Nique's happy fun time thread ~ Super general discussion

[Aldora]

Awwww yeah~
Need to train during OB, still not comfortable with new skill icons and some changes. (Benediction not full pt anymore.. whyyyyy ;_; )

Which job would you aim for? xD

Either Bard or White Mage.

Hmm... Or maybe Summoner, fight Ifrit with Ifrit!

[Valan]

I did a new art the past few days~ Giving some love to the elezen

/also I really really love the new RSE for all the races... so pretty...

Where is the "multi like"?

[Docent]

I did a new art the past few days~ Giving some love to the elezen

/also I really really love the new RSE for all the races... so pretty...

[insert fabolous pic here]

Goodness, that is beautiful.

I'm afraid to ask, but here goes; how long have you worked on that picture?

[Deli]

/hide behind Valan

[HiirNoivl]

/hide behind Valan

I CAN SEE YOU! :O

[Myranda]

Goodness, that is beautiful.

I'm afraid to ask, but here goes; how long have you worked on that picture?

Hmmm... I don't really keep track of how long I actually actively work on things. I did start it two days ago though on the 6th. Only a little bit that day though and finishing the whole sketch then the clean inking happened on the 7th plus most of the coloring, today I only had the shading left on the metal bits and the sleeve to do. Maybe in the neighborhood of 6-8 hours? I spend a lot of time just staring at it while I work too.

[Docent]

Hmmm... I don't really keep track of how long I actually actively work on things. I did start it two days ago though on the 6th. Only a little bit that day though and finishing the whole sketch then the clean inking happened on the 7th plus most of the coloring, today I only had the shading left on the metal bits and the sleeve to do. Maybe in the neighborhood of 6-8 hours? I spend a lot of time just staring at it while I work too.

Hmm. Without wanting to enter the level of personal lifeblog, that totally creates all sort of mixed emotions with me. I'm envious of the patience but also the skill to do that kind of drawings. At the same time, I know I never really spent much time improving my artistic skills, so I don't have any reasons to be ashamed of my limited ability. Logically, I know that, but that doesn't prevent me from being somewhat jealous and perhaps even defensive. So yeah, totally jelly, and much <3 for the elezen!

It takes me about 2~3 hours to produce the results I showed in the thread, and that's with me cheating to cutting down time pretty much on every corner, like limited myself to three shades for shadows/highlights/normal colors and my self-imposed 30 seconds "backgrounds" which seem to have accidentally created a style that some people enjoy.
At the same time, I'm somewhat purposedly doing a throwback to 8-bit color styles, probably because I grew up playing Sega Genesis games like Phantasy Star, and they had extremely limited palettes. Heck, I even save all my images in 256 color .GIFs! :P
Maybe someday, I'll kick myself in the butt and finally make my dream game on tablet or on the web, some kind of hommage to Dragon Force and Final Fantasy. But then I cry at the amount of work all those animated sprites, portraits and such will take!

That turned down to be a much longer post than I expected, so I'll just leave those here:

[Myranda]

...limited myself to three shades for shadows/highlights/normal colors and my self-imposed 30 seconds "backgrounds"...

You'd maybe be surprised to find out we're not terribly different in that regard. I avoid BGs much of the time, and I often do only work with 3 brightness levels per color, but I set them to a low opacity and have pen pressure also control opacity to achieve the smooth look. Partly it's because I think I'm terrible at cel shading. >.> This elezen one was a bit of an experiment actually, I added in some blue tones into the darker skin areas and yellow to the highlights rather than keeping it to purely pink/peach tones. First time I've really done that.

Also many many many many many layers and clipping masks.

[Dhalmel]

I did a new art the past few days~ Giving some love to the elezen

/also I really really love the new RSE for all the races... so pretty...

c.c

ello~

[Docent]

I find that pen pressure for opacity really hinders the clean old-school "flat" colors thing I'm normally going for -- I use pen sensitivity for size, and found that I was way more comfortable handling it that way.

I think I tried to use it the way you do once for helping me give better shadows and highlights.
This pic might have been made that way..

Urk... /hides in shame and runs away... Maybe I can distract people with something...

A wild Praline appears!