Art Archive PLJ's SW Fan Art Collection - 8/12 Anakin/Padme Wallpaper

Wow, very pretty PLJ (I tried to look at this earlier, but it wouldn't come up for some reason...I can see it now! )! I love the very "painterly" quality to the work--very much like actual brushstrokes-in-medium of some sort. Nice soft lighting, and again, beautiful eyes. I think the only suggestion I might make (and it would be to apply to future work only--this image is lovely as it is) would be to try to "soften" the lines for the lashes and the outline of the eyes: they're very stark against the softer and more blended tones of the rest of the piece--I think if they were done in a "wider brush," maybe (total techno-doof here, so I'm probably talking out my ear as I have no idea how your program works), and perhaps less stark colors (a medium to medium-dark brown, rather than black) they would blend better with the softer tones of the face. I also love the colors you've chosen here--the royal purple dress is actually a great color for her, with that gorgeous red hair! A lovely rendering!

FF

 

Hi FalconFan!

Thank you so much for your advice and observations. I have pretty thick skin, so feel free to pick away at my pieces, as you often state, advice always leads to learning more and more and getting better!

I think the guys I host my site on were working on it mid-this afternoon. Luckily it's back up and running

I completely agree that the eyelashes look bad. I think I just got tired of working on her and gave up I have to stick w/ using the pencil feature, paint brush doesn't get small enough to use it for the lashes.

But I went back in and redid them w/ a lighter color, I think they look more natural now.

A bit of background for my color choices in this painting.

I treated this as an actual painting, utilizing the darker green/grey tones to blend w/ peach and "flesh" (non-PC term, sorry ) tones to create the final effect for her skin. As a result I think she looks quite warm and very nice. The color compensates for the fact that her features are a little flat overall...but hey, I'm still working on "getting" how to do this stuff online, the more I work it, the better I'll get

I chose purple for the dress because it's on the opposite side of the color chart from orange (hair color.) The result is that the 2 colors perfectly compliment each other. Opposite colors always look best together (red/green, yellow/blue, orange/purple, pink/baby blue.) If you ever need to create shadows w/i one of those colors, picking the opposite color usually gives the shadow a more natural depth and tone.

Anywhoo...here is the revised version, and I'm also posting my first round work of the drawing so you can see how much I really worked the colors, by layering and layers and using that darn pallet knife tool over and over to finally get the desired final result:

[image=http://webzoom.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/SW%20Images/Tenel%20Ka7.jpg]

[image=http://webzoom.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/SW%20Images/Tenel%20Ka.jpg]

 

Nice job!!!
But you should extend her left arm more, unless it's meant to be a stump.

 

Oh, Eirate_rules, don't get us started on that discussion again!

Tenel Ka lost her left arm during a lightsaber mishap.

AG88

 

Shows just how much I know.
But then, I know next to nothing about the EU

 

Eirate_Rules

Yes, please heed to AG88's advice and don't stir up that hornet's nest again

Tenel Ka is a character from the EU books, most notably the YOUNG JEDI KNIGHT series where, while sparring w/ Jacen (Han & Leia's Son) the crystal in her lightsaber broke and Jacen accidentally lobbed off her arm. She and Jacen feature prominantly in the new DARK NEST trilogy of books

She's one of my favorite characters, she's stoic and very serious which some people find annoying since she doesn't have a sense of humor, but she's tough and strong. She belongs nicely in the Universe of butt-kicking heroines created by Poppa George

I'm still working on my next portrait...it's a film character...that's all I'm saying

 

ok, i'm shutting up

 

I hope you know we are not serious Eirate_Rules. The trouble began when I made up a pic of Tenel Ka and Jacen that had her right arm lobbed off. Then FalconFan followed suit. PLJ pointed out that it was her left arm that was severed. I was adamant that I was not wrong. I quoted the new books and the SW guide to characters to back me up.

Turns out that the author of the new books mistakenly wrote that she had her right arm missing (he probably had the same SW Character guide book I did.)

Anyway, after a few days of discussing this point I conceded defeat.

It has nothing to do with you. It was just funny that you mentioned the arm a few hours after we put this subject to rest.

