Now, up until this morning I had a completely different picture in mind for this weeks COTW, however, when I saw this piece by prswirve when I did my rounds this morning, I felt compelled to change.
Now the first thing that caught my eye here was the patterns that cover her body. I love how they are light on one side and dark on the other, very unusual and effective, especially when the alpha setting on both colours is lowered to allow the shading from the items behind to show through.
The next thing I looked at was the face. She has a great look of focus, with the pursed lips and staring eyes, which is accentuated by the 'ready' pose. The shading here is great too, it brings out the facial features wonderfully and doesn't overpower the pattern that carries over onto the face from the body.
Which brings me nicely onto my second favourite thing about this character, the costume. I love the custom made top, which teams Far Eastern historic with modern style very nicely, shows of the skin pattern on the shoulder and manages to make pink, purple and brown work together. Of course not everything works brilliantly, the right shoe is a bit off and the cape by the leg could have worked better if a different cape had been used, but those are the only gripes.
However, the best bit of this picture for me is the energy effect prs has created. The warmth of the pinks, oranges and golds used is incredible, it looks like a sunrise and contrasts brilliantly against the dusty dull brown of the background at that point. Brilliantly done.
Elantra is a really cool character, prswirve. At first, I wasn’t sold on her face because it is darker than her body. Then I took into account that the pattern runs throughout . Love the energy effect. Her costume is very original.
As JR notes, the shoes are off. HeroMachine is not a perfect program. I often overlook minor flaws because the intention is there and I can visual how it’s supposed to look. If I had half the skills that other HM’ers do! Well, I would have nothing to look forward to. It’s visual treats like Elantra that keep me here.
Yah. If you’ll add undersoles–Insignia or Head, maybe, she’ll be perfect. Then she can finish psionically towing that egg back to the momma before it hatches and imprints on the evil overlord.
Good one.
Well, now i know whose gallery to catch up on next. That design is brilliant. i’d considered using a skin pattern like that before, but wasn’t sure how to make it work. Very clever, prswirve.
I dunno when i first see i think i see a Headlessgeneral picture. HMM in this case so…. So…. Dunno…
I only Gratulate. Nice picture.
Hey thanks! I feel honored Elantra got chosen as COTW. I’ll have to give credit to a lot of you guys since she’s an amalgam of all the cool stuff and tricks i’ve learned from you. Her skin markings are inspired by dblade’s work as you can see in his thread, as well as JR’s great tattoo work. I’ve learned zypping mostly from looking at ams’, djuby’s and Jr’s work. The background work i have to credit to Scatman (who i guessed is too busy with skyrim 🙂 )..
I knew from the start the sandals will cause a stir, but i got lazy not to fix it 🙂
Thanks again guys!
Ang galing ng lahing pilipino!