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silverelfshadows — Child of Odin
Published: 2010-06-07 05:12:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 1543; Favourites: 23; Downloads: 17
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Description
So this originally began as a portrait of Svanka, a Valkyrie that is a character in a novel I've been kicking around in my head for a while.The original concept was of her seated in the snow praying to Odin the All Father before going to collect the souls of the chosen dead (the Einherjar) on the battlefield.
Well, throw in Amon Amarth blasting in my ears and my absolutely insane use of a snow brush, and this is what we get.
I have to say that this is probably the best cropping job I've done yet, as well as the best painted hair. Going from blonde to black was harder than I thought it would be.
I know this piece isn't all that great but I think it does show a bit how I am learning lighting and blending techniques much better.
Model: [link]
Background: [link]
Hair: [link]
Snow: [link]
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Comments: 9
i think this is really pretty, but her skin needs to be a little more like porcelain colored maybe. and maybe some small snow flakes in her hair, like she's been sitting there a while. just an idea
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I love this~ Very beautiful! The trees are amazing!
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Overall, I'd say it is a very nice piece and concept. The lighting is a little off, but, I suppose that is to be expected with the lens flare. I'm not sure if it's intentional or not. A little tip: for lighting and shading, try painting over the image where you want to increase the light with white or black and then using gaussian blur and changing the layer mode. I personally use overlay and soft light alot in order to make it blend a little better without losing all of the effect and then decrease the opacity. Also, a shadow at the bottom of her skirt would really make it seem a little more realistic in the sense that at the moment she looks like she is hovering above the snow rather than sitting in it. You could even clone a little of the snow to go over her dress. I really don't mean to be overly critical, I'm just trying to help out a little cause I noticed you asked for a critique, but, since I don't have a premium account I'm not allowed. 
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Thank you very much for the help, actually. I'm still fairly new at photomanip, and this particular piece I did about a week or so ago. If you look through my gallery you can see my shadows improving over time. Shadows in the snow do seem to be my biggest problem though, I'll have to try the gaussian blur trick, I had tried just darkening/lightening with a brush and the opacity set low but it didnt quite do what I wanted, maybe the gaussian blur will help
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lol. It was a lot of layers for the hair brushes along with hair I painted in myself, and then extra layers for the glow/lighting/snow and the lens flare. It was the guy in my ears screaming Odin's name that helped me, I swear
The hair was the hardest part really because she had such short blonde hair in the stock. I probably did 10-15 separate layers of hair all different opacity and shades of brown and black.
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Sheee-it. I don't think I have the patience for photo-manips.... plus I don't have a photoshop that works T^T
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I am very new to the concept of photo mannip I very much like your concept here the trees very naturally lead to where eyes needs to go. I imagine though the hardest part of photo manip is getting the sizing and the shading from many different sources to look natural. For me though I think I rather see the pic with out the snow flakes. and mapie instead of just putting a few that have light and darkness to them and then painting some snow a little lighter on the preexisting snow make it look fresh fallen. Hope that help please keep working would love to see more
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Yes it does 
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