I'm not entirely happy with either of the faces (and eyes), really, but I didn't really mess much with the original lineart, nor did I want to at this stage. Redrawing the faces would be far more trouble than it's worth, I figured. I did do a little bit of touch-up for three-dimensionality with colour and such.
Part of the problem is the extreme angle the picture's done at. Obviously it's not an angle I'm used to working at, and it probably shows up most in the faces. The figures turned out okay, surprisingly, but orientating the faces and eyes proved a greater challenge than I'd anticipated. Again, it's fixable, but it's also a nontrivial fix (it would require redrawing both faces entirely, and possibly altering the jawlines). There's a point where I'm all, 'fuck it, that's good enough, I'll just take note of that problem for future work'.
The leather...I've done better, but not without a better visual reference. The thing with leather is it creases and it's also quite reflective, or at least can be, depending on the finish we're talking about. Consequently you want pretty extreme slices of dark/light shading. I know the theory at least, applying it in practice is something else entirely.
Regarding the 'fishnet' mesh... that's one of those things where, well, you know what the original CoH in-game costume piece looks like, but you also know quite clearly that you're not going to be able to replicate how it looks exactly in a drawing. So you're left with the task of interpreting it in a way that makes it identifiable as that piece, yet is different...but is still visually interesting in its own right. I dunno if this works entirely, but at least it ain't a failure.
-- Acyl
Part of the problem is the extreme angle the picture's done at. Obviously it's not an angle I'm used to working at, and it probably shows up most in the faces. The figures turned out okay, surprisingly, but orientating the faces and eyes proved a greater challenge than I'd anticipated. Again, it's fixable, but it's also a nontrivial fix (it would require redrawing both faces entirely, and possibly altering the jawlines). There's a point where I'm all, 'fuck it, that's good enough, I'll just take note of that problem for future work'.
The leather...I've done better, but not without a better visual reference. The thing with leather is it creases and it's also quite reflective, or at least can be, depending on the finish we're talking about. Consequently you want pretty extreme slices of dark/light shading. I know the theory at least, applying it in practice is something else entirely.
Regarding the 'fishnet' mesh... that's one of those things where, well, you know what the original CoH in-game costume piece looks like, but you also know quite clearly that you're not going to be able to replicate how it looks exactly in a drawing. So you're left with the task of interpreting it in a way that makes it identifiable as that piece, yet is different...but is still visually interesting in its own right. I dunno if this works entirely, but at least it ain't a failure.
-- Acyl