C.O.W. #278. Bull, Ring-Tailed Shortsnout - WIPs Thread

[alexson]

Great work everyone! I like the diversity of types of creatures.
I just started laying in some color on mine.

[Abrazuno]

Lots of fun stuff being tossed around. I was thinking the same thing before (about the tail meteor panda), but of the ideas I sketched out this seemed the most plausible. I'm going with the idea that the female and young of the species have much shorter tails and longer snouts than the bulls since the tail is predominately for intimidation against other bulls and predators. Still laying down colors, once i'm happy with that i'll start to work on the textures. The foreground is going to be a geyser pool that steams nutrients to nourish the mountain mussels which this guy loves to munch on.

[Coool Brain]

wow coool_brain, your image is really impressive, I have to ask what medium/brush do you use to have it so smoothly blended, my grayscale roughs are generally rough and messy.

Thanks and I use Photoshop - Soft Round brush. That's all

So, what do you guys think?

[Epicraft]

I think I may be out of my league, but that won't stop me from trying my best anyway, hope you guys like it and feel free to give any opinions on what you think I should do to improve it

[Daniel Hurd]

Did some line work- added a little touch of an environment. I figured this critter lived in some kind of grassy savannah. As the bull/male of the group he is responsible for finding the highest vantage point and watching over the group. This ensures he will spot any potential predators before they get too close.

[AllyAlbon]

Looking good, great stuff so far Abrazuno and Coool dude - really looking forward to seeing yours finished.

[Arbinn]

Looking good everyone. Here's my late start.

[MasterTroglodyte]

wip.

Comment Please.

Attachment 1623187

Not having done a lot of COW, I don't know how you'll take this... but I think there's an issue with balance on your beast. If you do a horizontal flip you'll see that your BRTS is leaning; not only that, but I can't imagine a creature with such a long head/torso not tipping over. Still I stopped to look because your creature is not w/o its charms and amiability.

[Coool Brain]

Not having done a lot of COW, I don't know how you'll take this... but I think there's an issue with balance on your beast. If you do a horizontal flip you'll see that your BRTS is leaning; not only that, but I can't imagine a creature with such a long head/torso not tipping over. Still I stopped to look because your creature is not w/o its charms and amiability.

Yeah right. I figured that its little off balance when I started the sketch. I tried to balance by pushing the creatures front-right leg (which is on the other side, away from the viewer) forward, but I didn't like the pose.
So... I patted myself and said, "Let it be. Move on dude. It's not a big issue"

I am not denying you suggestion. It's just I think it's okay. No hard feeling ah!

Thanks for the comments. Really appreciate.

By the way I couldn't figure out what BRTS is.

[humboldt squid]

I decided to focus on the "short nose" rather than the "bull" part of the description. I haven't totally decided how to position the tail yet unfortunately. I also haven't painted fur before, so this is a bit of a learning experience!

[Snipefalcon2]

This would of been my 1st entry in C.O.W., but I will sadly run out of time... Hope you like the WIP anyway

[marcoferrigno]

@ humbodlt squid - tree pug! You should do a head version where its snarling aswell.

[marcoferrigno]

Ok so theres a bit of an issue with the contrast and shadows on my design, its been painted on three differnt computers so along the way its gotten a bit messed up.

heres a dark version:

and a lighter version:

So which one do you guys prefer?

[Coool Brain]

Ok so theres a bit of an issue with the contrast and shadows on my design, its been painted on three differnt computers so along the way its gotten a bit messed up.

So which one do you guys prefer?

So, you used 3 different monitors and asking opinion from a guy using the 4th monitor?

Don't worry so much about the value range as long as you can see reasonable(highly subjective) amount of details in both shadows and highlights(i mean highlights not speculars).
Also, your value range may not work for all the monitors because we don't follow any universal standards
For example, in my monitor I have issues with you dark values in both the dark and light pieces. They are too dark that I can not see any details (like what I would see if a fill light exists), but may be its looking fine on your monitor.
Hope I made some sense there.

By the way your design is a Killer. Way to go...

My final suggestion is, try to brighten up the dark areas. Add a fill/bounce light, if you know what I mean

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks Coool_brain, this is pretty much what I suspected, on the other monitors Ive used the colours did not seem to vary too much but viewing the concept on the university monitor today was quite worrying as it looked so much darker.

