Over the Moon

[Pizza Tom]

Wanted to make something fun for my 2 year old, and he loves the moon, so this seemed the logical choice.



This is my first attempt at two lightsources (or chromatic shadows, or whatever you call it), so help me tear this apart. Not terribly sure about the entire palette, actually. I'm all for reusing colors, but I'm worried the cow and moon share too much. Thoughts?

[Facet]

Logic: irrefutable. Fun: yes

You might be over-thinking the palette; I wouldn't have known specifically that there was a dual lightsource in mind because it's a bit of a strange situation and there's a not a whole lot of shadow anywhere. There's plenty of scope to play around with that though and I just wanted to example a few other things because, as an illustration, I think it might read better simplified out a bit and locked to a more of a leaping arc (I just forgot to add back the cow boobs, does make for a nice line though )



In the edit I also kept contrast & detail to our intrepid bovine's face, tried to give her some kind of emote, and by the same line of thinking: tooned up the moon with (not sure if it works) a cow-shaped shadow down there for a bit of relation.

[Pizza Tom]

Thanks, Facet! You basically addressed all the things I was trying to do and just couldn't get there. I think I got caught up in being realistic a bit too much, which is especially silly considering it's for a small child. 

So, here's my attempt at incorporating all your crits:


It's been a bit difficult trying to nail the glow effect from the moon, but I'm satisfied I've at least got the colors right. I made another version with some dithering to try and soften/expand it a bit, but I'm not convinced it's working for this pic.


Looking at it again, I might tone down the beef (teehee) on her back legs some, to try and capture that nice arc on your edit. Maybe not worth it with the udder blocking it, but I guess I'll try it and see. Also working more on the face, it's not nearly as expressive as yours.

One question about your edit: are the blue-white patches on the body meant as shading, or just color variation?

Thanks much!

[Facet]

Ah, Great!

My patches were just meant as quick contrast balance/mottling, you could go to town with something more fancy.

Beefy cows, yes! I guess they don't do elegant easily. I think you can take a lot of liberties anatomically, to suit purpose, as long as it's black and white with udders . The dithered glow looks rather nice and storybook to me, brightness could be toned down a bit if it's not the focal point, but you did mention a love of moon specifically, and not of cows! Some kind of darker gradient (from bottom perhaps) might be nice for depth in the background.

[Pizza Tom]

Some kind of darker gradient (from bottom perhaps) might be nice for depth in the background.

My thoughts exactly!


I might be going a bit overboard with the spirals here, haha. I'm pretty satisfied with how the dithering worked out, normally when I try it turns everything into a tangled mess. I'm about ready to call this done, unless there's any issues I haven't spotted. I'll probably take out those spirals in the end... :P

[Facet]

Looking at it now, the moon could do with some breathing room at the bottom; more like the top, could try lengthening the legs a bit too.

Otherwise yes! I quite like the swirlies; maybe one more dark one nearer the top for an odd (interesting) number?

[Pizza Tom]

Shifted the whole image upward 4 pixels and fiddled with the glow. I'm leaving the legs as they are, mostly because I'm a sucker for cutesy stubby legs. 

So now it's finished! I just need to figure out the best way to go about printing this and frame it. Hooray!