CGAN Sept. 2014 Challenge - The Wrath of Kat - WIP

SchizoWolf: I can't believe there's someone who hasn't heard of Wrath Of Khan. Shameful! But I'll forgive you considering the excellent progress of your picture. The helmet with ears is especially witty and works a treat.

AngieA: I'm impressed by texture in your image, it really gives it a fantastic mood that makes the character seem scary but also intriguing.


I've done a bit more work on mine. After fooling around and making a bit of a mess I realised I hadn't bothered to look at any lion reference. So I plundered my usual unimaginative source (the first page of Google Images. ahem) and made a bit of progress.
Now he looks more lionish but sadly has lost the expression I wanted and all pretence of getting some kind of Montalban likeness has long since evaporated.
And herein lies my problem with Furries: I can just about paint the animal. I can sort of paint the human. But I can't just get that credible combination of the two. It's a mystery to me.

I shall look again with new eyes next week and shall hopefully add some more detail to the hair/mane and try to make his skin look more like fur (I've found a brush in Android Sketchbook Pro that might do the trick although the plan to switch to tablet may be hindered by my fat fingers!)

Almost done!

Valence: Yeah I know sorry haha. I like your paint too. The only thing I can say is that he holds his sholders a bit high. Or maybe his neck is too short. The face is very cool.

AngieA: I looks like someone of the Island of Dr. Moreau , nice paint! But use some reference for the posing, a screenshot from a movie or whatever.

Thank you all for the kind comments.

AngieA I agree with Valence love the textures.
Valence Really like the way you are working with the idea keep it up.
SchizophreniaWolf Love the expression and the eyes are great

So I think that my Kat will be female and have made a start in that direction.
I've added a Duck gun ( Star Trek in style to my mind).
For the time being I am trying out a space type background but could go back to the much simpler background in the earlier sketch depending on what people say.

These are all really good ideas.

Schizo: The cartoony style is unique. I love the colour application too! But I would try to find a higher level of contrast between the colour of his fur and his clothes, especially around the chest area. Given that the original Khan had such an epic chest, I think it might look good if you gave the cat some pale patches there, or some other markings. The variety in the colours will add visual interest too

Valance: I like the heavy paint feel to this. It has a nice weight to it that I quite like. The faithfulness to the original Khan is nice to see too. Let's see a bit more!

Oak: A female take on the character is an interesting idea. Instead of a non-specific background, I might suggest something a little more identifiable as the bridge of a ship, or a sandy, storm ridden wilderness. Something to connect the character and the background together would be a better choice I think.

She's also going to have an epic cleavage, judging by the amount of flesh on show here!! I guess that's in keeping with the Khan character too! ha!

Domtopia wrote:
Schizo: The cartoony style is unique. I love the colour application too! But I would try to find a higher level of contrast between the colour of his fur and his clothes, especially around the chest area. Given that the original Khan had such an epic chest, I think it might look good if you gave the cat some pale patches there, or some other markings. The variety in the colours will add visual interest too

Domtopia: Nice comment, thx Domtopia! I'm going to work on that.

Valence wrote: Now he looks more lionish but sadly has lost the expression I wanted and all pretence of getting some kind of Montalban likeness has long since evaporated.
And herein lies my problem with Furries: I can just about paint the animal. I can sort of paint the human. But I can't just get that credible combination of the two. It's a mystery to me.

I think it's around the eyes that is losing it. If you bring back more of the eyes from the previous WIP it looks more Montalbahn like. Currently I think you pushed it too far to Lion and lost some of the Human.

Despite Painter an Photoshop conspiring against me to handle layers in a completely and utterly different way ( KHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!) I have begun adding colour. Still need to tidy it up alot.

Banj: I'm loving his Original Series style outfit. And the Hamlet pose is classic Khan.

Oaktree: I quite like the spacey background. And the shooting stars act as a nice compositional tool both describing a vanishing point in deep space and spotlighting the character. Can't wait to see what you do with the face.

Sadly mine has deteriorated further. Banj was right about the eyes. I think also the gap between the eyes is important. The likeness demands a really small gap between the brows but the lion face requires a fat nose and no eyebrows at all. It's an endless tug-of-war between anatomies.
Also Schizo was right about the shoulder, it looked OK during the human sketching but adding lion bits made it look somewhat deformed. Thankfully a quick cut and paste did the trick.
I added some fur in Sketchbook and the resulting effect was rather inconsistent, it looks great in some areas and yet others sadly do not. And of course once you take the image out of ArtRage you lose all the paint depth information so I'm now trying to finish it in Photoshop which will inevitably result in inconsistent texture. Also the hair/mane looks a bit of a mess and it all seems to have gone a bit too dark in places. I don't know why. I wonder if switching between software has changed the colour profile or maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Anyhoo I'll try to rescue it during the next session and call it quits whatever it looks like.

It’s good to see all the great but different ideas.
Valence: I think it’s looking good. This one has the Ricardo Montalban/Khan look. As this is a morph type character human-cat it seems to me that he can have eyebrows. I’ve tried to incorporate them in mine too.
Banj: The Jungle book Khan is looking great. Love the pose.
Oaktree: The female is a clever idea. Only issue at this time is the use of the gun in smooth cg and the rest of the painted effect. I assume you are going to make them match? Keep going she’s looking great.
SchizophreniaWolf: What can I say; love it and the cross movie concept, and he fits in with the other characters of the Enterpond crew.
AngieA: Nice, I hadn’t even thought of the Khan from the “Into the Darkness” movie. He’s looking good and I like the use of the movie poster type background.
Rorke: hopefully you didn’t get scared off. Looks like you and I were on the same mind track and I liked your pose.
Em and Charlotte where are yours, this is a new site and new comp? CherryGraphics sorry you bowed out too you have original ideas on other challenges.
Anyway had some time to work on mine so here is the latest WIP. (Crits are welcome)

Keep up the good work everyone. Thanks for all of the comments folks. Felling utterly confused at the moment but will keep at it for the time being.
Had a quick sketch at a desert environment just to see how it would go.