AuthorTopic: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)  (Read 10355 times)

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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[WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

on: March 16, 2011, 03:22:19 pm
This is for the Weekly Challenge over at Pixel Joint. (Still very rough)



I tried to fit the bottom eyelashes into the frames of the glasses, but I think it looks too busy for such a small space... C&C please?
If I have time, I plan to animate the tail swishing back and forth. :)

Yes, I know her boobs are huge.

EDIT: Agh! I just realized her eye and hair coloring are exactly like Blair's from Soul Eater. Gotta change that.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2011, 04:06:57 pm by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #1 on: March 17, 2011, 05:00:39 am
Update:

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #2 on: March 17, 2011, 05:10:07 am
Has much less pop from the bg. Blue hair and blue bg blend too much now. If you could spare one more color for a brighter hair highlight it would help a lot, if you're married to the blue hair and bg. Not sure why she's topless . . .

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #3 on: March 17, 2011, 05:26:20 am
Do you have any specific palette suggestions? The color limit for the challenge is 13, so I'm maxed out...

Does she need a reason to be topless? I'm playing off the "sexy catgirl" anime cliche.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 05:33:49 am by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline Basketcase

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #4 on: March 17, 2011, 03:51:01 pm
White looks good for hair highlight with the colours you already have.
To do: ??? Cow made my lovely avatar.

Offline infinitegames

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #5 on: March 18, 2011, 08:01:49 pm
I like it, but if she's meant to be a grandmother, don't you think you should give her more wrinkles and make her hair grey? Not to mention how ridiculously perky her breasts look.

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #6 on: March 18, 2011, 08:40:45 pm
Grandmother?! whut

Palette sujjerstuns - no I don't. Just contrast and that which makes *POP*. It's a tiny portrait. Make it jump out at us. A little creative texturing in the bg would be great. BG seems to serve no purpose. Put it to work.

She needs AA on outer and some inner edges.

Could you get rid of the tense area between her and the left side? That strip of visible bg is distracting.

Offline Tourist

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #7 on: March 18, 2011, 08:50:01 pm
Good emphasis on the eyes and glasses, and I like the hairstyle of the newer image more than the first one.

Re-use the darkest hair color for the glasses in order to free up a color.  They are both close enough to black compared to the surrounding pixels to work as a single shade.  Strongly increasing the saturation on the mid-blue hair colors will separate the hair from the background. 

Maybe try widening the base of nose a bit.  I know anime style noses are supposed to be small, but I think a little bigger would be ok.  Like, 4 pixels of brown across and then another two on the left, one pixel higher.  With a bit of shadow like you already use you can suggest a triangular nose tip, reinforcing the cat face idea.

The base of the mouth is a bit horizontal.  This combined with the straight vertical of the nose highlight makes the nose/mouth combo out of alignment with the slight tilt of the head, I think.

The torso has quite a bit of form (boobs and collarbones) but the face is really rather flat.  It is inconsistent.  The edit below also swaps the hues of the pink and mid-brown (while keeping their approximate lightness) to make the face really pop, but it only emphasizes that the face is flat, so maybe ignore the hue swap.

Honestly, the boobs don't add anything.  You could crop it at the collar line and it would look just as good.

Edit:


Tourist

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #8 on: March 19, 2011, 12:45:10 pm
Tourist - Thanks a lot for the in-depth post! That was some really helpful feedback. :)

Mathias - Thanks. I'll try to do something cool with the background if I have time. AA is on the way, I was just laying out the shapes.

Update:

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #9 on: March 20, 2011, 07:41:44 pm
Done! :3

Offline Ixis

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #10 on: March 21, 2011, 10:03:46 pm
Incredibly cute, I really like the hair mate ;)

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #11 on: March 21, 2011, 11:01:41 pm
what does the mouth shape signify? Can you please enlighten me on the purpose of that?

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #12 on: March 22, 2011, 12:26:25 am
Dude. It's the cute cat mouth face. Come on. :3

Offline Jad

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #13 on: March 22, 2011, 08:26:56 am
the way it's shaded subtly as though it was a natural shape makes it look less like a stylized feature and more like a horrible misshaped mouth. That reminds me of a hairless vagina or a butt. ' D '

All in all her face is a bit like a mask right now, with eyes a bit higher up than they ought to be and a back-head that's smaller than it ought to be. ' 3 '

Is a bit strange. It's cute too. Nice pixel tech. It looks smooth and pleasant, especially the hair. I'll do an edit if I find the time
' _ '

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #14 on: March 22, 2011, 09:26:54 am
Dude. It's the cute cat mouth face. Come on. :3

Sorry, not coming. People don't have little butts on their faces. If that smile is meant to connote demureness, there are better ways to go about it.

