I like your art! You can use the pencil to create texture and depth with shadows, but don't over-do it. Especially the Elfish girl looks smudged because you used pencil everywhere. The tribal boy is much better on that area and is also better than the Elf girl drawing if you look at anatomy. The only problem with the tribal boy is his chest.

It would be great if you could combine the anatomy and neatness of the tribal boy with a more interesting and detailed drawing like that Elfish girl.

You're making good progress!

Thanks for the C & C!

I took your advice, or at least I think I did, and tried to produce something that is a little more of a hybrid between the two extremes above. I tried my hand at a little elven plate armour, too!



I also left the brightness/contrast sliders alone this time, and turned auto-colour-correction off when scanning. The smudging, especially on the elf girl, is not so pronounced on the paper. However, I definitely see what you mean, and I'll try to avoid it in future.

So, once again, any comments or criticisms are welcome!
Have a nice day!

It seems that one question that has arisen is:
"What is gold used for within Yliakum?"
Which means that because the game is incomplete, some resources are not resources but simply a means of taking money from NPCs. So, is there a use intended for gold? Obviously, as the currency in Yliakum is made out of crystals, its traditional use on Earth is already filled. So, what are the other areas in which Gold can be used? I'm a little unsure as to exactly what skills and professions are intended for the final game, but presumably there are the following among them:

Resource Gathering (Primary Industry):
Mining
Farming
Hunting

Player Item/Consumable Production (Secondary Industry):
Smithing
Cooking

Looking at the Fantasy genre, it would also be fairly normal for the following tertiary industries to exist:
Mercenaries
Enchantment
Guarding

Now, one solution that popped into my head as I was reading this thread was that perhaps:

Gold has a high natural affinity for magical energy. Therefore, it keeps magical charges for longer than just plain iron and steel. This means that an enchanter would prefer to bind a weapon's handle with a gold wire in order to make it deal fire damage than to just enchant the weapon normally, because it would be easier. This could be represented ingame by either the wire-bound weapon costing less mana to enchant, or better enchantments being available for it.

This problem probably doesn't solely apply to gold. With the resources available within the game, similar questions are likely to keep arising, and so they need answering. This post is sort of a translation of the way I would think about the problem. I by no means would presume to tell other people that they should think like me, but I think that the more ways people are exposed to looking at issues, the easier it is for them to form their own unique techniques and therefore solutions.

If I'm repeating an idea or thought process that's been explored in another thread I haven't read, then I apologise - I haven't looked at the forums in a long while.

Anyway, that's my 2 euro-cents. If anyone else has thoughts on the subject, I'd be glad to hear them - I find problems like this quite interesting.

Thanks for the advice, peoples!
And, after a break of ridiculous proportions, here is one of my recent WIPs.



I made more of an attempt at a good pose and lighting, as well as less orthographic view. I\'m aware that it\'s still pretty straight-facing, but it adds a little variation to my work, I think. My friend is hopefully going to draw some other critter on the other side of the page, which the dwarf needs to be looking at, so that\'s why he has no pupils or irises yet. Drawing heavy armour is fun.

Comment and Criticism builds character!

Well, as an update, here\'s my latest piece. While it\'s not PlaneShift related, I figure this is the best place to post it. It also doesn\'t have one of my cloth studies... but a lot of people said it\'s my best piece yet. I did the drawing from life.

Anyway, enough babble, here you go!



She was wearing a lot of mascara. But I\'m not convinced it was that much.

I like the mine, and I think the swords are pretty cool, especially the zigzag one. I think that maybe the fingerguards should be a bit longer though. Good shading there!

I shall indeed keep it up, Moogie.

Thanks for posting your pics, Icefalcon. I really like all of them, especially the posters - the colours are really good!

That was the first time Frarda didn\'t post on my pics.

And the thing that you\'re probably not waiting on the edge of your seat for:

My biggest single peice of art yet.
From left to right:
Paladin, Archer, Vampire (Didn\'t have enough room to draw another humanoid) and Dwarf.

Heh heh heh... I knew a Fenki would draw Moogie like a moth to the flame...

Woohoo! People are interested.

the head is a little big for even a dwarf, but it looks good.

Thanks Frarda, I did kinda wonder about that.

I think that\'s your best one.

Pretty good work, better than what I could do.

I don\'t think that you should compare yourself to other people, because the only way you can really see the level of skill you have is by looking at what you\'re doing now and what you did, let\'s say, 6 months ago. That way, you can see how much you have improved, rather than how different your style is to someone elses. But thanks for saying it was good. Also, I\'d quite like to see your work. So post it - posting pics in my thread won\'t cause a nuclear holocaust. I don\'t think so, anyway.

Anyways, as I know you all love \'em, here\'s an Enkidukai. *first drawing in a new sketchbook *

http://www.geocities.com/phishmod/fenki.html
[note]She went through a gender change about halfway through because I decided I needed to practice drawing women.[/note]
Fire away!