C.O.W. #202. The Mating Ritual - Wips Thread

[GoldenSerpent]

Si_Swe: I like the concept and the colors look nice to me, I think the tan stomach looks pretty good, maybe try adding a bit more pink to it? I don't think the colors need to be particularly flashy since they are attracting each-other by sound and smell instead of sight. The only thing that bothers me right now is how the horizon is slanted.

retter: I like the staring contest idea, it might look cool if you gave it a lot of eyes to stare with instead of just two.

Jabberwock xeno: I agree with jsn you should post your wips so we can try to give you better advice, maybe even some paint overs as far as programs I pretty much exclusively use photoshop, I almost always use preset brushes, the hard round and a flattened hard airbrush for most things. I draw in almost all of the texture, occasionally I'll find a texture I like and make a custom brush from it, but most of the time I find using a texture from something else to look too unnatural so I end up using it only for a base and doing a lot of drawing and smudging over it or I just paint the texture myself. The smudge tool can come in handy for creating fast textures, for example a using a splatter shaped brush on maybe something like 70% strength to smudge things around can help quickly make a fur texture, I'm actually using that technique on my current piece.


Here's my update, I felt like going back to the technique of black and white drawing and adding color on top of it, now I've just started to overlay the colors. I also intend to go into the black and white layers and change them into colored layers with the Hue/Saturation tool to see if I can making things a bit more vibrant.

[emerging]

looking good serpent..
here is my progress so far. I am going with either a motion rattling penis or orangy red glow penis. Still going to add some texture and ease it off in some areas

[Zeitwolf]

@Golden Serpent: crazy colours, I like the blue underbelly!

@emerging: how is your creature eating? the statement about genetic diversity is also important I think. Sexual reproduction mainly exists because of diversity. Else we'd do it like plants or aphids and just clone ourselves... on the contrary your execution is without question excellent... (I wish I could execute my ideas as nice as you do. But studying nature science for four years leaves me with expertise in thinking scientifically, not in drawing...)

here's my sketch. and my palette...

[retter]

GoldenSerpent - Thanks for the advice!

I added a few more eyes to my original design and couldn't seem to get it to look right so I kept playing around with shapes and forms and ended up with this. I'm going to go ahead and keep it for the final design after modifying it to make a male and female version (perhaps only giving the female multiple eyes to make it hard for the male to court her).

[Zeitwolf]

there's terribly lot of space and they aren't even facing each other... but on I go...

[Jabberwock xeno]

Si_Swe: I like the concept and the colors look nice to me, I think the tan stomach looks pretty good, maybe try adding a bit more pink to it? I don't think the colors need to be particularly flashy since they are attracting each-other by sound and smell instead of sight. The only thing that bothers me right now is how the horizon is slanted.

retter: I like the staring contest idea, it might look cool if you gave it a lot of eyes to stare with instead of just two.

Jabberwock xeno: I agree with jsn you should post your wips so we can try to give you better advice, maybe even some paint overs as far as programs I pretty much exclusively use photoshop, I almost always use preset brushes, the hard round and a flattened hard airbrush for most things. I draw in almost all of the texture, occasionally I'll find a texture I like and make a custom brush from it, but most of the time I find using a texture from something else to look too unnatural so I end up using it only for a base and doing a lot of drawing and smudging over it or I just paint the texture myself. The smudge tool can come in handy for creating fast textures, for example a using a splatter shaped brush on maybe something like 70% strength to smudge things around can help quickly make a fur texture, I'm actually using that technique on my current piece.


Here's my update, I felt like going back to the technique of black and white drawing and adding color on top of it, now I've just started to overlay the colors. I also intend to go into the black and white layers and change them into colored layers with the Hue/Saturation tool to see if I can making things a bit more vibrant.

Well, i've been trying a new style, but a slightly older piece should give you a better example:
Attachment 1297806122

I only starter-ed to clean up and do my best attempt with shading on the armored plates near the head, the rest of it is sketches on paper.

[Lege1]

Emerging: Feeling like your work is under rated....just wanted to say I think it's looking great. The texture effort is really pulling the work together and the concept is very cool as well as humorous.

[Si_Swe]

GoldenSerpent - Thanks you're right the horizon line was crooked. I'm sort of almost in the process of fixing that. We'll see if I can pull it together.
I like the colours going on, but I feel like a really slight transition for some of the colours would really help. EDIT: nope, still super crooked... dammit.

emerging - Lookin' killer, man. The scales flatten right near the front of the male. Out of curiousity is the texture 100% painted or is it a combo of texture overlay and painting? In terms of where to take the penis: Why not try both and see which you like better? Then maybe try them at the same time? Have you ever read Oryx and Crake by Margret Atwood? The glowing penis concept always makes me think of the Crakers.

retter - Excellent expression. Love the personality. Remember, we're going to need to be able to see the actual staring contest going on.

Zeitwolf - Nice design. What's the ritual going to be?

Here's a bit more work on mine...

[emerging]

@Golden Serpent: crazy colours, I like the blue underbelly!