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #15 on: March 22, 2011, 10:43:57 am
Thanks guys. :)

Jad, I don't understand your criticism of my "subtle shading" of the mouth. It seems like you're suggesting if I am to render an unrealistic mouth shape, I should make a bold dark line to signal "this not a real mouth; it's stylized!" But the entire image is extremely stylized! I don't see how rendering the mouth with less cohesive shading would strengthen the piece.

The eyes are heavily magnified by the glasses. Here's an image from google image search that illustrates the effect I'm going for: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/96077601_c999314868.jpg

I get the sense that you and Helm do not watch much if any anime. Am I wrong? The mouth is an allusion to a visual trope that's fairly specific to that medium. I wouldn't expect someone who's unfamiliar with it to understand it intuitively...

If that smile is meant to connote demureness, there are better ways to go about it.

It is meant to be more playful than demure. I'm not falling back on this mouth shape because it's easy, but rather because I want to utilize the visual language of anime.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2016, 11:59:00 pm by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #16 on: March 22, 2011, 11:04:14 am
What did you set out to do, artistically?

I've been witness to so much anime/manga culture and tropes you wouldn't believe it. I'm 27 on the internet.

I think 'catmouth' doesn't work with realistic rendering, yes. It makes the actual physics of it come much more into question than 'black line that clearly says 'this isn't a real mouth' as you suggest. Furthermore there are issues with piling on the anime signifiers that I've briefly touched on that are worth to consider. Usually it means 'I can't draw a real face/real emotion, so I'll use the manga shorthand conveniently in place by other, better artists'.



Just for the sake of discussion. How is this failing and your original succeeding? What does it connote that you can't capture without resorting to symbolizing?

You will not find any argument from me that cliches (what often people call 'tropes') convey information. You'll find argument to me about that information's value, however. As an artist, there's nothing you should fear more than cliche. Even subverting the most common tropes is cliche now.

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #17 on: March 22, 2011, 11:58:30 am
[Original message deleted, 5 years later out of embarrassment]

I just wanted to draw a sexy catgirl! It was a mistake to try to convince anyone there was some deeper artistic meaning. Really, I was just insecure about drawing anything sexual back then, so I felt like I had to make excuses. The justifications I gave really make me cringe now. :(
« Last Edit: July 18, 2016, 12:11:31 am by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #18 on: March 22, 2011, 12:20:26 pm
Honestly I like this better than I expected I would, but I still think the other version has more of an artistic impact:

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #19 on: March 22, 2011, 12:21:29 pm
Please don't agree with me on that cliches in of themselves do not offer information, as I didn't say any such thing. I think any artistic choice carries information. But not all information is equal, there's things that are simply not worth drawing.

You seem to be confused as to what you wanted to do: do you want to buck the trend of objectifying women in the 'catgirl' cliche, or do you want to enhance it? It seems to me there's nothing that'd buck the trend more than

Quote
making her interaction with the viewer feel much more awkward and strained

by making her more humanlike, yet still naked and obviously catgirly. It'd make the viewer think "...gosh, go put on some clothes!" instead of "mmm, sexy catgirl we meet again only we'll never meet in real life".

If you want to support the trend, then you'd need to make her even less human and realistically rendered, sorry.

What is seems to me is that what you are doing is commenting on a community through your art. The information inherent in this piece is *about the Pixel Joint challenge, and those that will enter in it*. In my opinion, there's nothing more vapid and useless than using art as a method to discuss with art peers and the 'scene'. Absolutely worthless, of no lasting value to anyone but select proponents of said scene, and even then, only insofar that you remain part of their scene. The cheapest art there is.

That's my challenge to you, to put your artistic skills into making art with a higher purpose than at least that,  not to "draw a realistic mouth if you dare".

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #20 on: March 22, 2011, 12:28:52 pm
Also worth considering is the psychosexual charge of the lighting you've chosen. In your pieces, the highlights are very large. This connotes (to me at least) that the person in the picture is either very oiled or that flash photography is used. Or possibly both. This is useful in making me think of professional porn, where they strive to light everything as much as possible and often lubricants give off these large, harsh speculars. This makes this image even more creepy in support of the trend we are discussing. The viewer sees this and he goes into fap mode mindset without being exactly sure why. Even that you hide the apex of the breast is more tantalizing than not.

