Boubi: I agree with you and Maenas about the scales - they're not right, and are annoying me. After trying to highlight them (and turning them to mush) I gave up and painted over them.
So hopefully third time lucky...
I decided that what was wrong was two things:
1. They are dark on light, making them look like tiles
2. They are in too random a pattern - they should be more organised, and thicker at the spine tapering off to smaller scales at the edge (like a snake)
with those two things in mind I redid them last night. Here's a few steps with shading at the end shown in the cold light of day. Are these better?
Step 1: spine first
Step 2: blocking in large near the centre, smaller at the edges
Step 3: finished, and taken over the tops of the arms and shoulder blades
Step 4: with shading
i also did a bit on the loincloth details: just a mix of copper and silver at the moment. You can also see some of the scales and how they blend over the shoulders here.