AG88

 

I knew, i was just being silly.

that is kinda funny though.

 

Anywhoo...onto a new character, who should be far less controversial

Again, I'm still using Artrage. I spent about 4 days working on this painting and am pretty much sick of looking at her. All critiques are welcome.

I do most of my work using an LCD monitor and know that when viewing my pieces w/ a CRT they sometimes appear a little darker than they were originally created...so if you have a CRT monitor and she seems a little dark, that's why.

I just love this picture of Padme, this is also my favorite gown from the film, probably because it's the one rare non-blue gown. Originally when I was working this I was completely befuddled as to why she was looking like the Mona Lisa and then I realized that her forhead wasn't high enough Luckily w/ computer art, that sort of error is pretty easy to correct.


Padme Skywalker - REVENGE OF THE SITH

[image=http://webzoom.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/Artwork/Padme%20GreenF.jpg]

 

Methinks I likes it ^_^

 

mesa like!!

 

Great one, PLJ! Can I suggest a little more hair?
She looks a bit...er.... pleasantly plumper than usual... but I like it!

 

Eirate_Rules and That_Wascally_Droid

Many thanks!

Courtney_Solo

I had noticed that her face looked fuller than usual and figured that it was alright, gave her that pregnant look

HanSolo29

One that was already mentioned was the "height" of the hair. I know that the shawl that she's wearing covers that up for the most part, but it still appears too flat on top. Remember that the line of the eyes appear generally in the middle of your face and you can pretty much judge how high to make the hair from that. In yours, it looks like the eyes may be a little bit too high up on the forehead, creating the effect I mentioned about the hair.

Boy, you should've seen my early sketches of her, I actually had already adjusted her forehead, the first 6 or so editings of her she looked like a CroMagnon woman w/ her hairline being right over her eyebrows

I think I've corrected that problem now, her head ends over the edge of the image, so the head/face should be normal size.

The roundness of the cheeks was also brought up and I agree here as well. Although, with a program such as the one you're working with, it shouldn't be a problem to trim them down and make her thinner. A good way to make sure that you're not puffing out the cheeks is to take a pencil or brush, whatever you're using or is lying around and line it up along the angle of the face. Be sure to keep it flat against the picture plane and carefully transfer it down to your canvas, palette or paper. If you do it correctly, you'll have the exact angle and position of the face.

That's an excellent suggestion, I'll keep that in mind for future portraits For now, I just extended her curls to cover up some of her puffiness and I think she looks better - not quite as full. Actually, I think she now looks more like Nat

Hope that wasn't too harsh and it helped out

No problem, I've always had problems drawing people so any and all advice on helping me to improve will be taken to heart I have pretty thick skin for criticism

The compliment of orange is actually blue on the colorwheel and the compliment of yellow is purple.

Bah! Well I can blame my age on that incorrect blathering on my behalf. That's what I get for stating what I thought that I remembered w/o actually bothering to LOOK at a colorwheel

<< Airhead

Ok so taking Solo's comments to heart, I've reworked my Padme, is the second one better?

[image=http://webzoom.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/Artwork/Padme%20GreenF.jpg]

After

[image=http://webzoom.freewebs.com/padmeleiajaina/SW%20Images/Padme%20GreenF2.jpg]

 

I think the second one is better. Rounding off the top of her head makes it look more natural. I would say the only criticism I have is it looks like Padme is a bit too chubby in the cheeks. This is how I would imagine her looking if she ever got in her 40's. You know, beautiful but a few pounds heavier.

But since I can't draw, I can't give you any advice on fixing any flaws.

AG88

 

AG88

I know that Nat's face is thinner and smoother in the lower portion of her face. I guess if I'm feeling up to it, I'll go back and try to re-edit her lower cheek area...maybe when my Corel 9 software shows up

HS29

Thank you! I still plan to rework her face, but for now I'm moving onto other things.

So expect in the next several months a whole assortment of different types of artwork coming from me. I got my mitts on Photoshop and just finished my very first wallpaper! I think I did pretty good considering the last time I used this program was for work something like 5 years ago. I'm hoping that once I master using all of these programs that I'll finally be able to produce some killer artwork for my fanfic stories and covers

Anywhoo - Mustafar and the starry sky background were created by yours truely in photoshop, no pictures were used for creating them. Anakin, Obi-Wan and the text were layered over the image.

