C.O.W. #291. Kappa - Voting!

[Si_Swe]

Round 291 - Voting!

Topic: Kappa

Deadline for Voting: March 26th, 2013

Round Requirements:
- The creature should have webbed hands and feet, a carapace/shell and a beak.
- The creature should have an indentation in the top of its head.
- The creature should reside primarily in fresh water.

Note: Voting for oneself is prohibited. Doing so will nullify your vote and it will be subtracted from your total.

[scorge]

Artist: scorge

Concept: Kappa
I'm assuming since the story has already been told, I'll be leaving out a description for this one. Long live the COW!

[spiralout]

No water.. oh well, here goes. Hope it's accepted!

[Chai]

Cool challenge !

[Anthis]

Artist: Anthis

Concept: Kappa

The mythical kappa. This particular one is in an excellent mood, having just removed a poor victims' soul ball.

[Si_Swe]

I have put the poll up. The deadline for voting will be extended until the 26th to -hopefully- allow for delays due to technical issues. I apologize for the technical difficulties of the last while, hopefully CA.org will be all up running properly soon.

Dave, I apologize that your entry is not visible for the beginning of this poll, please attempt to repost your piece when you get the chance. Thank you for your patience.

[DefiledVisions]

Scorge - Can't see your picture man! will leave a comment when it's up


Spiralout - I really like the lighting and composition in this one. It's a challenging light and you nail it well. There are some things I would like to point out that I think could make your piece even better.

1. More warmth. There's a cool ambient green light covering the setting and you seem to have a cool daylight falling heavily above. Because the castshadow is so strong I assume there's some strong sunshine going on. Naturally this kind of light would create high-saturated hues where the lit part of the skin meets the shadow part of the skin.

2. Shadows. To enhance the composition and the perspective of the painting you can work more with the planes facing downards. Make these planes into shadow planes and we will have a stronger feeling of looking up towards something. Also, note that I have made the saturation much stronger in the shadows. They'll end up look muddy if I don't.

3. Bouncelight. You have some nice green tones going on in the shadows, and some nice warm browns bouncing in from the tree. Naturally we don't see much detail so it's good that you're keeping it subtle. You can play around a bit more with it to bring out form.

4. Edge of the strong shadow. I feel the light bends over the form a bit funny. The light also lacks a lot of saturation. As I mentioned in point 1 - This is where saturation is strongest.

5. Specular lights. In amphibian skin light is reflected with intense speculars. Often the form is shaped by very limited but strong highlights. Look up frogs skin and salamander skin to get an understanding of how the light plays. Also note to intense color surrounding the highlight.

Overall it's a great piece. Keep it up this way and you'll get stronger with every piece man! good job




---------



Chai - Fun design on your kappa! Feels like you could have spent some more time on cleaning up the lines and working out the form. Although, it works as it is right now. I like the colors you have going on, they work well together.

One thing that specifically comes to mind is the "depth" of your creature. Its presence in space is a bit off.. It feels like a flat but 3-dimensional object if you get my meaning. You need to give the creature a good shadow. With the help of cast shadows you will make us understand the placement of the flat planes (feet, underside of belly, underside of head etc.) You'll be able to give it a solid presence in space. The shadow you have now is confusing because they way you have designed things, the head is behind the front-limb closest to us, but the way the drool falls, it appears to be in front. We need a shadow to make up our mind of where things are placed. Of course I can explain this for myself but understanding the head as turning towards me, but the way you painted the shadow doesn't give this away.

Quick summary:
Lack of form makes your creature appear flat in space. Learn to use form to your advantage and things will fall into place! Form is a result of the relation between light and shadow. Understand how they behave together and you will understand form. Especially casting shadows in a convincing way creates the illusion of form.




--------




Anthis - Strong piece! I really like the movement of the kappa. There's one detail that's a bit off for me and that's the big muscle on the right side (our left) of his head. There's a huge lump going from the cheek connecting to an area between the collar-bone and the deltoid. This "lump" doesn't exist in the anatomy on his opposite side.

Also, you have a strong lighting so use shadows to your advantage. Give him a cast-shadow underneath him and make some the shadows in his body stronger. The strongest shadow right now is just underneath his arm, and I can't really explain why it's there. The light would make the arm's cast-shadow fall over his thigh and not the chest.

Hope this helps!




------


Sorry if I'm harsh with my feedback guys, but I really want you to be the best you can! keep it up! I will wait to vote until Scorge's piece shows up.

[warburton]

Defiledvisions - thats cool as fuck that you would go out of your way to give everyone such indepth crits man, i salute you sir.

[scorge]

I think I fixed it. Thanks Simon!
Nice one DV. Couldn't have said it better myself! Feel free to go to town on mine as well please.

[Anthis]

Voted Scorge. Solid creature, good folklore vibe, really fitting! I think we both could have spent some more time rendering though You added something interesting behind the (his) right forearm, but I can't make out what it is. The part with the two horns, it also looks like its translucent and there are gills below. That correct?

