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kiwidoc — Dragon-Kin_by_kiwidoc
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Published: 2009-04-23 00:04:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 1113; Favourites: 15; Downloads: 24
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Description
Updated April 24th following some excellent advice from the wonderful Questiun [link]I loved the suit of armour I used for my Witchazel image [link] so much I wanted to use it again. The gargoyle motifs looked like small dragons to me, which inspired me to make the model into a Dragon Kin – a half human, half dragon prince. As well as the obvious changes I’ve opened his eyes a little more, in order to show the alterations to the iris and pupil of each eye.
I used a shot of a small, stylized dragon wall-hanging sculpture to make the crown. There is a before & after detail shot to give a clear idea of the changes I’ve made (link below).
The skin textures, spines and horns are also taken from dragons – bearded dragon lizards to be precise. The horns began life as talons.
This was a very, very complex image to make and took several evenings to make, but I had huge fun. Thanks again to all the DA people who provide such great stock.
DETAIL PICS
* Head close up [link]
* Dragon crown before-&-after [link]
SOURCE IMAGES
*Figure & Background A Linzstock shot of Thomas in the truly awe inspiring Gargoyle Armour - [link]
*Scales, spines and horns From various shots taken by Bearded-Dragon-Freak of his lizards - [link]
*Sculpture base for the crown - A dragon wall … thing from ~Deaths-stock - [link]
*Base for the eyes Melstock’s neat close up of a black cats eyes - [link]
Related content
Comments: 7
Sorry to take so long to reply - I've been away for a couple of years, and I'm slowly getting through all my messages. Many thanks for the comment
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Sorry about this, but I don't find your picture has too much stock to qualify for my forum critique.
I will give you my personal opinion, but I won't make the same exception that your other pic got.
When comparing the before (stock) and after, the only changes I could see were to the face and hair. I can see the addition of facial scales/spikes, an opening of eyes, an addition of horns, and an addition of a crown, a slight wave to a few locks of hair and an overall lighting change (slight).
I can tell a lot of work into this, but it wasn't enough to make it an individual piece in my mind. It is a great photo manipulation, but there was a lot of stock that I can see.
The scales on the face look cool, but rather drawn on. The scales didn't pick up his skin color, they just added a sallow over the top. If you had taken the scales and made it a brush, then used his flesh as the foreground color, you could have made more believable scales. Same idea with the spikes, but you'd have to put a special code in to have the spike direction turn with the brush, or you would have to manually rotate the brush at every turn.
The eye-opening process is a classic for photographers that do shoots for beauty/fashion magazines. It's a real quick process if you know how.
The horns don't mesh well, one is facing inwards, one is facing backwards. They are also obviously talons-they look like either the dew-claw, or the outer toe of the lizard. The colors and the focus make it look completely separate. Also, the light source is different than that of the body. Dead giveaway right there! >_<
The crown is possibly the most impressive feat here, I looks pretty good, and you fitted it tightly to the head, although it looks like it's strapped on too tight (flesh on the forehead is really thin, so for it to bulge means that's one tight crown!).
So overall I think you have great talent, and I should have specified that heavy use of stock = collaboration. You are the third (fourth?) person I've had to apologize to for this same mistake on my part.
I hope the comment alone was enough, I'm sorry.
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woah awesome work. at first i thought this was a photo taken of a costume.great work.
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Thanks muchly. I'm not really into the sparkly, misty kind of fantasy art - other people do it much better than I can - so I try to make things seem as real as I can get them.
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