• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 05:37
CEST 11:37
KST 18:37
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash8[ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt1: New Chaos0Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy13ByuL: The Forgotten Master of ZvT30Behind the Blue - Team Liquid History Book20
Community News
Weekly Cups (March 23-29): herO takes triple6Aligulac acquired by REPLAYMAN.com/Stego Research6Weekly Cups (March 16-22): herO doubles, Cure surprises3Blizzard Classic Cup @ BlizzCon 2026 - $100k prize pool49Weekly Cups (March 9-15): herO, Clem, ByuN win4
StarCraft 2
General
Weekly Cups (March 23-29): herO takes triple Aligulac acquired by REPLAYMAN.com/Stego Research Team Liquid Map Contest #22 - Presented by Monster Energy What mix of new & old maps do you want in the next ladder pool? (SC2) herO wins SC2 All-Star Invitational
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament RSL Season 4 announced for March-April StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) WardiTV Mondays World University TeamLeague (500$+) | Signups Open
Strategy
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Frigid Storage Publishing has been re-enabled! [Feb 24th 2026]
External Content
Mutation # 519 Inner Power The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 518 Radiation Zone Mutation # 517 Distant Threat
Brood War
General
Pros React To: SoulKey vs Ample BW General Discussion Build Order Practice Maps [ASL21] Ro24 Preview Pt2: News Flash BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
[ASL21] Ro24 Group F [ASL21] Ro24 Group E 🌍 Weekly Foreign Showmatches [ASL21] Ro24 Group B
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates What's the deal with APM & what's its true value Simple Questions, Simple Answers
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Starcraft Tabletop Miniature Game Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Darkest Dungeon
Dota 2
The Story of Wings Gaming Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
G2 just beat GenG in First stand
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas TL Mafia Community Thread Five o'clock TL Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine The Games Industry And ATVI European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece [Req][Books] Good Fantasy/SciFi books Movie Discussion!
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion Cricket [SPORT] Tokyo Olympics 2021 Thread General nutrition recommendations
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
[G] How to Block Livestream Ads
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Money Laundering In Video Ga…
TrAiDoS
Iranian anarchists: organize…
XenOsky
FS++
Kraekkling
Shocked by a laser…
Spydermine0240
ASL S21 English Commentary…
namkraft
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 11934 users

D2 Portrait Drafting

Blogs > Raihn
Post a Reply
Raihn
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States216 Posts
November 17 2017 08:34 GMT
#1


[image loading]
[image loading] [image loading]

This is an image I rendered in order to place on my PSN profile. I wish I could make it my avatar for PSN as well as Bungie.net, but alas the fates have not willed it. I feel the image is incomplete, but I’ll need to execute the draft and give it some time to watch and learn to decide how best to proceed

I tried to implement some feedback from the SC Portrait Fail discussion, I'm interested to listen to feedback for this. I dont consider it done, but I am giving it a day or two before I go back for another round.



*****
GraphicsRaihnForge.com - Let me know if you need something!
Coagulation
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States9633 Posts
November 17 2017 12:00 GMT
#2
Man thats a nice custom avatar.

I wish TL had custom avatars.
lestye
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States4206 Posts
November 17 2017 17:46 GMT
#3
Looks cool. Although strangely enough the first thing I thought of was the character featured prominently throughout Anthem's trailer and promotional material.
"You guys are just edgelords. Embrace your inner weeb desu" -Zergneedsfood
ByuuN
Profile Joined November 2016
Poland678 Posts
November 18 2017 13:59 GMT
#4
Great.
Glider
Profile Blog Joined December 2005
United States1353 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-19 05:03:53
November 18 2017 16:24 GMT
#5
cool design. I played around with it a bit. hope it helps.
Two biggest areas to tweak is lighting (various values at areas) and form.
The lighting effect I played with a bit, if i had more time I can play around with texture but it isn't a priority for a small avatar.
[image loading]

Raihn
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States216 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-19 08:33:37
November 19 2017 08:22 GMT
#6
Thank you for everyone's feedback <3 you all!

