I'm not sure exactly what Planplan meant by face. I suppose if you gave the armor a more chiseled look you could express gem "faces" a bit more easily. It might make portraying transparency easier as well. An armor with a monster face would also fit the dark-knight theme quite well too though, I think.

A raw ruby is... raw ^^ But to make the stone look beautiful, you have to cut it. Give the stone the faceted aspect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby Pictures are better than words ^^

Changed some stuff. Danny

Planplan, Wow, I can actually what a real set of armor fashioned from raw ruby would look like. Sweet!

That is awesome, blob. I wish I could draw... I have good imagination, but not the skill to share it... I can imagine that faceted ruby platemail right now... Pity I can't draw... It looks so cool... :(

I'm in the same boat. :(

Well... Train then ! Observe the world around you a lot ( that s the most important ) , train your hand, copy some photos of people to get used with the proportions and attitudes... You can do it ! Dont lose courage if it doesnt looks good at first. You have to draw a bit everyday if you want to see any changes.

You're certainly right about that. And artistic skills atropy quite quickly if you don't practice, as I've found out. While I used to have the patience to put together some pretty good still lifes, I'm back at stick figures again nowadays.