Astral Sorcerer

This is my first real skin in which did more than really basic recoloring. I got the idea from a celestial something-or-other blood mage skin, and decided to try doing something similar with the priest. Didn't come out marvelously, but I can't think of what else to add, so any feedback or suggestions are more then welcome.

The planet is custom-made :P.


There are a lot of minor changes that will never be noticed by the casual gamer. A rune on the cheek (I was bored), a small gem from the belt recolored and reused twice, once on the forehead (unnoticeable in game, except for a tiny tiny dot in portrait), and one on the chest. The cape and the chest armor are custom-edited to have stars (I tried to make stars correspond with player color, but red stars on a blue cape look horrible). I at first used the same color for almost everything, but then I noticed people telling others that lack of contrast is boring so I recolored certain things to have a greenish or reddish hue. Lower-than-normal saturation.

Filepath: Textures\BloodPriest.blp

Well, comments, suggestions, or ratings?

Here's the file, by the way.
http://www.wc3campaigns.net/attachme...1&d=1166916856

Its good but bot marvelous in my opinions the places that have stars need more of them and the places where they dont add a bit more detail. I was impressed by his cheek runes.

I might increase the number of stars where they are, but photoshop's problem is that it doesn't distribute enough points of high brightness using the 'Noise' tool; I tried a few times, and each time most of them were on one side, or one section was missing them completely, etc. I think I'll add a few more anyway, though.

So I know, where should I increase the detail?

Cheek runes I borrowed from the first newbie skin I did, and as I recall those are the ones found on the Sorceress's robes, recolored, minimized, changed opacity and direction and stuck on the cheeks. The cheek runes actually just bought a 'meh' from me, but I felt I needed to do something about the face.

Oh, and this was actually edited from the default priest skin in WC3, not in WC3 TFT. I didn't find the blood elf skin at first, so I took the high-elf priest one, and then changed the eyes to green.

If anyone could tell me an effective way to customize the face without editing the model (which I'll learn soon enough, but do not currently know) and make it more unique, I'd like suggestions in that area in particular. I tried putting a helmet, but that turned out horrible, and same with something wrapped around the lower part of his face.

You spent more time on the preview than on the skin.

No. I had the planet done; I did that about a year ago. Stars took 5 seconds, and the cutting out took 5 minutes.. the skin, all the experimenting, took 3 hours.

For only a little cnp recoloring?

Is this all the people here do when someone asks for feedback? I really expected better. One person comments on my preview, saying it's basically good, and then trying to make that bad, and the other expands on the thought and can't read.

It's called experimenting. If I knew off the bat what I was going to do, it would have taken 15 minutes; I started knowing I wanted something that has stars and that the initial skin was a priest.

Actually, the real issue with the skin is that you didn't modify the face.
And no, adding a symbol to his cheek is not "modifying the face."

The face is generally the MOST seen and most important feature of any skin.
Not only because it's the center of attention in most cases, but because it's the focus of the portrait as well!



Now you cannot honestly look at that and tell me enough is changed.
The belt and chest are good starts, but the boots, the arms, the face...
Most wc3c users have the issue of not caring for how experienced a person is.
If the person isn't a moderator or around for awhile, they smite the person.
It's a plague I tell you, but the best anyone can do to avoid it is give no reason for it to exist.
It needs work, to simplify.

And for the skin itself, focus on the face.
If you are only experimenting on the body, black the face out and SAY that in the first post.
People will figure it out.

Also, the cape doesn't fit at all with the rest of the skin.
It needs a trim, it needs something to lock it in with the rest of the skin.
For the untrained eye, you can't even make out that those are stars.

The staff needs extensive work.
Diagonal lines on a single-color staff just cannot go.
Do something there.

Also, change the entire leg structure.
Use more definition, add detail, don't use Blizzard's lines as your boundaries --
Set your own.

Aside from that, it's a decent start.
With more work, it could be a very nice skin.
Keep up with the progress.

Applause for Rising_Dusk!!!

*Ahem* on topic, a neat skin. With some polish, it could become a very very secksay skin indeed.

Well first off I am a bit comfused from the various posts here, what did you do? Cnp and recolor or what?
Secondly just cause he has to do with the stars does not mean he has to have white dot here white dot there and a litte white dot there too... Perhaps doing like neat little star, moon, planet, sun, etc. designs.
Lastly his staff. lol... is he holding the north pole or sumthin?

I think it's really nice. Although it's not much a major change from it's original, I would still use it. The things that I have gripes with are the staff and the cape. That's all, really.

I'll change the staff; I really agree with everyone on that one, it looks boring. I don't really see what's wrong with the cape, though. Will putting stars on more things make it blend in and look more spacy? Make the background contrast with the stars more by making it darker?

I tried to do a lot of things with the face, but I quickly figured out that it was impossible to put an interesting helmet without changing the model because it just pastes it where the original was, and making the helmet change shape during animations will look terrible. I also did want to keep it as a Blood Elf, so I didn't want to make it too pale or give it eyes of darkness (That's an idea, though...). I'll play around a bit more, but I doubt I'll be able to make it fit in with the rest of the game, look good, and keep it unique.

Since I got some good responses, I'll continue working on this one rather than make another one. Thank you :).

I would suggest a slightly better outline for the cape, right now it looks like it was a sheet cut out of space XD

What about changing the alpha channel so that the player color blends in with the space+stars in the cape? It could look a bit messy with some player colors, but it will look better than a red|blue transition.

Edit: I played with the staff and the orb, the top of the staff will be shaped like a trident missing the middle spike and the orb will be floating above it. Much better than what I did before, and it works.

Well, The Cape - It needs shading, Skins needs shading and color. It's nice effect but it's a little tooo flat, a little more shading would help. And yes, maybe a new face and a new staff...Do you CNP? or freehand? but i see some it's recoloring....