Glider, Thanks!! I made these changes today before I saw your post! Yours is still better. I'm so out of practice with illustration, Great feedback, thank you! Let me know what you think of my update below. I think I'll try another round on it tomorrow to incorporate what you've laid out. I need to be more diligent about thumbnailing and reasoning out my values and light sources before I dig too far in. I didn't realize on the onset that I wanted to have the glow so prominent, and originally liked the idea of a sort of happy forest in the background. In essence, I think the story I was trying to tell was conflicted, so drawing two different 'moods' at the same time. Very bad practice. TY TY TY!

PS So funny how we added a lot of the same details. More texture, same chip placement, many of the same fixes, but mine isn't as well thought out and executed.


[image loading]
GraphicsRaihnForge.com - Let me know if you need something!
Glider
Profile Blog Joined December 2005
United States1353 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-19 16:15:54
November 19 2017 15:57 GMT
#7
On November 19 2017 17:22 Raihn wrote:
Thank you for everyone's feedback <3 you all!

Glider, Thanks!! I made these changes today before I saw your post! Yours is still better. I'm so out of practice with illustration, Great feedback, thank you! Let me know what you think of my update below. I think I'll try another round on it tomorrow to incorporate what you've laid out. I need to be more diligent about thumbnailing and reasoning out my values and light sources before I dig too far in. I didn't realize on the onset that I wanted to have the glow so prominent, and originally liked the idea of a sort of happy forest in the background. In essence, I think the story I was trying to tell was conflicted, so drawing two different 'moods' at the same time. Very bad practice. TY TY TY!

PS So funny how we added a lot of the same details. More texture, same chip placement, many of the same fixes, but mine isn't as well thought out and executed.


[image loading]


Better! and strictly speaking from avatar design's goal it's not necessary make things quite as realistic or dark in some parts as I have. Yours is more bright, which when u shrink it could be closer to what you are looking for. feel free to test it out with mine and such. The reason I made parts in my version (esp bot) darker, both the figure + the environment is to add contrast and kinda fix this conflict you created with the super black neck line. You see the problem is if he is outside then there would be plenty of rebound and environmental light causing things to be more lit up, even if he isn't facing the sun, like you latest iteration. But if that is the case why is his neck pitch black all the way through like a void. If it is black fabric / paint there should still be some subtle reflection/ a gradient. So the only way the uniform pitch black neck can make sense is if it's near sunset/rise where light is not as scattered and rebound light is not as uniform from all directions and as strong, and your character blocks most of it. (so technically I could make the sun lower and over all background darker as well in my drawing)

Another thing i want to point out is that, look at the red lines i have drawn on my critique, see how it looks like his head is not a round helmet but has this weird concave all the way through the center of the head on one side. You probably want to make it so the shape conforms to the blue line. Unless you specifically wanted his head to have this shape.

yeah always look at the big form and shapes and shades first, get those values right then add details to your heart's content. If you do it detail first, it is much more of a pain in the ass and generally not practiced by 99.99% of illustration professionals. (not saying I am one, but I know a couple and seen enough work to come to that conclusion). Generally you start from rough guideline/line drawing/pencil sketch (w/e u need to get the initial shape and form, detail ideas like you have. Then when it actually comes to painting u go general first, then u add in the details. In this case head wise you would start with a giant egg like thing, shade it right, then go in with the details.
Raihn
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States216 Posts
November 20 2017 10:14 GMT
#8
Thanks again for all the guidance, Glider, I really appreciate it!
GraphicsRaihnForge.com - Let me know if you need something!
Powerpill
Profile Blog Joined October 2002
United States1693 Posts
November 20 2017 10:33 GMT
#9
Oh, I was expecting a picture of a pee-wee hockey team. The robot looks nice too though. ^_^
The pretty things are going to hell, they wore it out but they wore it well
FFGenerations
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
7088 Posts
November 21 2017 20:56 GMT
#10
good job guys love this
Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8 ~~~~~ ᕤ OYSTERS ᕤ CLAMS ᕤ AND ᕤ CUCKOLDS ᕤ ~~~~~~ ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ PUNCH HIM ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2682 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-22 17:52:18
November 22 2017 03:35 GMT
#11
First off - Love it when people share their progress as an artist, especially when the results are good and always getting better. You're awesome, thanks for sharing!

