Ok, I've been working on this wall for forever. I'd say the vector (from the manga) of the characters took me a minimum of three days (accumulated time) plus the rest of the wall I've been working on every spare moment for the past 2 weeks. I'm trying to get a somewhat honeymoon feel for the wall with them in the castle at his magical kingdom of Astale. I'm hoping to avoid having to literally vector the walls & pillars. I'm not sure the curtain really works but the wall needed something over there especially since the bed didn't turn out very fantastically. Plus I probably need to add some more highlights to his hair (it was very tough to do his hair as the manga blends the dark colors together). So advice, tips, suggestions, comments - all welcome. I'd like this wall to be my masterpiece.

Let's see if it times out a fourth time.
You could try and give it that honeymoon canopy bed look. You can then use the canopy to cover up anything you don't like and then have the back side of the canopy hanging from the center, but tied off on the posts so it comes down in a /\ but curved shape and use that to frame the window.

It's a good idea, i like the concept and the vision outside the window is a little bit too dark in comparison to the sky or may be not. I think the columns looks a little too real & marble too (may be using the burn tool, it will be darker and ...).
There's a few artifacts that need to be cleaned.
Anyway, keep working and will be a good wallpaper.
Sorry for not helping much but i'm still struggling with photoshop :-)

Mayby you should add some text^^

Saka4Rob10

There's a few artifacts that need to be cleaned.

I will work on the columns & see about addind text & maybe more canopy effects /\ like that. Sorry about the artifacting - when I downsized my image I didn't do a very good job. Here's a better version...

Everything besides the pillar looks pretty good to me ^^

Hm...THose columns just look a bit too blurry and real. and it's conflicting with the walls style. i would think that a plain..color with a texture would be better. but that might just be me. :D
Next, i would add some creases in the Curtain.
the window's perspective looks a bit odd.
but overall, if you want this wall to be a masterpiece, i think, you need to stray away from blurriness and keep the clean look. If you don't know...say...how to make that back war cleaner, maybe just look for a texture to put on gray and such.
I'll take another look tomorrow, because x) i'm rather busy today.
so, if you think you can think about it alittle, my suggestions and stuff, it'll be nice

otherwise...NIce Vector! and Good luck ne?~

I'll get right to work on the wall & columns. I've got company coming tomorrow so it may be a few days...

The only thing I can find that might need to be fixed is to smooth out some pixels around the guy's hair. Some parts of it look a bit jagged.
Anyway, besides that, it looks great. ^__^. I look foward to seeing the finished version. :D

Hmm, i hope i don't sound like i'm nitpicking, since no one else has mentioned it, but the perspective of the window and the view outside it seems a little skewed to me. what i mean is, the way that your window is done, the lines are not completely straight, so it makes your window look like it's not on a completely flat surface. it looks a bit like it's on a wall with a slight curve to it, and that we're viewing it just a little off to the side. in contrast, the view outside the window looks like we're viewing it at a straight angle. but no one else has mentioned this, so maybe it's just me.
another thing, though. the lines of your window and the way you colored your vector don't quite match the marble texture you used for the walls. the contrast is a bit stark. other than that, though, i think it is an excellent vector, especially when i look at all the lines in her hair and dress. i've never really tried vectoring, and pictures like this one are the main reason; it's gorgeous, and the emotion in it is wonderful, but just thinking about how much work i'd have to put into it makes me want to cry. hail to you ^_^

The vectoring is solidly done - no complaints there. Good manga -> vector work as always.
But your background is really letting you down, to the point that you may have to rework a lot of it if you really want a 'masterpiece' out of it. This is going to be very harsh, I'm seriously nitpicking, I hope you don't mind.

Easy stuff first, gets progressively complex:

Wall - agreed with maxetal, the marble texture looks more like flooring than a wall to me. A castle? Try lighter marble with less veins. Or go with the rough hewn stone bricks look.

Bedsheets - trimming detail along the corner at edge of bed, and work on the folds hanging over the side - they look too similar and regular. Use scans with dresses for reference.

Curtain - it's not hanging flat, so you ought to see creases, and with the creases there should be differing transparency, places with more layers of fabric will be more opaque. The canopy bed idea is a good one. For playing with the opacity you might want to refer this thread where a similar effect was used.

