Ok, I'm back (for real).
As for how this goes, you post a work of yours, finished or WIP (aka work in process, for those who are new to abbreviations), and then others give you critiques on your work. I do not mind if you post the occasional non-HM picture or piece of writing. Just make sure that you only post pictures that are your own design and not any that copyrighted or based off of copyrighted characters.
Also, if you post a work, it is highly recommended that you also give someone else a critique.
Guess I’m first.
http://www.heromachine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Shaid-Redux.png
This is a remake of my old character The Shaid. I like the overall feel of it, but I’ve never been satisfied with my ability to make three-dimensional fire, particularly for that “engulfed in flames/energy” look. Here I tried to compensate by adding some smoke, but I don’t think it entirely worked.
@EssayM- If you’re trying to make the character look as if they’ve been consumed or engulfed by fire, you want to have the flames layered in front of the character and make them around-about 75-80% alpha with no coloured background. You can then shade the flames to enhance the effect. At the moment the effect is swamped by the background and the shading being practically the same colour as said background doesn’t help. You could also try anding flame glow onto the character and her costume, that might help. You could also try multi-masking shading onto many different flame body auras and making the actual auras transparent, so you only get the shading effect (sort of like Ubiquitous Pixel did with Vanity a few days ago, it’s in COTW this week if you need to find it).
I agree, the smoke doesn’t really work, mainly because there’s not enough of it considering how big the fire is and it’s too light in colour, it needs to be much thicker.
It’s good to add layers on BOTH sides of the object and achieve an almost random dispersal within the logical placement. Flames always look random. One ‘easy’ way is to use about a hundred layers of flames, each one a few percent different on the x, y, angle, and two of the three colors.
I’m next! I made this for my Courier, Ethan Sunderland, appearing in my Mass Effect series, Mass Foundations. I showed it to the others and, with their help, liked what they saw.
http://imgur.com/wUURXMO
Last one for now, I hope: http://imgur.com/0LwWsZy
@Nord Ronnoc: You may be better off posting those on the latest OCD. Just a little friendly reminder.