CGAN Zodiac - Sagittarius - WIPs

Sagittarius (November 22 - Decemeber 21)

The zodiac challenge will aim to run for the entire zodiac year and work with the timescale of each zodiac sign. This is a 'just for fun' challenge, but you will have a lovely set of horoscope images if you choose to take part. Kazky will be the main moderator for these challenges so contact her if you have questions or issues.

We will be sticking to the western zodiac, apologies to other zodiacs
Research each sign and depict it however you interpret it.

Deadline: December 21st
Final entries thread: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/current-...-final-entries#12846

Rules in brief:

• All challenge entries must be your own work.
• You should post at least two WIP images that are clearly different from your final entry and each other.
• Your final entry should contain your image (inserted so it shows up full size) and at least two links to your WIP posts on the forum.
• No chatter in the finals thread – if you have questions, post them in the WIP thread or PM an admin.
• Feedback is allowed & encouraged together with the voting and in the WIP thread.
• Deadline is given in UK time (midnight GMT) with a grace period of 5 minutes for getting the post sorted.
• Each member may cast one vote.
• No cheating! Admins may decide to disqualify an entry that does not adhere to the above rules.

Some quick scribbles...





I made a start on this last week but progress was slowed and punctuated by some hardware problems but I'm now back at it and trying to correct all those proportion errors.

good start val! Hope you won't have any hardware problems again.
The light in the heaven is a nice idea - think this would work really good with the direction of the sagittarius

Some more work from the last couple of days...





I made the male body a bit bigger to help the proportions (even though it cuts off the bow. May recrop to change that later) and then spent far too long on hands. I was using some obvious reference for the male hands and muscles while trying to do the female from imagination. And that didn't work well! So I then found some separate refs for the woman's hands (and dress) but after repainting them they looked way better than the man's hands so I had to go back and redo those. It's been quite a struggle trying to get everything the same quality and style, and I think there's work still to be done there!

I'm still not sure if the man's arm is too short or foreshortened wrongly so I'll leave it and look at it with fresh eyes after the weekend. Oh and it needs an arrow, doesn't it?

Val that's coming along amazing, really lovin the idea for this! I should really participate in this as it is my sign! I am just trying to find time to manage if I do, time is running out tho! Your design seriously reminded me of a cover of a romance novel, I so wanted the horse to be fabio, and the girl looking all sexy with both staring into the sunset!

For a couple critics, the mans chest seems too tall in comparison with the bottom of him, the same with the girl. I think a mans torso is roughly half the size? So both characters need to be stretched from the waste down I think. Have you tried to use a portrait canvas and make it taller? The square frame might make it hard to get the whole bow in there too, and you can show more of the bottom of the cliff on the left and also add to the cliff edge.

*I just found this pic, might help you, but I think I was wrong about the anatomy then *

Nice beginning indeed, Valence. I don't think there's a problem with their torsos as both characters have bent legs, though I'd suggest possibly enlarging the man's head. The woman is smaller and liklier to have a smaller head AND further away yet his head seems smaller.

The main issue though, is the horse anatomy.... Not sure how to put it other than that those front legs look way wrong to me...

Charlotte is right Valence. Horses rarely have their front legs bent unless they are off the ground. If in contact with the ground, bent, he is badly crippled and going down fast. Perhaps one leg held up and the other straight "a heroic pose".
I hesitate to suggest a rearing pose as it would mean the horse's body more upright meaning you would have to change more...Angle of the man's body and the lady.. to get it to read right.
A nice start though and definitely more than I will be able to get done.

Thanks to everyone. You've all mentioned the things that I was thinking about so I feel comfortable with all those possible changes.

Micro: that's a fantastic ref. I wish I'd found that at the start of the month. I was kind of going for a Khal Drogo/Daenerys mood so the fantasy romance sounds good.

Charlotte: Yes, I've been fretting about relative sizes of heads/bodies. It's hard enough with normal anatomy but made-up fictional bodies mess with my head. It's one of the reasons why I always struggle with dragons.
I actually thought that the back horsey legs were the worst but, now that I focus on them, the front ones do need some extra work.

Hobby: I know that you know horses better than me so your advice is much appreciated. Looking back I did have one of those legs straighter in the scribbly sketch and it seems to have bent more and more without me realising. I think if I straighten that again and leave the bent one resting on a bit of raised ground or a rock then it might look a little more balanced and less crippled.
I shall try out a few of these variations tomorrow. Thanks again.