I'm including my original image of the planet and then the completed wallpaper. Let me know what you think

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Mustafar%20Finished.jpg]

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Mustafar%20Finished%20copy.jpg]

 

What a way to make my Mustafar drawing look bad, PLJ!! That is a fantastic drawing of the lava planet! It is absolutely perfect! I am jealous of your talent.

I really need to get photoshop.

I liked the addition of Anakin, but I think you might be better off with a different Obi-Wan. I looked at the pic and started laughing. I was thinking, "What is Obi-Wan staring at? Why is he looking at Anakin's crotch?" It reminds me of a few of the more risque fanfics I have read.

Sorry, it just caught me as funny. It is a beautiful wallpaper.

AG88

 

Wow, the re-do of Padme looks great, PLJ! I think HanSolo29 offered some wonderful tips, and it's quite apparent you've put them to good use! Lovely! And the colors are beautiful--so rich and vibrant!

The Mustafaar wallpaper is good, too--the planet render is fabulous! As to Obi-Wan "looking at Anakin's ____" or something of that sort--take a look at this image (one of my absolute favorite photos of Master Obi-Wan):
AOTC Obi-Wan

I think this one would take care of the "visual focus" problem! I love the simplicity of this though--just the two of them, and the fateful planet where it finally comes to the end for them...

Beautiful work!

FF

 

AG88

What a way to make my Mustafar drawing look bad, PLJ!! That is a fantastic drawing of the lava planet! It is absolutely perfect! I am jealous of your talent.

Never, NEVER say that your Mustafar was totally different then mine and looks amazing. As to my "talent" on this, it appears that I'm very good at following tutorials. I spent yesterday surfing photoshop tutorials because I didn't know what in the blazes to do w/ the program I was completely frustrated because I couldn't figure out how to separate a figure from his background. I have a huge Photoshop bible that gives directions for everything EXCEPT how to do that

I found this site that's got tons of tutorials that were gathered or submitted to the site for all sorts of stuff (I noticed Bryce 3D was on the list too - no Poser though )

Anywhoo several pages in my jaw dropped when I found this Earth Ablaze Tutorial tutorial and one for making starry skies.

So after making many flamey planets, I finally came up w/ the one used in for my wallpaper - the hint that the guy didn't put in it was that at least once when you're creating multiple layers of the Render>clouds function, you need to tap in "different clouds" - that gives the planet surface the black and scary markings that make it look just like Mustafar.

Anyways, there I go, giving away all of my secrets, but oh well - anything to make us all better artists

The Obi-Wan picture. I actually selected it because I liked the fact that he was looking down. I put him on there in ghostly fashion w/ Mustafar viewable through him because I hoped it would convey his sense of regret, marking his ultimate failure. Anakin of course is staring straight ahead, embracing his destiny. It didn't even cross my mind that he might be looking somewhere that he shouldn't be

I haven't managed to download too many Obi-Wan pictures yet so my choices were limited. Maybe I'll work on a second version and also include an overall ghostiing of them dueling.

FalconFan

Yes, HanSolo29 gave me some great advice that I'll be sure to take up in the future Thanks for the great, high quality scan of that picture of Obi-Wan, I've now included that in my photo's archives.

Again, I guess I'll redo another copy of the wallpaper and search for another picture of Obi-Wan to clear up any unneccesary confusion. This was my first attempt remember

Thanks for the words of encouragement.

 

Alright so I did nothing yesterday other than obsess over Photoshop. As you can tell, I'm sorta stuck on a single style at the moment - but I figure my next wallpapers after this I'll move away from the huge planet in the center of them.

Here is my revised version of the Mustafar wallpaper. Now Obi-Wan's staring off screen instead of *ahem* you can use your imagination on what he's looking at. "How did my boots get that dirty?"

