Padawans request

CUTE!

Well... I have to say.. the dress is definately small.. but it fits with the rules.. don't show more than Leia while in the slave outfit... Looks good...

Its' looking great and taking shape! I can not wait to see the finished product. Keep up the good work.

What do I think? She's a hottie. :D

Mercy, I am eagerly awaiting your completed piece. I especially liked the way you did the background on your Anime Fargul piece. I was wondering if you could do something similar with a Dantoonie background. If you can not, do not have any worries about it. Just having you take my request and Ghost ITH taking my other request has had me sitting on cloud nine ever since :-)

Mercy, you are an angel of art in my book. It is really coming along now that I am seeing it in color :)

If I might make an observation - the hilts on the lightsabers look a little on the short side. Maybe lengthen them just a bit, otherwise it looks great :)

Also, can I get your permission to add the pic to the cover of my short story about the characters.

Mercy,

I hate to be the person always raining on your parade. Your images are beautiful, but your "martial" stances need a bit of work. I don't expect you to go changing them or anything, but I'm going to toss out a few tidbits for reference, and as a frame of reference, my personal experience with martial arts is mostly unarmed, but the basics seem to carry through from one art form to the next.

The basic (forward) stance:

The basic martial arts forward stance is all about legs. The feet should always be shoulder width apart... in fact, if you were to imagine a line connecting the shoulders, use that line on the ground 4 times to create a box on the ground that is equilateral. The character's feet should be on 2 opposing corners of that box. The front leg should be bent with the back leg roughly straight and the hips directly over the center point of our imaginary box on the floor. If you get the angle of the bend on the front leg correct, this will have the happy affect of forcing your lower body to always be proportionate. Also, the front leg's shin area should be perpendicular to the ground, so the thigh is the only thing angled toward the hip area... I hope that makes sense.

Your male character's legs are REALLY close to being a proper stance. His forward leg just needs to move toward the viewer a little bit. It's also noteworthy that in the forward stance, the more "forward" the back foot can face, the more desirable it is. The objective is to have the feet parallel. Most practitioners find this difficult to achieve, so an outward angle on the foot is acceptable. But I'm just throwing out "optimum".

In an actual situation, this stance will get used a LOT. If a character is moving, it should always be his objective to keep the proportions I've outlined here (if he's wanting forward stances). Also, it's of note that two forward stanced character can easily stand back to back. The Zabrak in this pic is pretty close to what we'd call a "Cat Stance".

The "Cat" Stance:

The Cat Stance is primarily used for quick "counter-attacks" and retreat. In a cat stance the hips are directly over one leg (the back leg). The "back" leg is your foundation. It is bent at about a 45 degree angle (ish), and the foot of the back leg is flat on the ground, and pointed in the same direction as your hips. The "front" leg is pointed out perpendicular to the back leg with ball of the foot on the ground, and the leg bent comfortably. Again remember that the entirety of the weight of the body is on the back leg. This allows for quick kicks on an approaching opponent, or allows the front leg to push backwards for a quick retreat.

The basic Horse stance:

The last basic stance is the "horse" stance. This one is the easiest to describe. Feet parallel, 1.5-2 shoulder widths apart, directly out on either side of the body. Leg bent appropriately, although at its widest, a horse stance can actually have the thighs perpendicular to the ground.

I toss this stuff out not as a criticism (because your work rocks) but just as a reference for the future if you find it useful. If you'd like some images to accompany the descriptions, PM me and I'll get them to you in the next day or two.

Hope that's helpful.

Eclipse

Thank you Mercy, but other than a few close friends reading the short story I'm writting. It will not be posted on any website or published. Personal use only. But you will get the credit for the picture, you created and made it happen. I do like the background picture you have posted. It looks like Dantoonie to me. Keep up the good work :)

Mercy,

Great! I'm glad you don't take my comments badly. I try to not come off that way. I LOVE the background work you've got going on.

No, unfortunately I've never had a character draw itself, but that's cause I suck at characters. :-) I can't wait to see the finished product on this one.

Eclipse

Eerin Lumna's (Zabrak female)lightsaber blade looks like it needs to be just a bit longer in length. Lightsaber bladers are generally 3m in length. Looking great :-)

Crumb, Lightsaber blades are only one meter in length, not three. Three meters would be over nine feet. A great saber is three meters. I think you mean three feet (just under a meter), but yes, those blades are a bit on the short side.

