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ravenwing136 — Skyrim: Facing Alduin
Published: 2012-12-03 12:56:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 6695; Favourites: 191; Downloads: 107
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Description
Dedicated to my Eviltwin: ~darksong94May your Skyrim adventures continue beyond Sovngarde
DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE!
Time Taken: 20 hours
Tools Used: Photoshop CS4, tablet
So, over the past six months, I have been clocking Skyrim and wiping dragons off the map, in addition to doing just about every single quest and storyline I could find in the vanilla game. No surprise, this game is huge and ridiculously addictive
155 hours later and a level 81 character to show for it, not half bad 
Actually very bad, but I passed my exams anyway so clearly this is signal enough to start a new game 
Anyway, this drawing is just a little tribute to my favourites in Skyrim, namely Cicero, the battle with Alduin and the sky animations. Good heavens, the sky animations. I spent hours drooling over the moons in Oblivion and the auroras and Sovngarde were equally amazing. ...Hence this really ambitious drawing. I don't know when I started getting the urge to do more backgrounds but I'm thankful for the practice.
Even if the number of filters and blending options I stack are ridiculous 
Weirdly enough, I think I rendered Cicero best, and had to try and tone it down because he was making Alduin and my Dragonborn look awfully plain The background was both fun and frustrating, but I think I've managed to get most of the lighting. Hit several walls, first with Alduin, then Sovngarde, and then had to scrap the fireball in her left hand because I have no clue how to do fire. Oh well, that gives me something to do next time. And now that I have actually rendered decent skies, I'm just itching to do a Mass Effect painting... maybe after my second ME3 playthrough 
Back to the xBox for more inspiration! 
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Comments: 35
lolz I took that clown to Sovenguard with me.....Alduin literally grabbed him MID FLIGHT!
and dropped him off a Cliff somewhere! It was amazing! XD
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Want to know a funny story
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holy crap you did the main quest at level 12?!
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No I was on the mountain when I was fight Alduin 
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If only you could've battled Alduin alongside Cicero.
That would've been AMAZING!
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It would have! It would also have been very unfair for the dragons
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Now THAT is one awesome pic. I like how at first look its so dramatic, then you look at their faces and they're like "Weeee! Yahooo!" lol
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LOL Yep, basically that's my feeling when I play Skyrim: OMG The fate of the world rests on the Dragonborn? BUTTERFLIES!!!
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Thanks!
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haha don;t worry it doesn't go unnoticed! I like the glow on the front character too.
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Took me AAAAAGES to get around to commenting on this, so prepare yourself!
Firstly, I LOVE this. Definitely one of my favourite things you've done, if not my favourite.
I love the crazy perspective on your character, the hands and face are really well done. The colouring is also fantastic, the purples on the hair and the glowing sword thing (which looks like a bound version of a daedric sword)? LOVE. Especially the light the sword casts on her face. Cicero's colouring however, I think really stands out. As falarae said, the cloth folds are just amazing. You got a lot of depth and it looks silky want to stroke- WAIT NO CICERO DO NOT WANT. The detailing on his weapons (ebony, right?) is spectacular. The only thing is really the gold; it still doesn't quite look gold-y enough? Still a bit yellow/green. Metallics are hard, so I guess you'll just have to keep painting Cicero for practice. oh noes
The dragon is really well drawn and I love the way you did the eye. Maybe you were making it more in the background but it still looks a bit too flat and forward for it to work. Maybe make it darker? Although that could also be my monitor.
The background is STUNNING. AKJSGLKAGSHFAGDAHLAHFKDAHFADGLGDAHSGA SOVNGARDE ERMAGERRRRD THE PRETTY SKIES JUST AJSDFHAHFKJASGLAJKSF IT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE THE GAME. LIKE UM FLAWLESS LET ME WORSHIP. BLESSINGS OF DIBELLA UPON THEE OR WHOEVER.
