Skins and Accents

@Kent Hey Kent, your accents are pretty amazing. I'll try and give you input on the armor accent. Before I do I'll show you the armor themed accent I did, for reference and so you know what level I'm at in terms of advice for this sort of thing too. This is the first time I've made one myself so I may not be the best with advice. [img]http://orig03.deviantart.net/28e5/f/2015/199/6/e/tempest_security_2_by_missymona-d90tcqc.png[/img] So the most important thing with armor that I've learned so far is consistency. The fish scale style of the armor is really cool, but I don't think I'm exactly feeling the stomach and middle area. I feel as though the stomach area would of suited for the back part of the dragon. Rather the area between the wings and the spine, the really cool black and gold design I think would suit the underbelly more. Although that's just my opinion. People really love armor themed accents so I do think it's worth continuing on if you can recreate your passion. But if not I'd suggest giving it another go with a brand new design, the way you draw metal is rather striking and uniquely you and would fetch a nice price if you decided to continue. @TJayTRex Your skin will most certainly be rejected, the shadows need to be visible but not pure black. My biggest advice would also be to try your luck at highlighting different areas as well, the reason the wings look so much cooler is because you get that nice little steak of lighter blue. @Alchemist Unfortunately there really isn't any real way to make something transparent, although your accent is gorgeous! The only thing you can do is make the shading int he white areas lighter as well as the lineart in the white areas to create the illusion of transparency.

@Monako thank you for taking a look! haha I agree with everything you said, and hearing someone else say it helped it crystallize for me. I ended up polishing the accent up and releasing it because I spent too long on it to just bin it, but I definitely agree that my next design needs to be more consistent, and I'm working on that now. at least I learned a lot!

Hello yes I am trying to get started making skins/accents ;A; (dunno why I'm starting now, I can't even afford one blueprint...) Here's what I'd like to start with, a series of "Prismatic Explosion" dragons ouo [img]https://41.media.tumblr.com/9b6039d27f951b87fe347b87504d7b96/tumblr_nsmr41ui3k1rzy3nko1_400.png[/img] [img]https://41.media.tumblr.com/39b928a5a1986baaebf3e977b362c5b4/tumblr_inline_nsn4tvbyBW1rs3lr5_540.png[/img] [s]I tried just straight up posting a thread asking for interest on these, but it seems to be impossible to get noticed on these forums unless you're already established... :/ [/s]

@TJayTRex This looks a lot better, I didn't know those were eyes. They actually reminded me a bit of a sea creature though.

@chiyukiakasuna It's not impossible to get noticed, it just requires a bit of work. Coming from experience, It can be disheartening but you have to keep at it. So the design itself is sort of neat, however there's a few things you have to think of. Most importantly is making sure your accents are profitable. Considering how much cover area each accent takes it's unlikely you'll make a profit easily. It's not that it's impossible to make a profit off of an accent that takes more then 30 percent. But it's riskier and you either need to be doing something unique or something very good for people to purchase it. Plus you can make more off normal accents and charge less from your customers which is a win win. As for input for your accent I'm going to be honest with you, there needs to be a bit more improvement. The freckles,stars and cheetah stripes on the tail is all very neat and would probably make a pretty penny if properly executed. However the Prismatic Explosion while a neat idea in theory requires a bit more effort put into it to make it look better. The problem is that your accent is flat, you aren't adding highlights or shading to anything and for that reason there isn't a lot of depth. When starting accents learning how to properly add shading even though there already [i]is[/i] shading on the dragon is one step to also improving and making something of higher quality. Something I myself actually struggled with quite a bit. This wouldn't be as bad if you made sure only to add small areas of light or bright colors. But because everything is so bright it's kind of a sensory overload. The brightness and the way it contrasts with itself from dark to light colors makes it a bit harder to look at. So my suggestion would be using the same shade of color on everything. As in...go for dark blue, dark purple, orange, and crimson. Highlight areas of light in lighter blue, lighter purple or pink, yellow and bright red to pink or white. Pesticide made a pretty good example of how you can shade light rainbow colors in one of their accents. [img]http://i.imgur.com/xNoiEkf.png[/img] http://i.imgur.com/xNoiEkf.png You see how in areas that are really bright there is still contrast between different shades of the same color? Highlights on the left side with a shadow also on the same side but not as dark to give a sort of shine effect. With red's going to oranges. That's kind of what I mean, what you're doing isn't bad but it needs more depth. Furthermore I'm confused as to why the wings on the female imp has such a different pattern and color, I don't know if it really suits the aura you're going for. All in all you have a lot of potiental to make something pretty awesome and for your first accent it's not a bad go at all. That's basically my personal opinion on your accents and doesn't necessarily mean it'll effect the way others feel about it.

@Monako

Thank you so much! I very rarely get feedback so it's nice to see a nice, thorough deconstruction. <3
The design is roughly based on a "don't" colouring example from an art book - one of those things like "don't put every colour and pattern" and I followed the example rather closely. It had stars on the butt, so I put stars on the butt; the diagonals on the wings, so I put diagonals on the wings, etc. It's kind of supposed to be "sensory overload", though I do want it to look good (in context).
I definitely see what you mean about it being flat. I can work on that, I guess as a newbie I'm scared to edit/add shadows or highlights for fear it'll get rejected for not being "in style". Would you mind if I ping you when I fix up the skins? I'll definitely work on getting it to look like it fits and not flat. Thanks again!

@chiyukiakasuna No problem! That makes sense, feel free to ping me any time if you want input on anything you do in the future.

@Labcoat I'm not sure if this falls into any categories for guides but I made a quick tutorial on an accent I was working on a couple of months ago, maybe it could be useful to someone. There's a part 1 and 2, that's the first with the link to second in it. :>

Hey all, sorry for hiatus-ing there. I'll be going through the thread to add anything I can to the OP. Thank you all for making this useful!