Thanks Tramp, My GOOF. I got 1 meter mixed with the 3.28 feet conversion. Yes, a lightsaber blade is only 1 meter (metre) long. Next time I'll make sure my central processor is within normal operationg parameters. :-)

The blades are still a little short. Take a look at some of my Jedi pics. They will give you a good idea of the proper length. The length of the lightsaber blade should be about from the ground to your waist with the handle adding another 24-30 centemeters to that. Thus, the weapon, over-all, is about 4 feet (1.3 meters) from tip to pommel.

I'm totally blown away! This is great and I love the shading. You may hate me for this, but could you bring the colored background just to the other side of Liam. :-)

Can you flip it back the way you had it cause that looked better. What I was trying to said was enlarge the color box behind them to include a portion of the house next to Liam. Thank you :-)

Not bad, but the lightsabers still need work. Given their current position in the layout, the blade of the girl's should be running off the edge of the page, or pretty close to it As I said, if held vertically, downward,the blade alone should be able to reach the ground from waist height. the blades you made barely reach past her knee from ground level. Measure the entire length of her leg from the sole of her foot to her waist. That is the length her lightsaber blade should be. The hilts should also be twice as long as they currently are. A standard lightsaber can be held in two hands with room to spare. Thus, you need to double the legth of the grips on both sabers.

I think your doing a jolly good job mate. I can't wait to see it. I hope you mind the humor. :-)

Well, if I were you, I'd have the boy's blade extending from the opposite end it currently is, so that it faces upwards. As for the girl's If you shift them over a little closer to the tree, you could add a bit more length to her blade. Failing that, resize them compared to the background so they're a little smaller. I often do that when I make a background in order to fit the character into his or her surroundings better. The simplest option would be to simply widen your canvas a bit.

Mercy,

OK, tossing out some more martial thoughts that might fix your problem here.

1.) Her had is angled in such a way as to be uncomfortable in comparison with the arm. I didn't take issue with this earlier cause there was really no point. However, if you were to bring her hand back in line (some) with the rest of the arm, then you could essentially keep the blade tip at the same horizontal position on your canvas, and just change its vertical position.

2.) I totally agree with Tramp, I think the male's blade should be coming out of the other end.

For reference, (and I didn't read the request so, if it was specified sorry) fighting with a blade backwards like that is rather uncommon for regular sized weapons. A knife blade or a little longer would be the ideal weapon for that hand hold as the entire point is to cover the forearm as a block. A regular weapon used that way would be uncommon at best... Anyway, just my 2 cents. Choose to do with it what you will.
:-)

Eclipse

I'll leave it up to the experts in the art department on the final details of the picture. It does look good in my opinon. I can't draw worth crap compared to the artist on this site. Mercy has no more demands from me.

Eerin's hilt looks fine to me and like the swirl. She is the best drawn Zabrak female I've seen on this site. I know I said no more demands from me but Liam's guards on the hilt need to shorted just a bit. :-)

Mercy,

Don't take it too much one way or another. I mean the whole point of art is art... not "accuracy". I spend a lot of time saying what would or wouldn't be accurate, but you know... if you spend the time to make every piece you do accurate, then you'll end up like me... I've been working on the same damn thing for 4+ years now. I like it, it looks sweet, but you've done more art in the short time you've been here than I have in my entire stay. Don't sweat it too much. Make some hilts you like and move on.

Eclipse

I agree with Eclipse. Do it your way.

The huge flanges on the boy's hilt are a bit much. I'd lose'em. Same with the spirals and wierd "bird neck" shape on the girl's pommel. They wouldn't survive their first battle anywaywithout being sliced off.

I have been watching Torchwood on BBC American and currently watching Battlestar Galactica on Sci-Fi channel. My normal saturday format. It is 12:38 CST in Northeast Mississippi.

I regularly don't go to bed until 3-5 in the morning.

The Wife's birthday is rather soon, and so I found her b-day present for super cheap on friday, so I bought it for her early. Anyway, we've been up catching up on Avatar (The Last Airbender, which is totally awesome) and breaking into her gift (which was the first 2 seasons of Bones). Plus I'm on CST too, and it's just now 1:00am, which is not an uncommon bed-time for me on any day, much less a Saturday night.

Eclipse

No more of a geek then the rest of us. Be at peace, passive, calm and let the force flow through your brush. :-)

Impressive, most impressive. Thanks for taking my request. :-)

I am already thinking of a new request, but I am going to wait a little while before putting in the request.