Now for, as requested, some crits :

One thing I noticed you've left behind in your pencil sketch is the willingness to use silhouette to define or reinforce form. I'm stuck on my crappy laptop with cs3 and a touchpad, but I still managed to scrape together an edit to overdramatically show what I'm talking about. I definitely don't think all my choices were good ones, but it does help show how you have a ton of landscape to add shape/depth to the portrait without much of any effort.

[image loading]

I would also be careful of having the earpiece be a dominant focal point without having a clear idea of what to do with it. Right now, it's a wobbly shape at best - which is to say it isn't a clean and perfect shape as you would expect on an exo, nor does it look like it performs some specific function or anything.

I wish I had better tools to test/execute my ideas, and I salute you for your excellent overall design and execution. Thanks for sharing, and again, you're awesome <3
FFGenerations
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
7088 Posts
November 22 2017 09:35 GMT
#12
image says please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting ^
Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8 ~~~~~ ᕤ OYSTERS ᕤ CLAMS ᕤ AND ᕤ CUCKOLDS ᕤ ~~~~~~ ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ PUNCH HIM ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ
Glider
Profile Blog Joined December 2005
United States1353 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-27 02:58:51
November 22 2017 16:12 GMT
#13
On November 20 2017 19:14 Raihn wrote:
Thanks again for all the guidance, Glider, I really appreciate it!


ya and i really only point out the parts that i think you could consider change or modify if it makes sense to you. Art is subjective so everything I mentioned is just my suggestion from my limited experience. There is plenty of good / right thing you did, but I feel it's a waste of time to give you pad on the back and encouragement for those at this stage. You want max efficiency toward improvement I'm sure.
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2682 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-11-22 17:52:36
November 22 2017 17:46 GMT
#14
On November 22 2017 18:35 FFGenerations wrote:
image says please update your account to enable 3rd party hosting ^


This is what I get for forgetting my passwords :D

on it.

-e- I fix!
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
09:00
KungFu Cup 2026 Week 2
CranKy Ducklings48
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
ProTech127
SortOf 92
StarCraft: Brood War
firebathero 1594
Bisu 1014
Tasteless 329
actioN 241
Soma 194
Dewaltoss 129
Flash 125
Hyuk 110
Sharp 89
EffOrt 88
[ Show more ]
Killer 54
ToSsGirL 50
Rush 47
ggaemo 47
Stork 40
Shine 34
sSak 32
Shinee 27
Hm[arnc] 26
soO 22
Noble 16
yabsab 10
Sacsri 10
Terrorterran 10
PianO 0
Dota 2
XaKoH 518
XcaliburYe352
canceldota176
League of Legends
Reynor24
Counter-Strike
olofmeister1810
shoxiejesuss692
byalli537
Other Games
ceh9648
Happy218
Sick185
crisheroes154
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick619
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• LUISG 30
• CranKy Ducklings SOOP2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• iopq 2
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Jankos1107
Upcoming Events
Afreeca Starleague
23m
BeSt vs Leta
Queen vs Jaedong
Kung Fu Cup
1h 23m
Replay Cast
14h 23m
The PondCast
1d
OSC
1d 14h
RSL Revival
2 days
TriGGeR vs Cure
ByuN vs Rogue
Replay Cast
2 days
RSL Revival
3 days
Maru vs MaxPax
BSL
3 days
RSL Revival
3 days
[ Show More ]
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
4 days
BSL
4 days
Replay Cast
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

CSL Season 20: Qualifier 1
WardiTV Winter 2026
NationLESS Cup

Ongoing

BSL Season 22
CSL Elite League 2026
ASL Season 21
CSL Season 20: Qualifier 2
RSL Revival: Season 4
Nations Cup 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League S23 Finals
ESL Pro League S23 Stage 1&2
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S2: W1
CSL 2026 SPRING (S20)
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
BSL 22 Non-Korean Championship
CSLAN 4
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
StarCraft2 Community Team League 2026 Spring
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026
CCT Season 3 Global Finals
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.