Alicornutopia

So every type of elemental in the Cosel world has something called a halo. This is more or less a full-body special effect related to their element. Fire gets flames; Shadow is always at least a little in shadow; Earth is covered in plants; Lightning sparks all the time; Ice is frosted over; Water is always a little wet. They can dial these halos up until they pretty much obscure the elemental's body completely, or dial them down until they're hardly visible at all, or anywhere in between. (Except for some types, like Wood or Sand or Glass, whose 'halo' is just the fact that their body is made of the relevant substance. But they might be able to alter their level of surface detail for a similar effect.)

This makes it somewhat difficult to make good icons for them. As discussed in the announcements thread, I'm having a hard time with it because I'm not a good enough artist by my own standards, but I'm hardly about to complain if somebody from the forums steps up to give it a shot, even if I don't ultimately end up using what you produce.

They have wings, too, but I'm mostly ignoring those because I can just pretend they're out of frame most of the time and also a lot of the kinds of wings are invisible. (If you want a clearer look at how I accomplished Shadow's halo, and my crappy attempt at painting his wing shadows, voila.)

Here is an imgur gallery of pictures of the facecast for the Fire that will be Cosel's Joker alt.

Here is the picture that inspired me to dream up Cosel in the first place. I don't quite imagine that Fire halos or Fire wings look exactly like that - in particular, the halo tends to have more uniform coverage than that; little flames everywhere, or big flames everywhere, instead of a concentrated handful - but it might be a good starting point.

So who feels like drawing fire all over those pictures? XD

Here is my attempt.
http://imgur.com/4l8sVhH

That is not flames. It's interesting! But it's definitely not flames. XD

Ooh, it does remind me, though - I've already done one picture and it looked like so:


(the original, for reference)

I'm not completely happy with it, but it might provide further inspiration. (It was particularly easy to do because there was already all those fiery effects going on in the smoke/steam in the picture, so all I had to do was recolour some things and then smudge on some halfhearted flames. When I tried to make the flames less halfhearted, though, it didn't work very well and I got frustrated and gave up. XD)

Here is a more flamey version :P
http://imgur.com/6868yY6
I might try this again when I am not so tired :)

Ooh, huh. Also interesting! And definitely flamey. I've been envisioning the flames as more transparent/realistic, but I'm intrigued by what you've got there. I like the kind of smoke trails coming up from his shoulders.

Today I made an attempt at photo editing some fire onto a Fire, but my power went out as I was approaching satisfied with it and now I am discouraged. I will probably try again later.

Aww man, it's so frustrating when that happens! <33333 I hope that you find the retrying process enjoyable and that it does not kersplode again.

If you still would like these done in a couple weeks I'll see about editing some; school will be out by then!

I will continue to want these until I have them, and I'm definitely not going to have them all done in two weeks. XD

Okay! It looks like something I'll enjoy! Not sure if I'll be any good at it, but I'll give it my best shot! =)