If you want to buck the trend, you'd give her subdued speculars and more shadows, like a real person, in a real room. Then the viewer will think of intimacy even if they don't want to, and they'll be reminded this is not a real catgirl in their room purring on the side of their necks. This is a drawing of something distant, yet more real than the unreality of the entertainment they consume.


If you're trying to buck a trend by appearing to support it, I'm sorry to say to you that irony is usually misconstrued. The Colbert Report is funny and ironic, yet its also just plain ol' funny to a resolutely conservative audience that watches him sans irony. They think he's just doing some friendly ribbing while ultimately being on 'their side'.

This is art that might be trying to be 'friendly ribbing', but ends up on the other side.

As a final word consider this: After all this discussion and all the edits, I am still unclear, from the image, if you're in support of an objectifying cliche of female sexuality or not. Is this what you want to achieve?

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #21 on: March 22, 2011, 01:09:39 pm
[Deleted]

Your critique really hurt my feelings at the time, but you were obviously trying to help and I was just insecure about the subject matter. Live and learn. Sorry, Helm. <3
« Last Edit: July 18, 2016, 12:16:42 am by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline Jad

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #22 on: March 22, 2011, 01:17:01 pm
Thanks guys. :)

Jad, I don't understand your criticism of my "subtle shading" of the mouth. It seems like you're suggesting if I am to render an unrealistic mouth shape, I should make a bold dark line to signal "this not a real mouth; it's stylized!" But the entire image is extremely stylized! I don't see how rendering the mouth with less cohesive shading would strengthen the piece.

The eyes are heavily magnified by the glasses. Here's an image from google image search that illustrates the effect I'm going for: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/25/96077601_c999314868.jpg

I get the sense that you and Helm do not watch much if any anime. Am I wrong? The mouth is an allusion to a visual trope that's fairly specific to that medium. I wouldn't expect someone who's unfamiliar with it to understand it intuitively...

If that smile is meant to connote demureness, there are better ways to go about it.

It is not. And I am not falling back on this mouth shape because it's easy. The cliché is the message. Some may consider that meta, postmodern bullshit, but just the fact that I'm getting polarized reactions of "D'aww!" and "wtf vagina/butt-mouth" makes me feel like I've accomplished exactly what I set out to do artistically.

Nah, you got me just right. I think a bold line would work better. But it's my personal idea of how I wanna stylize things, so it's just feedback, not trying to point out 'objective' faults in the picture.

Also I watch nothing but anime, and I sadly almost draw nothing but anime too, so you didn't get it completely right there ' U ' I'm a big fan of the :3-mouth even, but when you reach a certain point of ... construction .. in the face, I think it stops working. Again, it's my personal idea of how I want things to be. ' 3 '

... I'll read through Helm's posts now and try to see why you're so agitated. ' 0 ' please don't be. In the end we're all just guys with opinions on the internet.

... But I'll read through it all before I comment further on it.

EDIT: I meant the whole style of the piece would have to be changed for a 3-mouth to look nice. ' 3 ' not that you'd slap in a big black 3-mouth in a piece that's rendered in a different way. That would look bad, indeed

EDIT2: well, when it comes to critique, Helm's administrator status doesn't really mean anything, you know. He's allowed to call your art worthless if he wants to.

It's not correct that he labeled you a sexist. He's questioned whether you are supporting or going against the sexualization and pet-ification of 'the woman' that a cat girl signifies. Not saying that you have done either.

Any mental associations to pornography are happening inside of Helm's head, and in this case he is the pervert. So don't read those kind of sentences as an attack towards you, he's just describing his experience watching and thinking about your image. In the end he's out to encourage you, but encourage you to do the stuff he wants to see. You don't have to agree. Especially not cause he's an administrator or anything. That doesn't count when it comes to feedback. It's the quality of the feedback itself, and that only, that counts. Not the administrational power of the poster.

' ___ ' am sorry to see you being so upset over this, but I can understand it too. Harsh two-post wall of text tends to do that. I both agree and disagree with helm on certain points, so I dunno.

I, personally just see art as self-fulfillment and masturbation, and would gladly draw naked cat girls if I wanted to, only for masturbational purposes, so I don't have any problem with what you're doing, although I like to draw women more empowered and less as sexualized pets.

But when I'm in that mood I like to draw such things too. So what the hell.

