The Kat and the Fiddle (FINISHED)

[HughSpectrum]

Finished image:


I'll still take critique in mind for future works, though I don't know if I'll end up editing this any more.  I went ahead and submitted to Pixel Joint's gallery.

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This was going to be for the Bandimals challenge on Pixeljoint, but then I realized that it needed to be an entire band, and I wasn't willing to think of more than two instruments for this, but I still wanted to do this anyway so I went ahead and just made it a standard piece.

Reference #1
Future reference


I spent a decent amount of time getting the pose passable, and I imagine more time will be spent after critique.  Yeah, these are just guidelines, but it's probably the most important part, so I need to get this right.  Colors used for the guideline are temporary and mostly to separate limbs and the fiddle from the base for easier viewing.

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Got some critique from a friend.  Fixed the legs, and made the ears smaller (though probably too small, will make them slightly bigger in the next update.)

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Another quick update.

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Returning to the first WIP, but giving it the fix to the legs I had in WIP 2.

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Began blocking out colors using greyscale.  Forgot to begin adding a fancy jacket and shirt, but having cleaned up lines will make this easier anyway.  This isn't going to be how the he will be lit, just getting a 3D object.

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Alright, now the jacket & shirt come on, identifying him as a gentleman.

[ElementZero]

The first one was way better in my opinion. It had a really cute style because of the swooshy legs and the big ears. I really liked it 

[HughSpectrum]

As do I.  Maybe I was a bit hasty on accepting critique I already got?

[HughSpectrum]

Adding some face detail, shading based on light source (moon), though I need to move the kat to the right some more so that the moon is more at the side and not the back.  I also forgot to shade under his left ear before I uploaded.

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This is where things are beginning to look more interesting.  Been cleaning up a lot of the coloring, defining the shading and highlights more.  Next step will be to work on the fiddle itself, and soon working on the fur pattern and such.  *downloads a ref for that*

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From here on out I'll be working on this on the computer again, instead of UA Paint on Nintendo DS.  Converted to 16 color palette, fiddled with the fiddle some (lol), and now I think it's time to work on fur patterns and general fine detailing with the mouse.  The cow from WIP #3 makes a return as well.

EDIT: Oh, hey.  I think there's an optical illusion in my pic that makes the handle look curved.  I should really work on that next edit.

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Quick update, changed the shading around the ears and tried to make him look more like a kat.

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BAM.  Fur & tabby pattern!

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Started on a background but then erased because I felt I didn't have a good "pixel foundation", and because it was making the palette harder to decide (went with the moon color -> dull near-grey turquoise -> dull yellow -> dull blue (much like kat fur) -> brown (for fiddle) -> really dark purple.  The water isn't part of this ramp and I eventually intend to make the sky the dark purple in the end (right now I want to be able to edit the kat easily).

Oh, and the reason I say "kat" with a 'k' is something carried over from my GDR days when I was a kid.

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FINISHED.  I'm getting tired of working on this so I went ahead and submitted it to Pixel Joint.