draw a mask challenge

[brynn]

Hi Friends,
I guess it's a little late for this Halloween, but I like this idea so much, I'm posting it anyway.

Draw a mask.  This could be for Halloween, or Day of the Dead (or whatever equivalent holiday in various parts of the world) or I think there are some places in the world where certain festivals or carnivals include the use of masks....Mardi Gras, for example, and some others I'm not very familiar with.  So just any kind of mask.

Since I'm going to start on the candy drawing challenge first, it will be a while before I can start on this one.  Plus, I'll have to find some examples to get an idea which kind I want.  But like I said -- too good of an idea not to post -- maybe some folks would prefer this over the candy challenge   

Have fun!

[Lazur]

Late for halloween, too early for farsang.
Which is held to scare away winter.

We have bus?j?r?s here for that at the end of the carnival season.
Maybe drawing a bus? mask is so time consuming that it can even still be on time for that...

[brynn]

Ah, so according to the Wikipedia link you provided, busojaras is around the same time as Mardi Gras!  Curly white hair would be hard to depict with Inkscape -- definitely a challenge!  Should we sign you up for drawing a buso mask?

[Lazur]

If I can have the time I will try to draw one.

[brynn]

      That buso mask really is interesting!  Lazur, you should post your wip on those horns (because the shoutbox link will soon be bumped away).  Well, just a request -- only if you want to 

Anyway, I'm having so much fun drawing a carnival mask, I think I might have to do a series or something.  All the possibilities!  Pattern on path, filters, bold colors, borders, sparkles, maybe even beads -- it just goes on and on!  The basic mask shape is so.....well it's like a blank page just inviting creativity.

So here's a very rough start on my first mask.  The only part that's certain is the basic shape.  Those colors are just placeholders, until I get closer to being finished.  And it's going to be the kind of mask that's on the end of a stick, rather than the kind that you can tie on with a ribbon or elastic band.  I'm kind struggling on the eyes a little bit....but I'm sure I'll come up with something   



Actually I'm having so much fun with this, it's inpired our first contest, which I'll post details (in a new topic) asap 

[brynn]

Getting closer.....

[Lazur]

Work in progress:

wood carve base of the mask



Uploaded it as an svg too to the gallery, but somehow chrome doesn't render it right, but firefox does.

http://inkscapecommunity.com/ic_gallery/albums/userpics/10014/buso1.svg

[Lazur]

Base painted:


The weird thing is, that this version looks good with chrome.
Almost.
Some anti-aliasing issues still appear with the cropping.

[brynn]

Looks promising.  What is that under the mouth?  Part of beard?

[Lazur]

It was carved with such rough strokes on the photo I used as a reference for that part, while the other parts were softened.
Maybe it is too contrasted.
But tecnically only one gradient is used for all the red parts, so that it is a good example on how Ithink the gradient meshes should work.
The plain wood and the painted one used the same one gradient, and the overall shading could be changed at once in minutes.

It will be hidden mostly by a moustache.
Beard may not be carved nor made other ways, as it is about spring -Aries reference should be depicted, and not Capricorn which would have beard. Thus ram horn is used/or preferably twisted horns, and the red colour is used in connection to Mars.

[brynn]

The rough carving really comes through well on the cheeks and nose.  But whatever that is under the mouth (reminds me of roots?) (maybe it's just decoration on the mask?) doesn't look as deeply carved.

Oh, no beard.  I guess in your photos, the white furry stuff must be part of either long head hair, or some kind of hood or hat?

OT - speaking of gradient mesh, check out:  http://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php?topic=114.0!

[Lazur]

It was based on this one:
 

Not taking it exactly, tried to come up with a bit different design, taking elements from more images.

Here is another image, which may show better the woodcut:



Searching some more mask I could find more beard-like carves and ones that are completely smooth at the bottom.
It depends on the maker, which style he prefers. (These masks are made and worn by men.)

[brynn]

Ok, this is small version of the basic mask, without any shading and lighting.  I guess I still need to draw the stick, but probably wouldn't be missed, if I left it off.  The light pink and dark blue kind of frame effect seems to have just happened, but wasn't a part of the original design.  So I use for wip screenies, but might not make the final cut.  Or maybe there will be 2 versions -- 1 would be like the item in a catalog, and the other would be the real thing, lol!



