What the eff is Lima doing!?

Heh yeah, that's right, I'm working on a new wallpaper. The title is pretty much definite (it's also the name of the OP of the second season of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni).

What can I say...I wanted to make a Wallpaper with Rena in it...and yeah, here I am. What you may notice is that I chose to make it Wide screen cause yeah, wide screen rocks (even though i only have a 15" tft, but hey, it never prevented me from making some decent wallpapers at 1600*1200 px resolutions ;P).

Anyway, I'm going for a bit of a darker theme with some blood splatters and i also have an idea for the typography. oh and i also got some inspiration from the ps3's XMB (CrossMediaBar) XD.

The only problem i have is the background. And so here I am asking for suggestions/tips/hints on what to do for the background...i can't just leave it black since I have alot of space available now. I'm just afraid that I'd start overloading the background with crap just so as to not to (ironically) waste the available space i have.

Looking forward to the suggestions as to what kind of background i should go for.

greetz lima.

WIP 1
As you can see here, I placed the scan on the left side, and made a subtle gradient in the background going from a dark-red to black.

[UPDATE #000]
WIP 2
Added some blood splatters behind Rena and made some XMB inspired 'swooshes' in the background.

[UPDATE #001]
WIP 3
Flipped the whole thing on the horizontal axis since most people have their icons on the left side...


[UPDATE #002]
WIP 4
I did a re-cg of Rena's skirt since that was cut off in the scan I used. It looks okay I think.
Also added more glowlines on the left part. The next step would be adding Content/Texture to the Dead/Empty part of the wallpaper.

How straight that part of her left arm (so the arm closest to the right side of the wall after the flip) towards the elbow is keeps on making me think it was cut off. but considering where her dress was cut off, that can't be. could you perhaps round that part a bit? and there are two things that you could consider improving about your reCG. the first thing is that the shading/painting style seems to be rougher than the rest of her; the second being the way that front part of her dress bends is unnatural. from the flow of things in the pre-reCGed image, the dress should flare outward. but you made it bend back. so it looks kinda funny. x__x

your blood splatters + glow lines + curved stripes idea works, but i have a couple of thoughts. excuse the lack of order. x] how much the white splatters contrast the red ones is a little too much. so i'd say take out the white splatters and stick with various shades of red instead. and see what happens if you layer in some bigger splatters, to vary the size somewhat. the glow lines are interesting, but consider having them "grow" out of the area behind rena rather than being these rather short strokes with some abrupt ends. perhaps the parts closer to rena could also glow more intensely?

as for the thicker stripes behind everything, consider having more of them, but shorter ones (as in they don't reach all the way to the other side of the wall). that way, you'll have more, um, for the lack of a better term, "stuff" in the area around rena and everything will get more sparse as the distance to rena increases. you'd be able to maintain and strengthen your focal point and you'd still have that sense of movement that guides a viewer's eyes to other parts of the wall. do i make sense? >__<

mm, on the whole, the background design is very horizontally oriented, thus perpendicular to the girl. i find that a bit...limiting? so if i were doing this wall, i'd opt for some curved stripes/glow lines with more of a lower-right-to-upper-left inclination. it shouldn't be at too different an angle than what you have right now (unless you rotate all of them), but the existence of the tilt should be easy enough to tell.

that's about all. fiddle around with things and see what happens. sorry for being so wordy. x__x

W00t!

very good, nice ideas there :D

And i dont mind you being wordy, it's better than just saying 'mkay s'good '. good post :D

I'll consider yer suggestions and try some of it. As for Rena's arm, hehe well that's how the scan was...i didnt even notice and as for the skirt that i had to recg parts of, hmm I don't know since i'm not an expert in anime clothing XD can't i just get away with saying "oh ehh...it's the wind..y.eah that's it >_> i cant deny the forces of nature, nope sir.." XD erm feel free to show me how you would see that part of her skirt redone (just take the WIP and splotch on it rofl), also i can't really simulate the way it's painted >_< i tried my best any suggestions there? i just couldn't get that edge i did everything from erasing, smudging, applying filters, erasing again etc...

Greetz
Limality

Ah yes. wordy comments are better than the unhelpful ones. xD

anyway, i took your wip and did some quick "splotching" with my mouse. it still requires a lot of tweaking for it to make sense and be wall-worthy, but it should give you an idea of what i mean by "flare up". imho, the flow of the dress looks more natural if you make something along the lines of this:


note that i didn't put in the outlines. ^^; *laziness*

as to how to imitate the painting style, well, all i can really describe to you is what i did. i warn you: i don't paint, so it's pretty much guesswork. use a small soft-edged brush at low-ish opacity and flow and brush repeated in layers. be patient with it and it should come out pretty smooth. if necessary, follow up by smudging the colors a bit in the direction of color change to get them to blend better. you can still see some of the brush strokes on what i did, but that was rough. take your time and it should be fine. =]

Oh wow, that does look better!

Heh indeed, that does look better and more natural right there =]. I'll try your approach on the skirt then.

Expect another WIP later this evening or tomorrow XD.

Limality