D&D Female Mage

This was done about a week after Dante (give or take a few days), and it should be apparent since it suffers from many of the same issues. As with Dante, the D&D Mage was drawn from my imagination, and I actually had a particular face in mind when I put the pencil to the paper. However it never really developed as I had hoped.

I knew the pose I wanted, how much of her I wanted visible, and what I wanted cropped. Drawing the human form when most of the body is out of frame, however, can be tricky. Especially when an extremity (the hand) is in frame while most of the limb is not—where exactly is the hand supposed to be? Where does the arm go? As you can see from this render, getting it about right isn’t good enough. Drawing from a real life still certainly makes the process easier; however, illustrating purely from the imagination requires an intimate understanding of anatomy to figure this stuff out.

I should have done a rough sketch showing more of her so I could visually work out the details of the pose and, based on that, do the more abstract final. But I didn’t because I’m retarded. Now the final result looks like she was squeezed into the frame, and her hand isn’t quite in the right position.

And again on the face the lighting and the accompanying shadows just look so freakin’ generic to me. Like I’m a graduate of Generic Shading 101 or something. Worse yet: it’s juxtaposed to the good shading on the hair, on the hand, and on the rose. It’s like I spent all my patience on drawing a good border, hoping no one would look any closer. Go figure.

I wish I could have figured out something better to do with the magic sparkles too ...

Seven Years Later: D&D Female Mage, Take Two