Ive tried lightening up the concept as a whole so hopefully it will help the viewer to see a little more detail this time.

[skodone]

its much better now....
on my laptop i couldnt even see the marks on its tail on the brighter version...

[elephant´s stroke]

Scorge, solid line work and designs! is not easy to depict three members of a genre and make them look consistent in terms of perspective, anatomy and proportions.

cheers.

[humboldt squid]

Marcofarringo: This is kind of a personal choice, but I'd add some specular highlights. When I try to figure out what kind of texture it would have, it feels somewhere between "wet and gross" and "chitinous" - speculars would really help sell that texture.

[Arbinn]

Began working on the colors.

marcoferrigno I prefer the lighter one. Don't worry about it too much. Looks great. Working on weird display settings is something I've been really careful about after royally screwing up several works I did with my laptop a year ago. It's really frustrating to have something awesome on your own computer, then have a look at it on another comp and see that the values are messed up.

EDIT. That being said, I haven't checked the display settings on my new computer. Brrr... Calibrize! --->

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks Arbinn, Im considering getting a Spyder to sort out the problem once and for all. your colour palette looks nice, the pruple tints complement the tan colours.

[Sjuu]

@basti0n .. Sijuu? haha

Look for yourself, feeling like this should be the coloring.
The creature I have in mind is a tapir with a short snout, leaning towards the warthog.
Heavy claws for digging and defending, powerfull strong back legs for long distances.
The nose is up high so it wont get any sand in its nose once he starts foraging but still can smell the earth.
C&C welcome!

[Si_Swe]

Sketched a couple of thumbs. Won't actually have time to do anything on these, but I figured I'd throw something down.

[Sjuu]

@basti0n .. Sijuu? haha

Look for yourself, feeling like this should be the coloring.
The creature I have in mind is a tapir with a short snout, leaning towards the warthog.
Heavy claws for digging and defending, powerfull strong back legs for long distances.
The nose is up high so it wont get any sand in its nose once he starts foraging but still can smell the earth.
C&C welcome!

[ricardops]

Hi everyone, my name is Ricardo Padierne Silvera, im studying fine arts on Seville, Spain, id like to post some creature works here and i hope to learn many thing with you. So (and sorry for my bad english) here is my creature character, its inspired on dangerous and hot places, like volcanos or something like that, the history about the beast is very simple, they live there, are carnivore and they eat something small, like gnomos (on fire).

I repeat, sorry for my bad english i want to learn more and more, please feedback something, thank you.

[alexson]

Great work everyone! Here is my final, I kinda ran out of time towards the end, wish I had maybe chosen a more dynamic pose etc. but oh well.

[humboldt squid]

I'm not really sure how to render the fur. All the tutorials I've read or watched are for longer, wolf-ish fur, not super short and dense fur like pugs have

[Snipefalcon2]

Here is my progress so far for my entry I'm waaayyy too slow XD

[MasterTroglodyte]

Yeah right. I figured that its little off balance when I started the sketch. I tried to balance by pushing the creatures front-right leg (which is on the other side, away from the viewer) forward, but I didn't like the pose.
So... I patted myself and said, "Let it be. Move on dude. It's not a big issue"

I am not denying you suggestion. It's just I think it's okay. No hard feeling ah!

Thanks for the comments. Really appreciate.

By the way I couldn't figure out what BRTS is.

BRTS = Bull, Ring-Tailed Shortsnout

[Sjuu]

Here is my finalish.. just want some comment on color and shades before I commit.
It is a Okapi like creature leaning towards the warthog, it will forage and use its mouth to dig through the earth, his nose is up so he can still sniff the earth while digging.
C&C very much welcome!

[marcoferrigno]

@ Si-Swe nice take on a ring tail, my first thought was not to have a ring within the tail when I saw the biref but it makes for really odd and unusual silhouettes.

@ Ricardo, Welcome. nice creature design, nice graphic way of depicting musculature. theres little areas that hint at detail which looks quite interesting but overall the body is too shadowed to show this detail, which is good in some cases but with the brief putting emphasis on both the front and rear end of the creature it makes the viewer anxious to know what the tails structure is like.