Great effort, Defiledvisions! Thanks for the critique. As for the points on my piece, the lump is supposed to be part of the somewhat saggy throat. Seems that along the way I lost track of the shape, and somehow I was blind to that. Thanks for the paintover! still working on this one.

[Chai]

Chai - Fun design on your kappa! Feels like you could have spent some more time on cleaning up the lines and working out the form. Although, it works as it is right now. I like the colors you have going on, they work well together.

One thing that specifically comes to mind is the "depth" of your creature. Its presence in space is a bit off.. It feels like a flat but 3-dimensional object if you get my meaning. You need to give the creature a good shadow. With the help of cast shadows you will make us understand the placement of the flat planes (feet, underside of belly, underside of head etc.) You'll be able to give it a solid presence in space. The shadow you have now is confusing because they way you have designed things, the head is behind the front-limb closest to us, but the way the drool falls, it appears to be in front. We need a shadow to make up our mind of where things are placed. Of course I can explain this for myself but understanding the head as turning towards me, but the way you painted the shadow doesn't give this away.

Quick summary:
Lack of form makes your creature appear flat in space. Learn to use form to your advantage and things will fall into place! Form is a result of the relation between light and shadow. Understand how they behave together and you will understand form. Especially casting shadows in a convincing way creates the illusion of form.

Hey mate, first of all thanks a lot for taking the time to carefully criticize and even do a paintover on my piece !

Ya definitely ran out of time to clean this one, but I guess it got the point across.

The flatness bothered me a lot, and finally realize I needed to push the self-shadows farther thanks !
I aimed for a softer drop-shadow with falloff, but definitely see now how I should have used it more to my advantage (e.g. darker shadows around hand on the floor, missing tail shadow )

However there is one thing that confuse me in your paintover.
The direction of the drop shadow suggests an overhead light, whereas the shading on the creature & highlights convey more of a diagonal light from front/top/left.
I built a quick 3d model to illustrate it



Again, your post is pure gold, and the thing I hope for the most from these challenges.
You sir are a legend !

[EricaZann]

Hard choice here. Really strong pieces Scorge and Anthis. Ultimately voted Scorge.

Anthis: great piece, very dynamic, nice inclusion of the "soul ball" lol. ...if it had been a bit more polished I would have given you the win.
Scorge: great piece, love the colors, lighting, and meticulous design; very creative. ...kinda wish it was less dinosaur-ish.
Spiralout: interesting idea, good execution, but the composition hides so much of your creature. ...feels like I only got 40% of the whole.
Really like the "flow" in the bark, would have liked to have seen a comp that reflected element in all areas (water, creature and wood).
Chai: interesting start. ...assuming that isn't a finished piece. Follow DV's advice, good crit for areas that need attention.

Nice Job everyone, keep it up. =)

[DefiledVisions]

Warburton, thank you kindly! glad to hear it was appreciated.

Anthis, yeah I understand. Happens to me as well! Keep on working it man!

Scorge, you humble me haha. I'll try to make some time tomorrow and write something up for you too! There are some things to be said for yours as well

[spiralout]

DefiledVisions, thanks so much for taking the time to criticise my piece and improve it in depth! First crit I get on these forums and I was really happy to see one so thorough Never be sorry for being too harsh, the more you break my balls the happier i will be
EricZaan thank you aswell for your crit! I realised the water thing too late, and right now im in England without a tablet. Maybe when I get back il do something about it

[DefiledVisions]

Chai - Sorry! I didn't reply to you because I didn't see your post yesterday. You're very right. The lighting on the overpaint contradicts the shadows. Good of you to notice
I just drew in a cast shadow and didn't spend much time on sculpting the form to match the shadow. Sorry for the confusion
And wow! creating basic sculpts and lighting them seems to be a great way of figuring out how to render form. Use that to analyze how you can improve your form next time!

Spiralout - Haha I don't want to have a repuation as 'the ball-breaker' .. /joke I get what you mean. I appreciate honest and up-front feedback myself so that's what I try to give others. I'm glad it helped you.
I noticed your piece is very dark on some of the screens I've viewed it on. The shadowy part is hardly distinguishable on the school computer I'm at. At my laptop at home I see the values clearly though. Might want to check into how your screen is calibrated. Could also be that the screen I'm at now sucks too much (it does, can't display gradients properly).

[Rob Powell]

Nice work guys! Wasn't able to make the deadline cuz life got in the way, but the poll is up and I'm still alive! Not that I'd win anyways, especially with both scorge and anthis in the running as well...last time I participated with both of them it didn't turn out well for me....haha

Anyways voted for Scorge!

I'd write some crits, but I doubt I'll be able to point anything out that DV hasn't already mentioned with his awesome paint-overs!!

Anyways here's my Kappa, more or less finished...

[DefiledVisions]

In the end I voted for Scorge, with Anthis as a close follow-up. I felt Anthis captured the personality and portrayal of Kappa really well but in the end Scorge's piece was the strongest over-all. Also, sorry for not being able to give you feedback man. I've been too busy, sitting down and writing something together hasn't been possible. I'll try to give some feedback for you next round you enter!

Rob Powell, nice work!