FINAL | ARTWAR 2 | 2D | Saturday Knight | MDashow

[wickman]

Ok! This makes me smile the biggest of smiles. I love it
Great job mdashow.

[hanomrno]

wow! what a great concept!! I really love your disco-ball pauldrons and chest piece! All that's missing is Staying Alive or some similar track to dance along!!

[mdashow]

@hanomrno Thanks! The soundtrack isn't missing, I've been listening to it for much of making this piece! (I'm not even a huge disco fan, but it's important to listen to the appropriate soundtrack to make the artwork more complete!)

[eissa]

i really love teh character sheet you nailed the colors

[mdashow]

Thanks for the positive notes!

Now that I've pretty much got the character sheet, it's back to work on the full painting. Still pretty happy with the characters but now I have to repaint the background and get rid of the obvious 3d geometry back there (although I'll use it as a perspective reference. The far right is too empty so I'm thinking some stained glass windows with thematically-appropriate images, and suits of armor striking a disco pose.

[rgdraw]

I approuve the stained glass windows!
Not so sure about the dancing armors, or maybe you can put them somewhere else on the scene, or add more =o

[evehartman]

I do get where you are going with the illustration, however, I wouldn't add to many little details in the background, I would think it could be distracting. Perhaps work in a lower value in the background to assure ones focus on the foreground?

[ipos]

The dancing knights are 100% cool and awesome!

[mdashow]

Thanks for the notes all. Sorry it's been a while singe I updated, but I wanted to get this in a good state to show, not just show a fragment of it. Anyhow, I've been completely repainting the background by hand, getting rid of the 3D look, hand-texturing everything, adding more details to the far right, and adding in some windows. Right now they're just flat, but I will put some details there... just showing you the shape right now.

Don't worry, the cherubs will return too, I just cleared them out to show the new background details.

[rgdraw]

Oh! Great update! This looks really good !
Amazing work man!

[mdashow]

The suits of armor for the lower corner. They may be too distracting - which is why their highlights are knocked way back - but their pose does crack me up, so there's that...!

[deivcalviz]

This is very well made! Great job! It's really great to see a more stylized style in contests like these.

I just noticed one thing about her face. The lighting of the skin near her mouth seems too light or the lighting on the skin below her eyes are too dark? It feels like her face is under lit but her nose is lit from the top. Just a minor nitpick since the face is very important.

[mdashow]

Thanks, @deivcalviz, I was intentionally going for some stylized underlighting, but it may not be working.

For now, I've just been working on the background details. And to be honest, they're not working either! I should have listed to @evehartman more: I went and added too many details to the back, and now it all looks like crap:

I think I'm going to paint out the stained glass windows. I just can't seem to make them work. I may even need to take out the suits of armor too. I love them conceptually, but they're not as important as the main areas of focus. One thing at a time, though...

[skullguzma]

I think you might be able to keep the knights and the windows if you just make the windows a single color, like how they were back in the WIP shots.

Also having the windows be plain would give your image an “area of rest” that would let you keep all the rest of your details.

This knight in particular is actually really important, at least in my opinion, because his finger is pointing at the ray of light that’s leading you back towards your character, so if you can find a way, try to keep him at least. I like him.

[mdashow]

Thanks for the support and advice, @skullguzma. I've been working on it all evening and that's basically what I ended up doing: I completely redesigned the window area, but this time I filled them in with masonry instead of colored glass. That kept things simple enough that I keep the armor suits in without making the image too busy.
Here's just the new window design:

and here's the revision with color and in context:

I feel like this is mostly working and not too distracting. I still have a bunch of small tweaks and adjustments, but it's starting to feel close to finished.
What say you all?

[rgdraw]

I've been away just one day and all of this happen? What's going on??! XD

I'm so sad the stained glass windows didn't work, but you have found a very good alternative, so, great work!
You did an amazing work on this, and yeah I think you're very close to the finish line, I don't see anything else you can change now, congrats dude!

[alecksandrs]

@mdashow
Oh my god... How I haven't seen this sooner? This is just a... Disney overload for me! xD
On a serious note there, I am truly amazed by your sense of style and how you use those gradients with such effective result is just AMAZING!
I loled from dancing knights in the BG xD
There is not much I can suggest at this point, but... I would suggest you to add some negative space to the image, all elements just feels so tightly compressed with each other. (make floor more simple, I feel like she is in the bathroom xD)

So far it is so AWESOME!
Keep it cool!

[s-stark]

I get so much joy from looking at your illustration. Really glad you went with the blues and purples for her chest piece. Also agree that it's a shame the stained glass wasn't working but overall feel that the suits in the background offer a nice comedic touch.

[mdashow]

Thanks for the notes, folks!
@alecksandrs I'm happy with how busy the image is because I want the feeling of lights swirling and flashing and movement and energy and all that. I did tone down the right side as fewer sparkles would hit that area from her armor, and that's why I took the stained glass windows out too. As for the floor, it's a lighted-panel disco dance floor, don't you remember those from the 70s?! (That is a rhetorical question only, please don't answer that, it will only make me feel old. )

@s-stark Thanks! I had all these ideas for the stained glass, it was all going to be famous disco groups and record covers... but it looks better without them. I'm glad what ended up back there was simple enough to allow my to include the suits of armor, though!

@rgdraw Thanks for your support throughout this entire creation process, it's been great always having you checking in!

@deivcalviz, your point about the underlighting on the nose is totally valid... and yet I tired it several times and it just didn't look as good. It's a totally, admittedly ideosyncratic thing that I like to do on faces sometime, shading the plane of the face around the eyes to emphasize the shape and make the eyes pop. i know it's not technically correct... but I like it and the lighting under the nose just didn't look as good. (shrug )

ANYHOW, here is my latest version of the picture. I've done a lot of little polish things: Adjusted and intensified the rim lights on the cherubs, added a bunch more bounced light on them, tweaked the suits of armor for clarity and lighting, added more light dots to the floor, took them out on the right side, intensified the floor and added more color variations to the floor's lit panels, added in a shadow for the bottom cherub (that @EllyettWee suggested ages ago,) beefed up the other shadows, put in motion lines from her skates, and took out the motion lines from her skates (too busy!)

This is looking pretty much done to me. Last call on little dinky things I need to fix!
And thanks, everyone, for all of the help along the way!

[evehartman]

Your last image really does look better than the version with the stained glass (however awesome that stained glass was ) The soft edges on the cherubs look great as well, it somehow creates some 'rest' in the picture. Keep refining, it is getting better and better!