For the way it looks altogether, you've really come a long way. It's really starting to gel as a single piece of art rather than a character sketch etc. the background and composition with the other characters is great. There are a few places where it doesn't quite blend, some of the edges are a bit too distinct (the dragon, your character's cloak - it looks a bit too much all in the foreground rather than streaming back). I do love though the little details - the lighting (cannot get over sword lighting), especially the little streaks across and the blurring of the background. Also the slight glow around your character; it looks a bit like a movement blur (how did you do that, btw?).
So yes. I LOVE THIS. IT IS FANTASTICALLY AWESOME AS WELL AS PRETTY.
And you deserved to win the race to 81 
Sorry for the massive block of text, hope it's (somewhat) coherent, makes sense and that there aren't too many brackets/italics/whatevers.
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OMFG Can I just say a gigantic THANK YOU for your AWESOME comment? 
First of all you are spot on for the Bound Sword
LOL The eye was a "oh god I just want to FINISH THIS" addition, so I've probably cut too big a corner
Mm, funny you should point the stand-outness of Alduin, I think you've spotted something I didn't: the lineart
About the glow, I think it was a combination of Drop Shadow in the layer Blending options but changing it to a light colour and using Screen or Overlay, as well as a bit of noise and Motion Blur. I'll check for you if you like, the original PSD should tell me 
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You're welcome! I'm happy to write you long, spammy comments XD
SWEEEEET I WISH I had a bound daedric sword. That'd be freakin' AWESOME. I THOUGHT it was the Nightingale armour (with that cloak!) but wasn't exactly sure; couldn't see enough. I swap between daedric, Nightingale and Ancient DB stuff depending on how sneaky/armoured I feel I need to be XD the Nightingale armour is soooo pretty though.
...imagine making that as a cosplay. *faints*
Yeah, I think the only major-ish thing was Alduin. So you'll have to keep doing Skyrim fanart to practice, right? RIGHT?
The little details really make it, so I'm glad you put them in. I dunno, but looking at Cicero's daggers and being able to tell they're ebony from the shape, colour AND markings is pretty spectacular. Same thing with the bound sword.
ERMAHERD I haven't touched my tablet in ages. I haven't digital painted in forever either. I think I'll stick to the occasional thing for cards and leave you to it XD but that's interesting, I never really used drop shadow (GAUSSIAN BLUR EVERYTHING). Screen is such a lovely setting. And multiply is so useful. Yeah, I think I can see the noise on the background as well? Nice texture; it actually looks a bit painting-y.
To me?
ASLKFAGAYDASDFLAHKSFHADFASD <3 we neeeeed to have a gaming date or something XD I finished Portal today and the turrets are SUPER CUTE. And fyi, GLADoS sounds EXTRA evil in French.
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I HAVE seen someone's amazing cosplay of the Nightingale armour and freaking hell it is amazing. So impressed 
Thank you for noticing the details MAKES THE EXTRA 10 HOURS SO WORTH IT
Oddly enough the tips I've picked up online and in art books, they say never use blur or feather in shading, you need to blend them with a hard edged brush but yes tweaking all the blending layers is great ^^
IT'S ALL FOR YOU EVILTWIN YOU WILL BE IN MY DRAGONBORN'S HEART FOREVER~~~ You know what, they have Mass Effect in French. IN FRENCH. 
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...wow. Cicero's cloth folds, person in front's expression, the glowing sword thing 
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Thanks!
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You're welcome ^_^ haha, your artwork always impresses me, but I was really blown away by this one, it looks totally pro
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Still not watching Kuroko no Baske... So sorry
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I really love No. 6
(LOL, imagining if Mass Effect really got to the 3333rd installment XDDDD)
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Well, I wouldn't say you were bad, because pretty much every thing you've told me to watch that I have watched, my reaction was probably more fangirly than yours
(PLEASE LET THERE BE MORE MASS EFFECT GAMES. I'm just blowing all my income on ME comics right now. and turns out, I didn't hate the combat in ME1 as much as I hated the MUSIC. UGH. Turned it down and booyah - new Shepard, rolling as an Engineer.
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Thank you!
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Thanks so much for the compliment!
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