Ok, now to make some depth   

[Lazur]

Here is the final version:


Shadows were blurred and not-so accurate at times, but it became quite good considering this is the first time I draw something alike.
Fur was made with spiro-splines with pattern along path live path effect, as well as the horn.

[brynn]

Awesome!  Very nice work!

Something about the hair/fur reminds me of the classic and original Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer animated tv show, lol.

Out of curiosity, what's the final SVG file size?  edit - never mind, just saw it in the other topic

[Lazur]

Thank's!

Some previous versions of the fur:

[brynn]

Reduced down slightly, this one looks pretty real!

[Lazur]

The mask needed a rawer material than that. Maybe if it was the hair of a horse it would be in right context.
It looked much smoother than what's on the photos.

[brynn]

Oh yes, I agree.  But just to mention it, in case it gives someone an idea that might help them

[brynn]

Ok, this is probably going to be my final version, unless I or anyone notices something that I think should be fixed.  I tried putting a stick on the mask, but it didn't look right.  I think I should have drawn it at an angle from the start, to show it with the stick.  But viewing it fully from the front.....well anyway, I kept the frame sort of effect, with parts of it extending outside, to help simulate depth.

I don't totally love the star shaped decoration.  It supposed to be shiny  rhinestones on it, but I'm not sure it really looks like that. 

Hhmmm.....you know I do see a fairly major issue.  Since I drew it straight from the front view, that decoration around the border of the mask still looks flat.  Simply adding a shadow to the sides doesn't completely work to simulate the depth.  That border decoration needs to be distorted, to help with the appearance of the curve of the mask.  Actually it should be almost unseen on the sides.  Hhmm....maybe I could use node sculpting to fix that....?  Yeah, that is going to be a major fix, because of all the shade and highlight objects, as well as their clipping paths, depend on the proper shape.  I think I got that big feathery part tweaked to look like it's curved, at least partly curved.  But I missed that border.

Well, here it is for now, in case anyone sees anything else that needs attention.  And I'll be working on a fix for that curved sides effect 

Edit -- You know, I might need to tweak the outer parts of the eye decoration, as well??

[Lazur]

That looks quite good!

In my opinion you could inmprove it largely by adding gradients to the background -preferably radial ones.
The shadow of the feather part seems off, as it is lyinng in the air; they would look better clipped.

Also there depth could be enhanced by more blurred parts -and, try not to use just black fills, but shades of blue, it would give a much better blending on the  mask.

Maybe some decoration around the frame could be used too, or a fancy text somewhere? With a similar font:



 

[brynn]

That is a pretty cool text.  Is it a free font?  I think I might have something similar.  I'm not very good with the kind of background you're talking about.  But I'll experiment.

Ok, which part of the shadow need to be clipped?

The shadow of the feather part isn't lying in the air (not supposed to anyway).  It's just the feather part is partly curved around.  When someone wears the mask, the feather part is near left temple, on side of head.  So it's curved around.  If I made flat mask, the shadow would be directly below the feathers.  But I tried to make it with depth.

Maybe the star decoration could be curved around a little more too?  Although, it's close enough, I think.  But maybe if I have time.

Thanks for your comments 

[Lazur]

Thar alphabet was the first after searching for carnival letters.
It is not free, available only as print(?) http://www.mapletreehouse.com/webshaper/store/viewProd.asp?pkProductItem=43280
There are other similar free ones too.

Didn't play much around with the idea though, but here is how I would envision it with a finished polish (attached png):

[Lazur]

Svg version attached.

[brynn]

Wow!  Not sure what to say.....  I guess you made it more of a still life, where the mask is part of the scene.  But the flat mask like you did it, isn't what I was trying to do.

You did something to the curly ribbon things that I like - I'll have to look closer in the SVG.  I mean the shading inside the curl (in top left corner).  I tried to do that on the dangling ones, and also had a highlight on the outside (so that they looked metallic) and it looked great zoomed in, but at 100%, it didn't show up.

Well, thanks for taking the time to do that.  I'll try to remember and learn those artistic techniques of repeating parts of the subject throughout the image.  I probably can't do anything like that, but I'll try to beef it up some more