Edit3: short thing about stylization: when you render a 3-mouth with shading and such, it looks like a buttagina to me. When you render it boldly without shading, it reads instantly like a cat-mouth to me, and I can't even see the buttagina. So I'm very polarized about that sorta thing. But I think it's a good rule of thumb ' 3 '
« Last Edit: March 22, 2011, 01:32:55 pm by Jad »
' _ '

Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #23 on: March 22, 2011, 01:21:25 pm
EDIT: I meant the whole style of the piece would have to be changed for a 3-mouth to look nice. ' 3 ' not that you'd slap in a big black 3-mouth in a piece that's rendered in a different way. That would look bad, indeed
Ah! That makes a lot more sense now. Thanks for clarifying. :)

EDIT1: Thanks, Jad, for your thoughtful response. That really cheered me up. I'm satisfied with how the piece turned out for the PJ challenge, but moreover I was really proud of myself for just finishing in time. Not too long ago, a piece this size would have taken me weeks. I know that sounds ridiculous, but my perfectionism is pretty debilitating.... >_> I cranked this out in just a few hours over three days, so that was a bit of an ego boost. To hear an artist I respect call it worthless was a bit of a buzzkill.

I like to draw women more empowered than sexualized too! In fact I'm working on a 3D character model for the female protagonist of an action adventure game I'm developing. I only really started this piece as a fun distraction from staring at edges and vertices all day. The pixel pieces I've posted on Pixelation are only a small fraction of my body of work. If I've posted several WIPs of shiny-looking girls, it's because I want to learn female anatomy for character design. Playing with strong highlights helps me better understand volume. The video games industry is oversaturated with generic, ripped, stubbly men, and I want to make games that buck that trend.

Also, I've been adding rim lighting to my pixel arts because I think it looks cool, not cause I dig oily people.... >_>

EDIT2: Strangely, now that I think about it, I only really draw revealing poses in pixels. o_O I think since I'm paying such meticulous attention to detail, I feel like I should turn every pixel girl into anatomy-learning-crunch-fest.
« Last Edit: March 23, 2011, 05:39:14 am by tehwexxl0rz »

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #24 on: March 24, 2011, 09:48:24 am
Quote
I, personally just see art as self-fulfillment and masturbation, and would gladly draw naked cat girls if I wanted to, only for masturbational purposes, so I don't have any problem with what you're doing, although I like to draw women more empowered and less as sexualized pets.

I see no problem with art as masturbation either. I masturbate often, like most human beings. It's just a case of whether someone is trying to do that, or another thing, with his art. Since meta-concepts were brought up and are pertinent to this piece, I said I was confused as to what the piece is achieving. This is useful to the artist.

I didn't call your art worthless. I said that in the case of certain conditions that might or might not be met, I believe there is art that is not worth drawing. I know the distinction is thin and I can understand how my posts upset you. I am sorry about this.

But I didn't intend to attack you, nor do I think the gist of my posts is inflamatory. It's critique, personal observations, which you can take or leave. But please think of the other side of the coin: I spent a significant amount of time talking and editing your art. Would I be doing this to attack you? If not, what other possible reason would I have to do it than furthering your artistic desires and betterment?

Offline EvilEye

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #25 on: March 25, 2011, 06:07:58 am
I see no problem with art as masturbation either. I masturbate often, like most human beings.

 :o ??? :huh: :blind:

A sig-worthy quote if I ever saw one. How often is often me wonders.....

I liked the last version because of the pixel work on the hair. I think Helms edit of the mouth was respectable. The biggest flaw that stands out at me is the breasts are too high and too saggy.

Offline Ryumaru

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #26 on: March 25, 2011, 07:08:04 am
Honestly I like this better than I expected I would, but I still think the other version has more of an artistic impact:



This version is nice. I get the catmouth thing but the image has honestly been rendered to representationally for it to fit. Helm was definitely not out to attack you or your art, he just wants the community to improve and boldly gives his thoughts if its for the furtherment of the piece in question. Perhaps more clearly identify the intent of your piece beforehand, even write it down so you always know your first ideas, even if you change them. On a pixel level this is really nice and I've seen marked improvement in your work as you've been posting :]

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Hipster Catgirl (partial nudity)

Reply #27 on: March 25, 2011, 11:56:16 am
I can read my posts in the voice of a big jerk too, I honestly realize how the "you know what? fuck this" effect happens some times with how I critique. But think of the bad karma, if I've been involved in this critique community for I-don't-know-how-many-years with the intent of putting people down, surely I'd have been hit by a bus or something by now, or perhaps prostate cancer (masturbating often helps avoid the latter). Try to read my posts and think of an adorable black kitten typing them in to get where I'm coming from!