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Ragaru — Help Saren look good
Published: 2010-01-04 20:22:51 +0000 UTC; Views: 4789; Favourites: 63; Downloads: 99
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Description
I decided to continue the Mass Effect fan art WIP ([link] )Unfortunately my PC crashed, and after restoring it I found the original file to be corrupted and unable to open, so I now draw on top of it...
I started with Saren's head, but I think something just isn't right...
I don't draw him exactly as the original design, so i add a little touch of my own.
But I need help to figure what is wrong, I found that his right eye is too low (or the left to high) and the back horns to be too much angled towards us.
The original seems to be more correct compared to the new one.
I need your help..
Help me help Saren look good... or at least better!
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Comments: 39
Aww, that's a shame! I hate computers at times ... :\
Oh right, this is an old piece I see. Anyway, I agree about his horns looking a bit short, and his mandible should be more massive. But still, a very nice piece! Is it finished by now?
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Yes it's unfortunate they may crash when you least expect it to.
I'm sorry to say no... but now as more people seem to find it interesting I may try to
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Yeah, I got some stupid software corruption do to a WIndows update recently myself, and my computer's been acting weird ever since.
Awesome! It would definitely be worth the effort I think and I'll surely be waiting in high anticipation for the final result. Good luck!
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Hmm interesting... The reason my pc crashed was exactly due to a corruption in a windows service pack update...
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Really? Wow ... then it's not just me imagining things, is it? Thanks!
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Nope... Beware of the windows service packs, they murder poor helpless pc's
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They do? I've never had a problem with them in the past and I was mostly guessing this was what caused the problems, but for now, I can't run Internet Explorer and I can barely watch video files either. Sometimes they run at twice the speed they're supposed to, lol, other times they won't run at all.
I'll try a factory default reset and hopefull that'll clear whatever corruption's in there out.
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Well i googeled the problem when it happened to me... it has happened to several people, not cool.. and expensive too D:
Hope it rids your PC of the issues
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Damn! Do you remember what exactly the problem was? Did it actually screw some hardware up for you?
Thanks, I hope so too.
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Not the exact.. but when it rebooted and should clean up/ complete the installation, the screen displayed the components that had been installed(or files, don't remember) it stopped at 187/254 (or something around that, don't remember the exact numbers)
and then it all just stopped up for some time, then i tried to restart it and it was all black... CRASH!
It only messed up the windows system files, so no hardware damage..
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Oh, I see .. well that can be bad enough. That hasn't happened to me though, if it does I guess the only way around it is to wipe the disk and start from scratch ...
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I went ahead and got myself a new computer yesterday though, so hopefully it won't suffer that kind of fate!
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Whoa.. just like that
Then let's hope for no corruption, or "Service" packs... thinking of it... the service pack was the reason I sent it to the store's SERVICE center... OMG it's a CONSPIRACY!
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No, I'd been running a cheap slow computer at my place for a while so I was thinking of updating sometime this year anyway. Better sooner than later?
Now I can run my Mass Effect PC games in perfect sync without having to worry about choppiness or lag, that was a real problem before. It took an hour and two installs just to get ME1 running though. Finally found a tip that you need to run it as Administrator and yay, that worked!
Indeed. Let's hope we both stay safe from that kind of corruption in the future.
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He he... The tablet PC i've been using the past 2 years is slowly but surely dying... and when it comes to gaming i can't even play a game with near Super Nintendo Graphics properly without some lag from time to time... so I guess it's time for me as well to invest in a new pc...
Also I've not done any digital art since November,
due to my PC being unable to run Photoshop with a decent sized document
But let's hope so
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Ah, I see. I discovered, for example that my cheap old computer had a fantastic amount of graphic memory - 256 mb! xD Then again I never bought it to game on, it's good enough for basic tasks and it has performed those well enough for years. It's my secondary computer now, so it'll keep running for a long time yet I hope.
That's a shame. I never had a problem with that, thankfully. Are you sure a reformat won't help in the meantime, it might let you get some functionality back?
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He he... Mine was powahfol! 3GB RAM and even a 320 GB HD... Alas hardware isn't meant to be lasting =\
Done it several times.... Looks like it is loosing the will to live or sumfing Oo
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Mine with all the problems is a Quad-core, 4 Gig RAM, 1 Tb HDD ... :\ I left it over at my mother's place so I'll do further battle with it whenever I stay with her.
Oh, well then, not much else to do I suppose. Sorry about that. Hope you find a solution to your problems.
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Ha ha no need to be sorry about anything... Also i think i have a solution... Money xD
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Ha ha, of course. The default solution?
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Usually the only solution
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o.o cant say whats wrong because its so amazing o.o
how did you do this skin? it looks like in the game
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Ha ha, thanks... I used some custom textures, and painted some of the texture myself by hand, depending on what area of the head it was.
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the horn from his forehead isn't long enough
and his eyes aren't deep enough
all in all, much better than anything I can scrape together
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Thanks, already taken into consideration, though I already was aware of the most... I had forgot about the eyes though
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Why was this pic not in my inbox? Mystery.
Anyway, this is gonna look freakin epic. Just putting it out there.
Only real problem might be the angle of those horns but that's about it for me.. I mean at first glance it looks like Saren, if feels like Saren and it IS Saren. So there you go.
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It wasn't
WTF?! That f***ing bug?!
Well now the horns (as well as the rest of the head) have been entirely re-composed and having a better angle, than what you see here
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Very nice. Particularly the shading and texture, that's just awesome.