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Mustafar%20Failed%20You2.jpg]

Here's another one that I cranked out. Again, Dagobah in the background I created in photoshop. This wallpaper finalized my understanding on how to properly extract images and using the lassoo tool to clean up any extra garbage. The text on both of these is rather cheesy and overly dramatic - but hey, it's STAR WARS that goes with the course of things


[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Luke%20Fear%20Darkside2.jpg]


In Progress:

And here's the one that I spent the most time on last night. I have something like 5 covers to make for my fanfic stories. Luckily a good friend of mine made 3 for me already (all of which are far better than what I can do...yet ) I thought this one would probably be the easiest - some of my other stories I'm really going to need Poser and Corel to paint/draw the people in their correct poses to add them as I want to on the covers.

This is still in progress, because I'm not really sure what else needs to be done to it. Tatooine (of course) was created in Photoshop along w/ Tatoo I & II. I spent a lot of time decapitating pictures, resizing heads, etc to get Shirri and Jason on Jaina and Han's bodies. I changed eye color on Jason and skintone for both so that they're both more uniform than they initially came out.

I would like to add some exhaust vent trails behind the X-Wing and some motion lines, but I'm not sure how to do that. I've found tutorials for creating lightsabers, but nothing specifically that will help me w/ the vents. Anyone got any suggestions?

(Oh and yes, if you haven't already figured it out, I'm a Roswell fan also Future covers will also show that I'm a Days of our Lives fan too )

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Jainas%20Journey7%20copy.jpg]

 

I really like the one of Luke... maybe because it has a sexy farmboy in it. Have you considered putting your Mustafar in that pic instead of the sun you have behind Luke? I don't know if that would make it too dark or not.

I still don't like the Obi-Wan you are using, but that is just me. The pic doesn't look like he is looking down in remorse, but it looks like he is looking for something on the floor. I found a nice Obi-Wan that I used to make a little wallpaper a long time ago. I have to check to see if I posted this in my thread or not. http://img476.imageshack.us/img476/5209/copyofproject195og.jpg Anyway, I really like the bearded Obi-Wan in this picture. You can find tons of images of him using a Google Image search.

Great job.

AG88

 

I like the new wallpapers, PLJ--the one of Luke especially. And I think AG88 might have an idea about putting Mustafaar in there--you could try it, and see if it turns out too dark. I think it might lend a wonderful "ominous" feel to it, though, which would be appropriate with his Sith-icized father back there.... And the fan fiction cover looks very interesting: Jaina meets up with her young father?! Sort of a time-warp sort of story line? Kewl!

FF

 

AG88

Humm Mustafar in the wallpaper? That would be interesting maybe I'll try that. I also need to find another copy of the picture w/ Luke and Yoda- the one I used is a bit blurry (thanks to another friend of mine pointing that flaw out to me )

I still am somewhat attached to that pic of Obi-Wan, so at least for this Mustafar wallpaper, I don't plan to switch it out. But I do plan on hunting down more close-up pics of Obi-Wan though for future wallpapers

I'm excited, my Corel software should be showing up any day now I used Birthday money and bought it (rather to the annoyance of my Dad who's now befuddled over what I want for Xmas - guess I'll put Bryce or Poser on my list now instead )

FalconFan

And the fan fiction cover looks very interesting: Jaina meets up with her young father?! Sort of a time-warp sort of story line? Kewl!

Hee hee hee - errr not exactly My EU era fics are completely AU from the NJO books and Jaina is paired w/ an original character. I used Han's body for Marxx, and in a few recent updates on the cover I've made the vest more blue to try to make it look less like Han.

Here is a latest version w/ a picture in the middle that should help alleviate THAT confusion However, Jaina meeting her younger Dad would make a cool story I'm sorta waiting for Corel before I completely finish this because I want to draw over Marxx's t-shirt in the middle picture to make him look like he's wearing a more STAR WARS-y outfit.

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Jainas_Journey10.jpg]

Here's another cover that I worked on this weekend for my Anakin/Padme Vignettes. (Did I mention that I spent my whole holiday break working on my computer? ) You'll note, no planet on this one

[image=http://smicketysmom.bravepages.com/Es%20Art/Star%20Wars/Anakin%20Padme%20Cover4%20copy.jpg]