Lion

[HauntedArt]

Hello everybody. I'm sort of new here. I was on here maybe a year ago or something, before everything crashed. And since the return I've been lurking around a bit.

Here's a lion I made. Dunno what more to do with it so I'm considering it sort of finished. 14 colors with the transparency counted.


And here is the reference I used.
http://www.betheladventure.co.uk/pictures/lion%20II.JPG
No tracing. And I tried to stray a bit from it too... I don't want to become more dependent on references than I already am.

Enjoy... or crit the hell out of it if you want to. 

edit:
Newest version:

[David]

I would flesh out and possibly add some of that desaturated brown to the ears to differentiate them from the mane; at the moment, the ear sort of combines with the hair to make it look like it's in a roll. Adding some hair coming down from behind the ear could help alleviate this oddity as well. I'm using rather big words for no reason. Everything else I like quite a lot.

[Mega10]

for all the nice colors you have, the aa is really nonexistant overall. The snout looks especially good, the whole piece does, it's just jaggy as hell. I'd go back and organize my lights and darks and beef up the anti-aliasing to really complete this, as well as make the lines and edges a little smoother

Did a small edit on the left ear and eye...



Also i kicked out this desaturated brown color on the face 'cause it was so close in value to its' neighbor, also he was lazy and needed to get a job.

[Mirre]

I really like this. Especially the nose looks awesome and very three-dimensional. I do think that the gray on the forehead is a bit too gray. Make it something closer to the brown, because now it draws all the attention to it instead of blending in with the picture.

[HauntedArt]

Thanks for the comments people, and especially your edit Mega10. It helped a lot, especially with the ear. 

So here is a new version:


Changed the desaturated brown on the forehead with a lighter more saturated one. Tried to make the ear pop a bit more out by making the mane around it darker. I'll think I'm gonna make the other ear more visible too. It wasn't that visible on the ref so that's why I didn't draw it in here, but I think it would make more sense if it is there anyway. I also tried to make it a bit less flat by making the "beard" part of the mane darker on the left side. It looked awfully flat in the first version.

And you're right about this being jaggy as hell Mega10. I pretty much suck at aa so I guess this will be some good pratice. And by the great old ones, I need it!

I'm not sure if I want to keep the dithered stuff I made on the forehead though. I wanted it to be kind of textured but I don't think in that way. More in a furry way.

[Gunne]

yes, it is clearly better than the first version, about the forehead it does look like fur, but I think it needs more contrast

[HauntedArt]

New version.

Added the other ear. It may still need some more work though.
I tried a different dithering style on the forehead now too. It may have turned out just noisy but I think it looks a bit better, and at least a bit more furry.
It keeps getting darker though, but that may be just good too as now it seems I went quite overboard with the highlights on the first version.
I don't know how I can add much more contrast to it now though. The colors go almost all the way from pure white to black at least on the central parts...