GR#097 - Musclecat - Feline Anatomy

[9_6]

I've been looking through old stuff and 5 years ago I was like


So now I am like

[Sharm]

Panthor got big!  This has definite improvement all around.  The pure black looks a bit jarring to me, there's something weird going on at the base of his tail and you need to refine some of those brushstrokes to get rid of things like wavy lines, stray single pixels and squares, but overall it's looking fantastic!

[Facet]

Much better structurally and also with the staging, great improvement.

The rendering and colours look pretty strange though; the original has a much better sense of volume and of glossy fur. The underside of the torso should surely be darker, your ramp is all pretty low constrast and over-saturated then jumps to black and the tail is a rainbow

Also, that cat is swole to the point of anatomical diagram definition which highlights the kind of humanoid-looking shoulder; feline anatomy ref. here.     

[9_6]

The original has its clusters smoothened out with midtones to death, that's how I used to work.
I don't do that anymore, I'll use as few colors as I can get away with.
Maybe 6 isn't enough this time.

Isn't that how a cat shoulder looks if the muscles swell up disproportional?
I've looked at refs (which are HARD to find for whatever reason) and if that mess of fibers and muscles blew up, it would look round like that, wouldn't it?
Fun fact: This is the exact same problem I had with the original too. No one could tell me how exactly a muscular cat would look like.

[Facet]

He doesn't look over-muscular for a big cat mostly, just shrink-wrapped. I think you might be confusing the bis/tris or muscles of the neck with the comparatively smaller deltoids; there's a nice, labelled diagram on wikipedia here

Also I don't think you need to add more colours necessarily, just define your large volumes better like you did in the old one and weight your values more towards the low end, bar the highlights .  

[9_6]

Alright, full-force grayscale mechanical volumes boring mode activated.
Here's what I get out of the cat and it's a goddamn mess.
I've been using this ref in which things look a lot less clean so that might explain things.

I really want to get the anatomy 100% correct here.

[Facet]

Gah, stop replying and responding so promptly, I gotta go sleep /joke

Ah, I haven't the foggiest idea what's going on in that ref. I'm no cat anatomist but marked in green above are the delts, and I'm not sure where your largest, bulbous muscle directly above the tricep is coming from. The muscles of the neck seem to take on a much larger roll, and by extension size, than in us bipeds.

Now's a good time to darken up that mid-range too

[9_6]

Well I think everything should be in place now,


The neck was too short and I suppose the ribs have no business showing through all that.

[Facet]

Awesome, We're getting into pretty anal territory now but it's definitely interesting; to me at least

I actually dug up a much better ref; a proper big cat and it looks like you might be missing one of the heads of the triceps ( top 'f') but everything else looks pretty much in place though the deltoids are still a bit oversized for my money.

Edit - Quick value example.

[9_6]

Would it be terrible if I went with that?

[Facet]

Massive improvement imo

I still think you might be missing one of the triceps (look at the 'v' dividing the three heads in the flayed lioness ref.) Lots of potential to play with colours and fur rendering etc. if you wanted, looks great.

[jams0988]

I'm not sure which one's better, honestly. The newest one might be the most realistic (I don't know, since I don't know cat anatomy!), but the first one has more character and looks more believable to me. He looks like a hell cat straight out of a Castlevania game or something. The first one looks much scarier, especially in the face. You should add the wrinkles on his nose to the new version, methinks. It was a great effect you had going on.

Or you could just call the piece finished. Both versions are really good, and I'm sure it was a lot of practice for you, regardless of which one is superior. It's a tough call for me right now, though.

[9_6]

[jams0988]

Yeah, this one's looking pretty cool, even though it doesn't look like you did much besides adding that sweet shading effect.
Purple one still has the best face/neck for me, though.

Also, the way his head is positioned now, hiding more of his leg, it makes it a little harder to tell how his front left leg is bending. Takes away from his pose a little, I think. Then again, in the old one you had that weird tangent that was making it look like his leg was growing out of his face. Maybe you should try adding a little space between his head and his back leg? Even if it's just a few pixels where his leg bends, I think it might make a big difference.

[9_6]

I do not see what the deal about the face is since I barely changed anything besides making it look less flat.
Making it look flat for some unquantified gain is not going to happen.

[jams0988]

Edit: Comment redacted. Came off as a bit more hostile than I intended. Sorry, mate!

Anyway, the main problem I had with the face before was that you got rid of the wrinkles on the nose. You've actually kind of brought them back again, thanks to the new shading effect you've added. I think he's looking pretty good.