Portrait of a character and request for feedback
Shadowdream
Posts: 61
Hi all! I finally got around to finishing this one, after having set it aside in the "return to this once your lighting skills have improved" pile. I'm really happy with this one, and I'm starting to feel more confident about my art, but I'm definitely feeling like I'm at that point where I'm not going to continue to get better without outside feedback. So! What would you do to improve this?
The character is my Vampire the Masquerade character, a graffiti artist/muralist, who sees the world perhaps... a bit differently than others. The splash of red light, beyond just being a point of interest/possible exit sign is a nod to the whole vampire thing. I also wanted to give it that bit of a back alley sodium light feel with the yellow lights. I tinted the blue night light toward purple due to her name/moniker, UV/Ultraviolet.
Also, if you have a moment and want to look at my more recent renders on deviant art and get a feel for where I am, that would be awesome too. :) https://www.deviantart.com/shad0wdream/gallery/all
I'm really looking to see where my next focus on skills to learn should be, as I'm feeling a little stagnant. I'm not in any groups that can give feedback on this sort of thing, so any suggestions for that outside of these forums would be welcome as well! Thank you!!
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Comments
You need a neon pink light as bright highlight on your right, her left I think she looks fine.
I love VTM and the World Of Darkness, though I have no idea of the rule changes since the early editions, and VTM: Bloodlines PC game.
I like the render but I must admit there is not a lot of vampire or horror coming across with this image for me. I think the lighting is a bit too understated and is really flattening this scene. The characters skin looks very flat to me where as more angle and intensity would lift her features and add depth, drama and, emotion. Getting that light to carry across the background would do the same. The same with the red light, it also could act as a rim light for both the character, the paint cans, and ladder, lifting the foreground and illuminating the mural. Using some bump/normal/displacement on the background could really have a dramatic effect too.
I love the character, she looks great, you make me want to know more about her and her story. Street art, that some would call vandalism along with the boots tucked in, and the flannel make me think Brujah clan. Though she is alone and doing her own thing, so possibly a Gangrel. Then again she is an artist with a dark vision, makes me think Malkavian. What is your characters name, and what is her clan, when was she embraced? Really good work there. Excellent choices on clothes and textures, great work with all the little details, like the paint on her fingers, very believable.
Not really going for horror, really. Honestly, if the character, UV, could just go back to teaching art at the Art Institute of Chicago, she absolutely would. So I'm not looking for harsh/dramatic or dark/creepy here.
I was trying to get a bit of a rim light on her with the yellow sodium light behind her, but I was fighting with the wall and angles. I can work on that a little bit more, maybe saturate the color a little more. I have another yellow light in front of her and below, like if she had a worklamp with her sitting on the ground. That's mostly what's lighting her face and upper body. I'll play more with angles on that and see if I can get a little more pop from it. I do like the deep purple shadow it throws behind her though, and how it lights her hair. I do see what you mean about the skin though. It's Millawa, just darkened some, so I know it can look nice, I just haven't managed in this scene.
I want to keep with the purple/blue as the main color of the scene, since she goes by UV, or Ultraviolet. (Took the name in homage to Lady Pink. She was Mx. Violet before she was embraced. Decided to make it a joke afterward.) I was considering another splash of red light across the bottom to get the paint cans and at least one of the roses, so maybe I'll play with that again too. The background does have normal, set at 1.
Thank you! And I really appreciate the comment about the paint on her fingers! That was post work and I wasn't sure how it came across. When you're too close to something sometimes it's easy to see all the bits you don't like, you know? She was too clean otherwise. I'm really glad that detail came across well, I was really uncertain about it. :)
The short of her story (Playing V5, so she was made around current story and system, rather than the older ones. I had a fair bit to learn since I hadn't played since... well.. a long time ago. heh): She was born in the late 80's, grew up in Gary, IN. Was always a bit of an odd duck, saw things, was a bit of a sensitive. Saw the world a little differently (a synestheisa that bordered on the Hollywood depictions of it rather than reality, but hey the game has vampires and werewolves so we're not tethered to reality.) She was always into painting, but in high school she got really into graffiti and street art. Ended up being a bit of a prodigy. Her work, as much of it is, was heavily politically charged, so yeah, she drew the attention of the local brujah, but also a toreador (to this day, she's unaware of their little spat over her). While they were spatting though, her sire, an anarch Malkavian, swooped in and claimed her. Her sire was working at the Art Institute (neutral ground in our story), got her a full scholarship, became her mentor, and stayed her close friend and confidante all through school, all the way up to her masters. Just after graduation, in 2013, she was embraced. That synesthesia went full on novothesia and the visions and ghost sightings came more frequently, but she coped surprisingly well.
Her sire continued on as her mentor, kept her kind of isolated from kindred affairs, quietly sabotaged any outside friendships that got too close. Thing is, her sire was in hiding under an assumed identity, a Toreador identity. So for the first decade of her unlife, UV thought she was a Toreador. Only recently did she find out otherwise. That's an entirely different story of betrayal though, and probably waaay more than I need to go into here. It's been a ride though! She kind of accidentally ended up as Baron of Gary not too long into our game (hey, she's a damn passionate anarch and the roll our party made, trying to convince a lot of very angry kindred that they weren't behind the death of the Baron, that their spilled vitae was the only reason the rest of them got out alive, and that they needed to come together instead of tear each other apart, was kind of insane. Sooo the local girl who was the face of that passionate speech got the job). It has been crazy trying to keep that position as a relatively young kindred, still with that passion and drive to her, wanting to make things better for kindred and kine alike. Now hopefully people don't find out she unintentionally lied about being a Toreador. And that her sire might be Sabbat...
I tend to lean into the horror aspect when creating WOD/VTM images, but that is just my own vision of that world. I respect yours.
I would definetly keep the blue/purple light, that really sells the nighttime aspect of the image. That comes across very well in your image, urban nightime.
Millawa has a great uber texture, excellent choice.
UV is a wonderful character, thanks for writing about her! Sounds like you have had some great adventures together.