Heck, if you're really adventurous you could try that on the girl's dress. It would totally rock!

Bedposts (pillars) - just look really odd. Style conflict, probably. You'll want to vector them to get them to fit. The style is also pretty strange for a bed, refer to some real beds - greco-roman, or carved wood, or wrought iron - anything. I don't know what to make of this one - drill bit/barbershop light/candy bar? XÞ

Outside scene - nice sky, but the flat black silhouette isn't so good. Even if the light source is right behind the building, there should still be enough ambient light to dimly see the building color and detail on this side. Another effect you can explore is to have some glow from the light around the edges of the silhouette, if the light source behind it is very strong. This would be similar to the effect for the window in my wallpaper here but not so strong. Just a few pixels width of glow.

Can't offer you a surefire way of getting that effect. You can try:
- create mask from silhouette layer,
- feather mask (inside),
- invert mask,
- copy sky, paste on top of silhouette
Play with blurring, transparency, and blending modes too.

Perspective - maxetal is absolutely right about the window/wall perspective, but that is not all. The perspective in the entire scene is haywire. This is pretty bad and will take quite a bit of explaining...

I've traced out the perspective lines for you, see here.

width X-axis: Orange=window (horizontal), purple=bed (inferred from vector camera angle)
height Y-axis: Red=pillars, green=window (vertical), blue=silhouette buildings
depth Z-axis: purple=bed (inferred from vector camera angle)

Simple rule for perspective - all the lines in one axis, if extended far enough, should all meet at one single vanishing point. For illustration - my most recent wall has these vanishing points. ( <- I made that diagram a few weeks ago for blu3 cuz she asked. =Þ See here, you may want to read that. )

If you don't want perspective, then you have to have the lines in each axis exactly parallel to each other.

You can utilize a mixture of parallel/perspective on each of the three axes depending on your composition. For instance, a squared-on view down a corridor could have the X and Y axes in parallel and the Z-axis perspective to convey distance.

The X and Y axes - as you can see, doesn't work given what I'd explained above.

Given that this is a pretty closeup view, if you go for perspective on these 2 axes you will find your guide lines extending very very far off your wallpaper before you find the vanishing point. (Much further than the demo based on my GITS wall.) So to keep things simple I recommend you use parallel lines to guide in drawing along these two axes.

As for the Z-axis, it's not clearly seen here - only one line from the bed - you may be able to ignore it. However, if you add the canopy bed idea at top left, this will become very important and must be done with a vanishing point - parallel would look really awkward considering the camera angle.

Well, that's quite a bit for you to be working on. I hope I haven't gone overboard with the crit - like I said, the vector is excellent, but your background just doesn't do it justice.

Good luck!

Wow! Thanks! It's a lot of work to do but I knew it needed it & I knew you guys would be the ones to help. I'll get right to work but it''ll probably be a week before I post an update. Thanks again & be seeing you soon!


EDIT: Also, are the bed posts really too odd? I was going for a look that I loved from a deleted scene in "Ella Enchanted" when the prince flops onto his beautiful (and very royal) round bed surrounded by huge columns & thin curtains. I know the perspective would be better if I moved the columns over, too, but I really don't want to have to figure out how to extend her dress out as that's where the scan ends.

Ok, I've been working on perspective lines - how would this do if I change the background to line up with my lines?




width X-axis: Purple=window & bed (as if it were in line with the wall)
height Y-axis: Red=pillars, window (vertical), silhouette buildings
depth Z-axis: green=bed

I'm trying to line up a pillar like he's leaning against it - should I loose that pillar or scoot it over?

Given his pose I think you'll have a hard time convincing me that he is leaning against it. The only way it might be possible was if it was lined up at the right angle with his lower back, which would be off screen as it stands now, at least to my eyes. Additionally, with the two left columns lined up with the end of the bed, one would assume that the right hand columns would line up with the front of the bed. Given the character's size, ending the bed there would make it the size of that old geico commercial were everything was too small. Stretching out what is his right leg would take it to the end of the bed, so if he wants to lay backwards and pull her on top, he needs the bed space to do it in. I think I just pulled off a double entendre. ;)

Lines were incorrectly drawn: see here

Something's still kind of kooky with the whole perspective, especially the window. I'll have a closer look tomorrow - it's getting late here and I'm too beat to analyse it properly.