Sharrukin-of-Akkad on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/sharrukin-of-akkad/art/Concern-428065614Sharrukin-of-Akkad

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Concern

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Another image inspired by my fan-fiction series, in this case the first novel Memoirs (also available here on dA, starting with this deviation). Early in Liara T'Soni's involvement with the famous Commander Shepard, she also befriended another male human: Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, a biotic and leader of the Marine detachment aboard the first Normandy. Alenko later lost his life on Virmire, and Liara remembered and mourned him for a long time afterward.

Here the two of them are taking a break from biotic training on the Normandy staging deck. Alenko is suffering considerable pain from his experimental biotic amplifier, and Liara is concerned for her friend's well-being.

Some more practice here with posing models against a backdrop, using adjustment layers and the smudge tool in Photoshop to clean up distracting bits of brightness and color contrast. Still having trouble getting decent hand and arm poses out of the software - you'll notice I cut off Liara's elbow so you wouldn't be subjected to the appearance that it's being stretched and bent like taffy. Used the "flycam" within Mass Effect 3 again to get a decent background image.

Yes, both models and the backdrop are from Mass Effect 3 rather than the original game. The aesthetics of the later games in the series are just light-years (pardon the pun) improved from the original. In my head, when I imagine scenes from my writing I keep seeing images based on the later graphic assets.

Mass Effect assets owned by Electronic Arts and Bioware.
Kaidan Alenko model by SumireHaikuXNA.
Liara T'Soni model by nach77.
Software used: XNALara Posing Studio, Mass Effect 3, FRAPS, Photoshop.

Image size
3456x2106px 2.17 MB
© 2014 - 2024 Sharrukin-of-Akkad
Comments4
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AlienFodder's avatar
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Impact

This is so nice... I love the idea of those two being a couple if neither one of them is dating Shepard.

If I may, and since you are using Photoshop as a post-processing tool, I'd like to give you one little piece of advice which would make a world of difference in improving the quality of your work: try to use any tool you can to create shadows on your models and on the background (playing with the Burn tool usually works). Neglecting shadows altogether is one mistake that most render artists will make at one point or another. Of course a lot of them don't even do any post-processing work at all, which makes it impossible to add shadows once the image is exported from XPS but that's not the case with you. <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt=":)" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="391" title=":) (Smile)"/>

For example, it would be a good idea to add shadows around Liara's fingers so that they actually look like they're touching Kaidan's skin. You could also add some extra shadows on the wall behind your models. Anyway, just play around with it and I'm sure you'll find a way to make it look realistic. <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt=":)" data-embed-type="emoticon" data-embed-id="391" title=":) (Smile)"/>

Another wonderful tool you can use if you want to get more natural curves on your models (instead of those ugly straight lines you see on their shoulders), is the Liquify filter. It does wonders to smooth out curves without smudging them.