Beach Tina

"Beach Tina" is me trying to avoid another "Someone on/in the something" that I keep using as my titles. If you've been following the progress of this pic's lineart, you'll know how much those arms have been tormenting my soul, trying to get them right. Even if they're still no good, I like to think I've made up for it with a pretty good pic here, in all other regards. Tina's from the Dead or Alive games (Xtreme Beach Volleyball, in this case), and she was drawn entirely in Photoshop 7 using a graphics tablet, don'tchaknow. My first pic of her in many years.

No, I'm still NOT completely happy with the arms, but I really didn't know what else to do with them, or how I could have made them look better. When I submitted the lineart ( [link] ) I got alot of concerns about her thick wrists and "man hands" (...Seinfeld reference..), and they were relatively easy to fix, but I myself (and a few other people) weren't happy with the arms, so I tried ump-teen different positions for them to be in until, fed up with my inability to get them right, finally settled on this and got on with colouring. They were supposed to convey a bit more motion, which I think they do, but I dunno.. there's still something wrong. It's as if the upper arms are too close to her, and need to stretch out away from her a bit. She's in an extremely awkward position for me to try and correct her though, as I want to keep the left hand reaching toward us on the sand, and I don't know how to get the right arm to bend in a better position, sort of. Hard to explain. Maybe I'm making a fuss over nothing and it's not that bad, but, well, I tried and it's too late to do anything about it now, so I'll have to live with it. Let me know what you think about them.

With that out the way, fortunately, I'm very pleased with most other things. Throughout this whole ordeal, that face has been one of the best I've produced. I had a little help getting the lips right, but it was well worth it, cos they look awesome. Kez thinks the eyes make her look as if she's looking in the wrong place (not towards us) but I dunno, they look about right to me. Hair isn't bad, but it's not as soft as it could be, though I am pleased with that lighting on the skin. The sand looks alright, but it was pretty hard to get it that way, as I'm unacustommed to CG'ing it. Would have liked more shadows on it, below Tina's body, but attempts at that weren't that successful. That's one of the most indepth backgrounds I've gone into, and even though I usually get really lazy by then, as it's the last big element of the pic that I do, it's well worth putting effort into it, as it can make quite a difference. Remember that kids; simple patterns or solid blocks of colour aren't always the answer! I'm particularly pleased with my palm trees and sea gulls, last minute additions, oh and those clouds are from a real photo I took a while ago. I take cloud pictures whenever they look clear and pretty, for use in pics like this.

By far the hardest drawing I've had to do in a long time, but it was worth it. Believe it or not, the colouring only took about 4 or 5 days, as I only started on Wednesday. Please leave your thoughts!