As for critique, Saren happens to be a familiar painting subject for me. *cough*
First point: Saren has seven horns in total, including those two on either side of his face. I count eleven in this image. If you're going for a more game-accurate look, you may may want to cut that number down. And as ~Luce-foxeh noted, you could make them longer, and thinner as well. They're actually quite delicate looking, strange thing to find on a villain, eh?
Second point: His eyebrows! You haven't separated them from his forehead plating here. Also, they're quite a bit shorter and squared off. The farthest point only barely extends into his hood.
Third point: His mandible-things (does ANYONE know what the official term for those things are? I'm completely clueless there.) would be much taller, and would nearly touch his cheekbone. The gap his teeth show through would be much narrower. They're easily the hardest part of his face to draw though, so I wouldn't consider it a big deal. I will say though, I envy whatever technique you used to accomplish the glowing bits in that area, because it seriously looks amazing.
Fourth point: I noticed that you've drawn his face flat. The nose/mouth area, I mean. It would actually be much more pronounced, and extend out from the forehead. Turians have sloped faces.
I know that's quite a bit, but whether to make any of those changes or leave it up to artistic interpretation is of course entirely up to you.
I'd be willing to redline, if none of what I said makes any sense. (I'm no good at describing things. Sorry for the rambling/disjointed critique. I love what you're doing here. 
Oh yeah, I don't know if you know, but flipping your image is a good way to pick out any perspective flaws that might otherwise go unnoticed until much later.
In any case, it looks GREAT so far, and I can't wait to see the final piece!
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First off, Thank You so much taking your time writing all this!
First point: Yeah I didn't use any references for the head when drawing the original one, therefore I was uncertain of the number of horns.
So I will try angling sidehorns better and extend and.. er delicatify them XD
He's a villain in an epic space adventure... Gotta stand out from he rest
Second point: Well they're there but only I haven't drawn them yet because I need to have the eyeholes right first. I imagined having a faceplate that also can be lowered as eyebrows(and be protective) making him appear even more intimidating, also the reason i extended the faceplate to have some horns stretching over the hood, almost like a crown.
Third point: Don't think there is an official term...
Agreed, also they should be larger on the backside or have a larger surface.
About that I thought it would be a little interesting to make the teeth more visible ;]
That technique is quite easy to use when you first get to know it, if You use PS that is. (just ask if you want me to explain)
Fourth point: He he, I just noticed that yesterday, after looking trough some references where I saw him in profile XD
But I'll see if I can pull his beak a little more.
Not too much, but very helpful
Well I understood all so you can't be that bad at describing XD
I do flip the images I work on (however i didn't do so on the original) , but this time I really couldn't put My finger on what's wrong.
Thanks! I'll be working on it in the time forward, and hopefully finish it in not too long.
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It's my pleasure.
Returning to the first point, I'd like to make one correction to my earlier statement: Saren has nine horns total, but only seven are visible. (The other two are shorter and hidden under the hood! I kind of spaced out on that one earlier. 
Second... I get ya. Artistic license for the win. Having a resemblence to a crown there is a pretty good idea, now that I think about it. Makes sense.
Third: I know what you mean there. Having his teeth bared would be more menacing, right?
And sure, alright. I can never make anything glow successfully. It always turns out out fuzzy!
Fourth: Oh yeah. I only recently figured out that THAT'S what was wrong with my earlier Turian drawings myself. It's one of those things you don't really pick up on so easily, I guess.
Anyway, once again, I'm looking forward to the finished product. 
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1: Well, if not visible it's not a problem either
2: Yes, Wouldn't it..
It would make him appear a little more superior/royal.
3: Yes it was a bit poorly explained...
Let's see then, if you go right down from his left "crown"(faceplate) horn to the part of the mandibles where it have the close to 90 degree(the area under all the lights) turn forwards to the mouth... There the mandible should have been a bit larger, since it now seems too thin.
And yes his teeth bared would make him more menacing.
Ok, if you have a new layer over a darker background you firstly draw/add something with a light close to white color(you can of course use other colors but the lighter it gets the more intense it becomes), Then open the "layer style" (Double click the layer) and go to the outer glow options.
There you decide the opacity, color, spread (should be pretty low), size and the range... so just make sure you see what you drew on the layer and play around with these options and see how it turns out ;]
4: It really is, you never see a turian from that angle long enough to notice in the game, and a turian in profile isn't the most common pic you find XD
I'll try to get it done till the release of the sequel... Can't wait for it
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To be honest, the thing that catches my eye is the main horns; they look a bit too short, and too angled downward, so they frame his face a bit too much.
Also, the eyes just look a bit funky because the '
The horns just above the main ones seem to be the ones that aren't angled quite right; the angle towards us seems a bit extreme.
I don't know if that helped at all (amateur artist critique ftw...?), but... god, this is still getting more and more gorgeous every time I look at it. xD
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Thanks I really appreciate all feedback.
However I'm adding some features of my own (like the area around the eyes, faceplate and the increased number of back horns), but I didn't use any references for the head when drawing the original one, therefore the short side horns (I'll awesome them up ;] )
Yes they are quite much too angled, so that's firstly prioritized.
The eyes glow (Or all glow for that matter)on the other side was just added so he wouldn't look so dead, the reason the got so big was due to not having painted the eyes themselves, so with nothing but black around it was too small and looked weird XD
It helped, (AAC FTW! 
Good to hear, I'm trying to replicate the same surface/graphics as in the game
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Well, I'm glad I helped somewhat, but Sludgee really said everything I wanted to say in a much more articulate manner. xD -fails-
Ooh, well if you're trying to replicate the game graphics, I think you're doing a marvelous job so far! This definitely look alike the textures used in the game.
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