@emerging: how is your creature eating? the statement about genetic diversity is also important I think. Sexual reproduction mainly exists because of diversity. Else we'd do it like plants or aphids and just clone ourselves... on the contrary your execution is without question excellent... (I wish I could execute my ideas as nice as you do. But studying nature science for four years leaves me with expertise in thinking scientifically, not in drawing...)

here's my sketch. and my palette...

Hey thanks for feedback.. In my earlier post I have explained my inspiration. If you want to look at it from scientific approach, angler fish is pretty much my inspiration because that is exactly how it functions. In terms of eating, that aspect is not important in this case so I decided to paint the creature in an angle where you don't really see the mouth which is right underneath the head of the female.

[emerging]

@si_swe yeah man it's a combination of a texture photo map with painting on top. I've done it quite a bit before and then at work we did a lot of that too so it's kind of a part of my style at this point. I am starting to think I will go with a glowing penis. That way i can add some warmer highlights and really bring the focal point out as well as fix the flatness of the male head. Thanks for your advice. BTW i like the tubular structures on your creatures. Your linework has improved quite a bit over the last few months! keep on it!

@Lege1 thanks man.. It is still not done yet and my stupid puppy chewed on the wire again which i have to fix today again so i can finish my thing on time haha

[jsn]

Lookin great everyone!

Adding colour! Think I will lose the outline!
What do you think?

[retter]

Si Swe Thanks! Yeah, I had it in the back of my mind the whole time that I'd need to show them in a staring contest but the creature looked so good from a frontal perspective.

Here's a mock-up of how I think I'll present my finished piece, what do you think? Is it too busy?

[GoldenSerpent]

retter: nice update, I like this design a lot better. EDIT: Ah was creating my post while you posted The mock-up looks good, you might want to make the female taller than the males so that we can see her face over the tops of their heads. I like the expression on the male creature he looks so confused as to where he should be looking.

emerging: I really like the texture around their back and legs, it seems a little too strong around their faces though.

Si_Swe: I was looking at the female thinking something about it's pose looked a little uncomfortable, how about if you enlarged it's stomach and made it look more like it is leisurely sitting on the water lily leaf. Sort of like this:

I also think adding some green reflected light on her toes/belly might look nice.

jsn: I'm glad you're going to lose the outline, I think that will make it look much better, also maybe add some sharper edges to your highlights and shadows as they are looking fairly soft overall.

Update: no more black and white, I decided to get rid of the mushroom since they where starting to be a bit distracting, I might add something back in on that corner though. Something about the male's coloration still seems a bit off, maybe it's the yellow. The next things I will be tackling are the male's noes and the female's hind legs.

[Zeitwolf]

@Si_Swe: my ritual is a ssssecret... XD, srsly the small (male) will be using his braintenna head to hypnotize the large (female), for that he will need the space between them...
The depth of space in your's is nice, the water looks credible. Only I wonder if something that large wouldn't break the water surface with so small feet. Pond skaters for example have thousands of tiny hairs on their feet that help with keeping the surface tension.

@emerging: I asked about the eating out of interest. I should have figured the mouth could be like the jaw of the spermwhale under the females head.

@jsn: I'm actually a fan of outlines, when they are all over a picture. If you want to lose them, get rid of them in the whole depiction. Looking forward to your saliva rendering.

@retter: the relicts of the extra eyes on the female are my favourite

@GoldenSerpent: there were shrooms in your pic? *scrolls up* Didn't notice

[jsn]

Jabberwock xeno, howz your creature artwork coming along?

Everyone, not long now!

[Si_Swe]

GoldenSerpent - Thanks for the paint-over, that helped a lot. I was actually in the process off adding those green highlights when I checked in on the thread and saw that you had suggested that, so, cool! You're right, the bigger stomach looks better and makes way more sense, I ended up using the idea.

emerging - Thanks a lot! It's always really nice to hear one is improving, especially from talented artists. I looked back at my first entry back in January 2010 (The Stinky Swamp Devil), and I'd like to think I've come a ways from there for sure.

Retter - Love the expressions. I agree about making the female a bit taller so we can see her whole face on the 3/4ths view. Keep it going!

Zeitwolf - I figured that the suction cup areas of the feet are actually hollow, they function as another set of tubes like on here back and she skitters around like a hovercraft, with the same gas emitting from the feet. It's a little ridiculous, but hey, I'm all about ridiculous.

jabberwock xeno - Okay so, the first thing I get when I look at your piece is that I don't see the brief for this week at all. Second I see that you don't have a complete creature designed. Just the head and neck. We need to see at least 3/4ths of the creature to accept the entry.

The first thing you'll want to do once you have those problems fixed, is lay the image down on a medium ground; that is, make the actual drawing a multiply layer, and place a medium grey layer beneath it. Then work on top of all of that with a hard round. The medium grey will allow you to easily work in both highlights and shadows to establish forms. Look at references for snakes and turtles for this guy, to get an idea of the kind of forms you're dealing with. After you've got that down, start adding colour with layers over top of that. Does that help at all, or do you need something more or less advanced?

[Si_Swe]

20 minutes till deadline. Make sure you get your entries in!

[Si_Swe]

Poll is up! Nice round everyone who participated. Although, this actually sets the record for fewest entries in a COW round...