Finally finished my fanart! Saira on Haakon.



On dA here:
http://karooble.deviantart.com/art/Saira-148993250

Quote from: Miss Paula on December 20, 2009, 19:47:35

also wat you didn't know I was talented?? Have you never seen my deviantart page??

Hmm.. I might have forgotten.

Anyway, you totally stole all the attention.

She did?! I thought that was me!  Seriously, though, we're all getting our turns... your art is lovely, too, LightningEagle -- you have a hell of a lot better eye for backgrounds and single-point perspective than I do. 

Anybody have news regarding the formation of an unofficial fanart page? If nobody else wants to do something, I could set up a dA group (check them out here: http://groups.deviantart.com/).

Spoiler: (unhyper version) (click to show/hide)

Saira. Based on a photo of my sister where she was wearing a hat, scarf, shoulderbag and coat, that's why here Saira wears the same. Or because she's on vacation and admiring creatures outside their natural habitat, like that sandwalker turtle thing there that's now more of a snow walker. Also the eye is off, but as it is off ingame too because it's so big, I left it like that.
I was about to use a picture of my crazy brother as reference for Bobo. But the picture is filled enough and my neck hurts already from spending all the time on it.

heyheyheyhey I made Saira fanart isn't it cool I used a photo of my sister as reference that's why Saira is wearing a scarf and a coat and a bag instead of a backpack but actually I'd say it's just that Saira changed from her parkour clothes to some more casual stuff because she's on vacation and admiring some creatures out of their natural habitat heh I guess the sandwalker is kinda cold there walking on the snow also the eye is kinda off but it's kinda off in the game too because it's so huge but whatever I can't shut up I'm sorry.

click the thumbnail it gets you to the fullsize picture isn't that great can I be part of the club now too?

ADORABLE!! I love the more "casual" Saira -- and I can definitely imagine her carrying a bag like that for all her camera-related paraphernalia. This is fantastic; the folds in the coat are lovely and I like the very festive, seasonal environment. My favorite detail: The snow edges around the feet of the sandwalker are just like the snow edges ingame on Sekkei.

Welcome to the club!  I suppose we're now the Stylish Six? Skillful? Smart? Sententious? 

Update! Here's the status of the painting as it is at the end of the video I posted.


By karooble

You can click through to see a larger version!

To LightningEagle, SiamJai, Beomene, and everybody: MOAR ART PLZ! Your pictures were fantastic and funny and I can't wait to see more of them.   

Thank you so much for your kindness!  Replies to each of you follow.

Holy .... , That's extremely amazing. I'd never be able to do something like that. 

What I wouldn't give to be able to watch over your shoulder as you did that piece. 

You can! So much of art is just practice, practice, practice... it's all about how much time you invest, and not nearly so much about any inborn "skill" or "talent." If you work at it you can always get there.

On looking over my shoulder -- I'm investigating screencasting software at present so I can show you the painting process on YouTube. You'll be able to see that, at least! 

Wendy, that looks wonderful indeed!

Her face conveys nobility and strength; her eyes and lips show kindness, and the overall composition reminds me of that famous portrait of Nefertiti sans the crown.

Very much looking forward to the completed version!

I'm so glad you picked up on the Nefertiti influence! After seeing Beomene's official art, I was strongly reminded of that bust -- it's one of the most elegant pieces of art I've ever seen, and I picture Saira as having a similar grace and poise.  Thanks for the kind words and lovely analysis! 

Absolutely gorgeous.
And for once, she has her cap taken off!
One hard thing when drawing Saira, for me,
was the fact that, yes, she is attractive in her own way...
But she doesn't pay it much mind and the cap is really her trademark.
I've actually taken her hat of in one or two of my drawings,
the excuse being she is washing her hair or have had the hat stolen and is hunting for it...
It is a beautiful rendering of Saira,
I'd love to see more.
Any photo as reference?
I wish Nifflas would've chosen someone for me to have as reference,
but, alas, he didn't.


One more thing, is that the outcome is very different when you have her skin the properly dark and the hair jet black. I felt there was always a tremendous differens when lineart was coloured,
One tip is that Nifflas has described her eyes as pitch black.
They might shine a lot, you know, catch a lot of light,
but there really is no colour or hue at all that visibly separates pupil from iris.
And its not really a braid as much as it is a ponytail, her hair.
And the last guideline I can recall atm is
that she is about 170 cm.

Thank you very much for the "official" details about her appearance, as well as for your kind words -- it means a lot coming from the official artist of Saira (and your work is so beautiful)! Those details are helpful, as I was just wondering what color to paint her eyes and what the "canon" hairstyle was (I may have made it curlier than was expected, but I LOVE CURLY HAIR ). And yes, there's going to be a huge difference between painted and linework.

As for references, I looked at the aforementioned Nefertiti bust, and I GIS'ed a lot of different Indian models trying to get a feel for skin tones. I also looked at your artwork for a while. Out of curiosity, what do you use for screencasting? I'm going to try CamStudio and see how that goes, but I've never done this before. 

To sum up: We love you, Nifflas! Your games are great, and we can't wait to see what you'll come up with next. 

To me the gameplay feels almost like Mirror's Edge in 2D.

Thirded. I think there's a really parkour-y feeling in Saira. Momentum is crucial, and once you build up speed, you can go really fast. I enjoyed both Saira and Knytt Stories tremendously, but they do have very different "feelings." Still, compared to many popular recent platformers, I think Saira feels much more responsive and natural (I'm looking at you, An Untitled Story!  ).

I swear, you guys are incredible -- by far the nicest group of people I've ever run into on a forum.  I LOVE YOU GUYS!  The warm fuzzies are almost too much to take.