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Hi, here are some pictures about the process that was used to make Arc Nova's card. I hope you find them interesting.
This was the first sketch. I felt that, for Arc Nova, his appearance should be fairly realistic. The character has a very interesting history that was rather tragic, with the destruction of most of his civilization I believe. My first sketches showed him rushing into battle with sword drawn, but I wanted to do a card that focused in on his face more.
I drew him with a strong, direct look on his face, a defender and champion for his people. I redrew the head several times, trying to get a classic draconian look, but with the eyes set forward on the face like a human's.
Then I drew the armor over his body. Because of the high technological level of Arc Nova's race, I wanted it to look fairly sci-fi as opposed to traditional knight armor. Also, the reddish gem was the power source of the armor. I'm not sure where the idea for the plugs came from 
I really wanted Arc's hands to be in the picture for expression. I had an idea to make him gripping his sword, but positioning the sword over the rest of the picture was rather difficult. It was originally drawn flipped the other way, but it covered his armor-gem that way, which I didn't like. So I flipped it and it covered part of his head, but not too much. His sword design was based off of the sketch that the PG made. If the player includes a drawing that they themselves made, I try to pay close attention to it. Not necessarily copying it exactly, but using it to better understand how the PG sees their avatar.
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Yay, now the color is being put on. The sketch was saved, but made light like an onion skin to go over the coloring underneath. I was able to keep some of its original texture that way. Here I'm looking for color balance. The sky I decided to go with green, to suggest an alien world. That faint dot up there, although it doesn't look like much, is one of the satellites of Arc's people. A little sputnik ^_^
This is quite a bit further along. The armor, although dark grayish in the profile, I kept a fair amount of yellow in because the light in this picture would be yellow, and influencing the color of things it touched.
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This is the picture with the colored layers turned off. You can see the onion skin effect of the sketch In hindsight, the linework on his armor could have been a little sharper. Mm.
In this picture, I'm attempting to demonstrate the addition of highlights. I've darkened the actual artwork (which has all been flattened onto one layer at this point) and am going over it with hard light, overlay and screen layers to brighten up some parts and create light glows. This can help certain parts of the picture pop out, but overuse of these effects can make the art look gaudy.
Here is a close up of Arc Nova's face.
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The finished art. It's already pretty large here (I'm on a 1280 by 1024 monitor resolution... sorry if the pictures are unweildy ^^;) but if you like you can also see it on VCL. Hope you enjoy it Arc Nova.
It was kind of a coincidence that I ended up doing four scaly avatars (ShiShiOsa, Lord Ian, Yao Chi and Arc Nova). I'm pleased that people seem to like them, though I don't mean to restrict myself to only one kind of subject matter. I just try to make something interesting for whatever kind of avatar I may get
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Words fail me, Andrea. I can see I am going to have to save up some money so I can commission you to draw one of my draconic forms...
Arc is very lucky to have had you do his card!
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Arrow
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Member #1927
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Posts: 433
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Andrea... You are definiately a Goddess of Art... o.o;; Arc Nova is absolutely beautiful. He looks magnificent.
(This is Cave's PG taking over her friend's login) o_O
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"Dook. I would like to agree. Thats some brilliantly cool work. " Salen would say more, but he's sure other folks wanna say stuff about how nifty it is too.
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Checks How He Feels About Andrea's Scaley Avatar Card Art.
Yup.
I don't just seem to like it.
I definitely like it a lot.
There are a lot of happy Avatars out though there who more than seem to like what you do with Card Art.
We like it a lot.
And the recipients are often at a loss for words.
Look how long it has been since you made my card and I am still trying to express myself.
I am going to have to try harder.
The Image you have done for Arc Nova is spectacular.
Look at all of the expression in that face and those eyes.
He is lovable. What more could anyone ask for ?
And yet there is. The detail and shaded coloring. It is inspired.
Kudos to you Andrea.
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Andrea Koupal you are an Art Goddess
Yao Chi, a dragon
Always discovering and
Openly naïve
Chinese dragon-ish
Human soul has flowed into
Iridescent scales
Haiku by Pastangum
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Arc Nova: *drools* @_@
Arc's PG: *drools* @_@
Andrea, this background stuff is incredible. It's like getting an Avatar card plus a whole mess of neato, DVD-esque bonus material. Indeed I do enjoy it. Very very much so. 
And don't get me wrong. I meant everything I said about your talent for drawing reptilian avatars. But I'm not suggesting that's your only talent, just one among many. If my card received you as an artist purely by coincidence, then fate has truly blessed me. ^_^
All these sketches are terrific, and the commentary does much to reveal how the card came together layer by layer. Image #7 was especially revealing, and worthy of card status in its own right, IMHO. Thanks so much for saving your drafts and sharing them with everybody. ^_^
......Even if I will get endlessly teased for that first one. *blushes* 
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Arc Nova, you've just become a Psychedelic Avatar! What are you going to do now?
Rough sketches of Arc's sword and
blaster, courtesy of my own crummy artistic skills.
Arc Nova's Freefall Cameo. Image graciously drawn by Mark Stanley, and kindly cropped for sig purposes by the dark ferret.
Are you an artist? Do you have an interest in drawing Arc for fun? Don't be shy, send me a PM!
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No matter how many times I see it, I'm still amazed by a skilled artist at work.
Oh, don't worry too much about that first picture... you're not the only one seen shirtless around here! 
--S
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Andrea, each time you do one of these, I learn half a dozen new tricks to improve my own art. Thank you so much for sharing your creative process with us.
This is a superb piece of art, and Arc Nova is very deserving as the recipient of such a blessing.
Arc, we would never tease you about that first picture...
* Porter goes off, singing quietly "Oh yeah they called him The Streak .... *
* Runs *
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Commission the big dog! - Visit my DeviantArt Gallery - Read Porter's LiveJournal
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Wow! Why didn't I notice this thread sooner? What a great idea!
