've got the extra time. Dusk said he'd put in me on the waitlist for a sketch of my new character for me to try painting with, so hopefully by the time I'm at the front of that backlog I'll have some time at my disposal (ooh, "Disposable Time" good concept. Or band name.) to give it a whirl. I think it's more important to get back to actually playing, though...too much to do in too little time, I'm afraid. I'm sure everyone here can relate.

DarkMagus

I've been eagerly awaiting updates on the few different WIPs that you guys shared!

This is amazing Arsheesh! I don't know how you guys get your work to be so realistic looking, but a good magician never reveals their secrets so I won't bother asking. ;)

Keep 'em comin'!

Duskreign

Yeah, I haven't had any time for art recently :(

Arsheesh, she is lovely so far.

Pal, I haven't forgotten about you. I can't start something new until I finish Cruz, and I can't finish Cruz until I stop getting punished with all these ridiculous interruptions. I swear, if it's not the weather, its work, or school, or family, or some other crap.

Poutine_Paladin

Hey Dusk...no hurry bud. Like I said, I hope I have some time when you finish it so that I can work on it...which doesn't look like it'll be........well, who knows? I'd rather make time for the game itself than for artistic endeavors related to it.

And re: interruptions. At least you can't complain that you're bored, right? That's how I like (at least try) to look at things when I'm too busy to do what I actually want to be doing.

arsheesh

Well after hurting my hand I kind laid off allot of creative endeavors for a while, but just recently decided to get back to work on my "Mara WIP":http://cdn.obsidianportal.com/assets/41909/Mara_WIP_6.jpg. The backdrop is just a place-holder for now, I'll likely change it later on but I got tired of staring at a plain white background. I also decided to change Mara's stance. Next up I'm going to paint her arms (the right hand will be holding the pommel of the sword that will hang from her belt).

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Duskreign

Hey Arsheesh! Lookin good! Do you find that it is easier to work over a plain white background, or over something a little more substantial?

Poutine, send me a thorough description of Fitzy and how you would like him to be depicted in the picture.

DarkMagus

Arsheesh that is incredible! Thanks for keeping us updated. :)

arsheesh

Thanks guys. Dusk, I haven't really painted enough to be sure, but one thing I noticed after adding the background was that it seemed easier to keep track of the light source. I might try starting with a background next time and see what comes of it.

gaaran

I can't say enough how awesome your work is on the armor and the pauldrons. I had almost forgotten about this thread (digital coloring isn't for me, I was able to produce passable work, but the time required wasn't worth it), but I must say, it's looking pretty awesome :).

Poutine_Paladin

Agreed. This thread popping up again is awesome. Well done, Arsh...keep it up, sir.

Duskreign

Had another look at this, and I think the new pose is really going to be great. As always, I look forward to seeing how this project develops!

Pal, I started to work on Yonus Fitzsimmons tonight. The rough sketch made me giggle. That's a good thing, because I am already attached to the picture, and I barely got started.