AuthorTopic: Female humanoid cat (finished)  (Read 6377 times)

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Female humanoid cat (finished)

on: July 19, 2012, 09:41:44 pm
It's a second cat I'm trying to do in my "space cats" series, this time female and in a bit more demanding pose.

My first work:
http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/71251.htm

My second attempt (progress):


Reference:


Any tips regarding my current lineart? I'm not happy with ears, but can't find a good reference for that. Also having problems with the shape of the back of the head. Hrm...kinda camouflage that with hair. Finally, not sure how much I should express breasts in lineart. Maybe I should concentrate on that later.

Tips and suggestions would be really cool.

Thanks!
« Last Edit: August 08, 2012, 08:40:45 am by Lachie Dazdarian »

Offline PypeBros

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Re: Female humanoid cat (lineart ATM)

Reply #1 on: July 20, 2012, 08:10:18 am
There's much of the "demanding pose" in the way shoulders are placed. In your current attempt, the shoulders are almost disappearing, which rather reminds me of a Mamma waiting for kids to clean their hands.

The other thing is in the orientation of the head and the "oblique" line defined by the eyes, while the head is slightly shifting towards the viewer. Again, none of this in your space cat.

Otherwise, the line art seems a good start. Maybe her left wrist should go slightly further into her elbow's angle.

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Female humanoid cat (lineart ATM)

Reply #2 on: July 22, 2012, 09:29:37 pm
Some progress, or not?



I hope this is going somewhere...

Offline Bissle

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #3 on: July 23, 2012, 01:04:43 am

The lineart is not bad, and not a bad palette either. The main thing is that the eyes are not aligned. Also, I'd personally advise against drawing in her spots at the lineart stage as it needs to be more properly defined with color. Since that one spot on her face is very prominent however, I can see how it would have been important to include. Up to you.

Once you started coloring, my main concern is the banding around her spots. If you are going to do anti-aliasing, don't have it completely border every contour--it's going to ultimately be visually unappealing. My edit was just me messing around and only really worked on the head, but definitely pursue more subtle anti-aliasing for the spots.



You're making progress for sure; keep it up. :)

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #4 on: July 24, 2012, 10:14:38 pm
These are great advises and edits, Bissle. Many thanks.

Adopting most of your ideas:



Continuing with the body...

This is fun!

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #5 on: July 28, 2012, 09:44:56 pm
Damn, wish had more time. But, progress!



Latest stage:



Happy with what I started and with what I got now. Maybe you CAN polish a turd. :P

Anyway, I know there are errors there so please help me not keep repeating them. Also, any ideas how to express the breasts more with color. I tried, but nothing seem to work.

Thanks for CC in advance!

Offline bengo

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #6 on: July 31, 2012, 08:47:16 am

Looking pretty decent, but I think there's a few major things that could be fixed:
• Not really specific to this, but you really shouldn't reference from pictures like that. It's okay to reference anatomical diagrams, or really good art, but not a mediocre vector piece with fairly poor stylizing. Always try your best to work from life/photos, grab some pictures of cats, and grab some reference of poses similar to what you want.
• The rules of drawing still apply, so remember to do some drawing studies of still life, of people, etc. This is just another general advice thing, and you may already do this but I figured I would throw it out there.
• It seems like you're thinking of things too two-dimensionally. You need to think about the form, lines are usually just an indication of either form, or a separation of two things i.e. negative/positive space. Your rendering/shading reflects what you're thinking about, which brings me to my next point....
• Think about where light is hitting, and how it affects the object. You're pillow-shading, and you're adding random speculars which make no sense. Fur wouldn't reflect like that, it's not that shiny, neither would a cotton/wool shirt. You need to think about shadows, and how the form turns away and towards the light.
• Her waist is a bit too skinny, her neck is a bit long, and her head is being cut off from her body. I've done some edits so you can see how I've attempted to correct these issues.

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #7 on: July 31, 2012, 08:03:08 pm
Wow! These were great suggestions, mostly via your edits. Very clever edits on several places. Good tip for the fur. Thanks! I was aware of the most things you mentioned, I really tried not to pillow shade and follow a set light source, but when you are a newbie and have so much info to deal with, you forget some important things while working on your pixel work. I guess it's a thing of practice when these key factors become a thing of nature, and not constant reminding.

New edit:


Compared to earlier rendition:


Hopefully I improved my creation, and I hope you don't mind me not adopting all your suggestions.

Anything else I can fix/improve or the latest version is best possible (at least for my skill level), without me having to overhaul the entire work?

Offline Grimsane

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #8 on: August 01, 2012, 05:09:35 pm
another piece has fallen victim to my pallete testing *dun dun darr!*



hope you don't mind my palette-thread-crashing :D

nice progression btw like how much it has evolved, not too keen on the magenta background but still, and the dithering works rather effective at implying fur

Offline Lachie Dazdarian

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Re: Female humanoid cat (WIP)

Reply #9 on: August 01, 2012, 09:53:12 pm
Thanks. I tried to implement some of your color ideas and add more dimension to face (more sparkling nose).

New version:



And I think I'm done with this. You can improve some work only to a certain extent. As I previously said, I think I outdid myself with this work and additional edits have more chance to reduce the quality than the opposite.

Let's hope better results will be achieved with the third space cat whose current status is - stage: lineart, phase: disaster. Oh, well. No one said it would be easy.