Can I ask, is that a PC colouring program thingy? If so, which one? Or is it on a Mac? Just curious ^^.
And obviously the picture's amazing; that's why you're creating PA cards XD!
Will you do this for all of your furture cards?
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http://www.masterzdm.com/hosted/britt/Pict0014.JPG
I'll resize it ASAP, note. ^^
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I enjoy the scaly art, and the bonus material. Thank you Andrea
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She's been doing this for 2 threads now Britt ^_~
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Nightmares are only as bad as you think.
Taming the Fool Deeper Space MSTing Gifts
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LOL! I notices, but it could have been for every other avatar, or whichever ones she feels like it and not such a regular thing XP.
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Britt, the art is usually done in Photoshop 7.0, or sometimes with a little Painter 8. Arc's was done entirely in Photoshop. And I use a PC, but I've used Macs too and don't especially favor one or the other. And like Tamar mentioned, if you go to the first post in this thread there should be a link to the previous "Making Of" thread, which started with Tac-Wolf's card and has some other random art odds and ends.
As for when I do them... I tend to do them if I feel the process of the card creation was interesting or different in some way. Arc's had a lot of small things that were unique in the process compared to previous cards I've done. That doesn't mean I don't work just as hard on ones that I haven't shown the process for.
Although, if you really like what I do here, if I'm assigned your card and I know you want to see the process for it, I will make effort to accommodate you. I can't guarantee it because making the extra pictures and typing up the text for them takes extra time (something I don't always have), but if you do like seeing this stuff, I will try to bring it to you.
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VCL * Yerf * Website * Livejournal * large art of avatar cards
Thank you Nezumi!
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Quote:
Andrea K said:
Although, if you really like what I do here, if I'm assigned your card and I know you want to see the process for it, I will make effort to accommodate you. I can't guarantee it because making the extra pictures and typing up the text for them takes extra time (something I don't always have), but if you do like seeing this stuff, I will try to bring it to you.
Can I make the request on the others' behalf? I know *I* certainly enjoy seeing the extra stuff, so your extra work certainly isn't wasted on me.
Time willing, I'd love to see something like this for all of your future cards.
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All my thanks are belong to Andrea! ^_^
The Making of Arc's Avatar Card. (by A. Koupal)
Rough sketches of Arc's sword and
blaster, courtesy of my own crummy artistic skills.
Arc Nova's Freefall Cameo. Image graciously drawn by Mark Stanley, and kindly cropped for sig purposes by the dark ferret.
Are you an artist? Do you have an interest in drawing Arc for fun? Don't be shy, send me a PM!
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I should very much like to second that motion.
That is of course if it is alright.
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* Thank You * * * Andrea and Denise *
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) - English Statesman.
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Wow! That'd be really cool! I'd certainly allow for that! That is, if you even end up drawing one of mine >_>;;.
Thank you for that info, Andrea. Certainly helpful! ^^. I should probably get into using the PC for colouring and stuff I'm just too stupid too work them properly --;;. Thanks anyway ^^.
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Here are some files showing the process of creation on Sariel's bonus card. For this picture I had some good photo reference for the man, and more or less winged the rest from imagination.
I had a lot of trouble starting this picture. I couldn't figure out the color scheme. Sariel's body is black, his hair is white, and his wings are gray, but I didn't want the picture to be monochromatic.
Another early look, I'm still trying to figure out the colors and the intensity of the light source. I realized I was having too much trouble with the color, so I stopped working on the big art, and made instead these littler versions, trying out different color schemes.
The different colors really change the mood.
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I blew up one of the color compositions that I made so that it covered the big art, and played around with different layer settings until it became these colors. Here, I started working on the sky, and one of his wings. I made the picture going from the background forward.
With these colors, Sariel's black body is a purplish-reddish color, and his wings are purple. But I think it's subtle enough that it doesn't stand out too strongly. Finding a balance with the colors was one of the biggest challenges of this picture.
This is what I was staring at for many hours ^__^ Working on the feathers.
The wings and sky look much better now, but work needs to be done on the skin, and that jagged edge around Sariel.
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Smoothing out his skin here. I also lessened that bright light that was falling on his shoulders.
The last part that was created was his hair, and that was tricky! It at first looked too segmented, I think.
This is the hair after a lot of refining and erasing/coloring over. The ears were also tough, since they were at an odd angle, and needed to have a bit of a point.
This is a close-up of feather details. The feathers turned out looking somewhat statue-like, as if carved. I wasn't especially intending that, but in the case of a supernatural being like Sariel, it went all right with the design.
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The finished art There is a large version on Epilogue too.
This picture was very challenging, maybe the most difficult card art yet, due to the realism of the figure, the large amounts of tiny feathers and the issues I had with the color scheme. It took two weeks to make, but was worth it. Hope you enjoy it Sariel!
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SQUEEEEEEE!!!!! I thought you were card was beautiful at first, and now isn't any different! I absolutely love the Sariel card. Tis a masterpiece!
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*Glomps Pixy~ness, Princess of Kawaii~ness for her Ultra~Kawaii~Leith piccy*
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I gotta say, I love these "Making of..." threads. Kind of "Behind the Card" And I am amazed at the detail you go to for every card. Of course, I'm biased.
I'm stuck for words whenever I try to string some along to comment on this. I keep saying amazing, and that works, but...golly...I love the picture, and feel extremely lucky to have one done by you, Andrea. You captured the inner peaceful soul of my dual natured boy. And something that was said on Epilouge as a comment that seems to fit, if I can borrow it..."It's like dream, where one finds himself, struggling against inner enemy..." Thank you Andrea!
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Andrea! It's beautiful! *glomps*
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