Hi, I've been working on this drawing of Ballet Dancers, but I'm having some trouble with the shadows, and hair details.
Is there some better method of creating a hairstyle like that of the female dancer, rather than drawing each colour area as a separate path?

Also, though the shadows look fine to me in inkscape, opening the svg in a browser or image viewer seems to ruin them. Is this being caused by the blur effect?
The svg is here http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25419424/working%20images/Ballet_couple_latest.svg if you want to see it. The top of the ballerina's costume is a transparent construction, designed to be invisible to the audience during the performance, but the fabric is a bit lighter than her skin, so in smaller versions of the image I think it looks like a highlight area.

The dancers will eventually be on a stage, with a dark backdrop, and spot light shining on them, as part of a learning exercise titled "Create a dramatic promotional Poster or advertising illustration" I chose to create a promotional poster for The ballet and used photos by Johan Persson as references.

One thing that I've stuggled with, trying to learn Inkscape, and at the same time, trying to learn how to be an artist, is how much detail to include in smaller sized drawings. I find myself zooming in and drawing often exquisite details, only to find them not even visible at 100% zoom. Or if visible, they create entirely the wrong effect. What I struggle with is "faking it" or being able to draw something that works at the small size, that doesn't necessarily work at a larger size.

I'm not sure what size your finished drawing will be? But at this size, I don't think the hair can handle any more detail. So I think the bottom line, is to draw it how it looks best, at the finished size. Even though it might look weird if you zoom in, or maybe not even like hair. If it looks like hair at the finished size, then you've done it. So for example, in case I'm rambling (time for bed!) you might not need to draw a bunch of tiny closed paths (or shapes) for the hair. You might get by with several short strokes of the various hair colors, in this case.

Actually I think the hair looks pretty good! It looks like it just needs a better balance of what's blurred and not blurred. Since you mentioned a "poster" I wonder though if the finished size will be bigger? Maybe you could provide a screenshot at the finished size 100% of just the hair. Maybe you could do away with many shapes, and use different width strokes instead?

The ability to display SVG images is apparently all over the place among various image viewers and/or browsers. The way I understand it, the problem is with the viewers, not being able to handle this Inkscape feature or that (or this or that SVG element). If the project is for a website, I still think the best format would be PNG, at least for a few more years. For purposes of just viewing your work as it progresses, you can use Inkscape's native viewer, known as InkView. So you can right click on the thumbnail, and choose Open With > Inkview. There the image should be displayed as you see it in Inkscape.

At first I was not quite sure what was it all about, following the topic title and looking mostly on hair at the Image. But after reading brynn`s post and after opening .svg I could understand why are you struggling with this one.

It looks to me like you tried to trace exact shapes, shadows, highlights and most unfortunately colors from the photo. In some cases, like shadows on his tights, it looks wonderful but in some others it leads to struggle. Keep it simple and don`t try to pick all of the colors from the reference photo since there must be some overlapings of colors which then might trick the color picker. By keeping it simple, I meant usage of not more than 3 colors to "explain" shapes - shade / color / shine. It also could be applied to the whole scene and make perception of the depth much easier.

Also, she`s leaning forward very deeply and her costume is almost invisible. I would add some pieces of costume, just to avoid naked appearance and to define her posture.

And hair should be treated in the same manner. That way you would make your living easier ,) and it would most probably look better. I tried to make some changes on hair (in order to show what I have on mind) but then... where were you to introduce me with all of these shapes on her head? ,)) You are working on illustration, at it does not necessarily mean realistic photo tracing.

Instead of too many text....
(hope you wouldn`t mind)


p.s.
Maybe you could reduce number of nodes, since angled shapes are bit difficult for shading, blurring etc.

Oh, I didn't notice the SVG that you provided, yesterday. That's a very ambitious project! I can't see the source image though, because you must have linked it to the file, instead of embedded.

It looks incredible when I zoom in, so I think you may be struggling somewhat, with the same thing I mentioned in my last reply. Now that I see what the 100% size is, I think you could use just a few larger shapes of color in the hair, and then use several strokes, perhaps of different width (and of course color), instead of all the closed path shapes. But that said, I think the woman's hair looks pretty darn good.

I think after you add a little more shadow to the woman's chest area, the difference between skin and costume will be more apparent. And I do think the chest area needs a little more shadow, both for definition there and for overall depth for the pose. As far as looking like a highlight, rather than part of the costume, I wonder if you put more of a border around the edges of the costume, to better define it? Not so much that it looks out of place, but just a very, VERY thin stroke (and maybe even partially transparent). Because there normally would be a very thin shadow at the edge of the costume. Oh ok, I see that you're already using a stroke. So maybe just a little darker color? But as I said, I can't see the reference, so it's hard to know what to suggest.

Also, I wonder if you changed the color of the "transparent" costume a little? The current color nearly matches the skin color in other places. And I know that's the whole idea in making the costume. But it seems a little too pink for the illustration. I wonder if you took the skin color and moved it a little more toward either the white end of the L slider, or the gray end of the H slider (on HSL tab of Fill/Stroke). Or what about actually making it partialy transparent?

Just some ideas -- I haven't actually tried any of them

Meastral, your examples really helped, and I can see what you mean.
Yes, I was trying to follow the photo as closely as possible with regard to colouring, I had already extended the leafy portions of the female dancers costume because I felt she looked much too naked in the photo. I don't have a reference that shows much of the lower portion of the female dancer's costume, so I abandoned the idea of trying to add more of it in. I will try overlapping shapes and adjusting transparency to get more variation and blending in the hair, maybe that will help make it look more natural. I'm having trouble trying to imply the way the hair twists over on itself in the dancers hairstyle. Also, I think darkening the upper portion of the female's costume looked better, even though it isn't meant to be visible at all. I didn't care for much of the colour scheme either, but because I needed to depict the actual performance, I didn't feel I could alter the colours much. Of course this is just an exercise and there is not really anyone but me to please, so maybe I can get by with changing it more than I dared to do at first. Brynn : I'm not sure what the finished sizes are supposed to be, one is A4, and one is supposed to be Marquee sized, but I'm not sure what the measurements on that one are. There is quite a bit of text to be included, a summary of the performance schedule, a Tag line,and such. Yes, I do have trouble trying to guess how things are actually going to look at finished sizes once things are printed, or converted to a fixed size or raster image.

Thank you both for your comments, and taking the time to try and help me with this.
I will review all your suggestions carefully and try to implement some of them after the holidays.
I think once I have the background added and the spot light is created and placed, I will have to redo all the shadows anyway, so maybe I should do that first.