Dave's Digitals

Thanks Crank, I will take a look at it. ... Well, this morning I was going through some images, and decided to work on the Felines pic a little. Mostly just added some more color to the cat in front and did make a change to the panthers ears. I was trying to have them folder back, but never really liked the look I was getting. So have moved them to a more natural look. (I hope?) Also fixed her belly some. ... Anyway, here's a quite update on it.

As stated above, I was going through my images this morning and decided to try and finish up a few that have been overstepped by either my work, other projects, or simply life itself. And even sometimes when I just get in the creative mood and just want to create something new. ... So, here's 4 that I would really like to complete. Though that's not a promise any new ones might pop up before then.

So, a little while ago, I revisited the Feline piece to work on it some. But after just looking at it for a while, I started to not like the panther so much, especially after adding the lines and additional color to the lower left cat. - I'm finding it's overall darkness a bit bland, or just plain looking in relation to the others. And I'm not sure if it's more distracting because of this? ... So, I got an idea and decided to quickly rough sketch this in to check and see how it would work overall. So don't laugh at my fluffy lion, it was a 2 minute rough in just to check if it would work

Well my wife looked at my new lion idea and immediately told me she didn't like it. She said that she really liked the panther over the lion, but I thought maybe this was from seeing it there from the beginning?. I even explained my thoughts on it, and why I was looking at making the change. Not that I was against the panther, just that it seemed too different than the others. ... But she still stayed with liking the panther, and said she hoped I wouldn't change it.

About an hour later I got another idea, so I sat back down and worked it up for a bit, then showed her the results. She immediately smiled and said, now that I really like. ... Now if I can just make it work? I told her I would try to keep him more on the dark side as he's been, but that he may lighten some more as I try to work the details in.

I prefer the panther too. The dark silhouette in front of the midtone skin of the woman is much easier to read, especially as a thumbnail. The greater contrast emphasizes their relative positions and helps to show the progression of depth into the image.
It's always good to have a variety of edges in a picture, altering the contrast, colour and softness that separate objects and space. It makes a picture interesting to the eye and helps to move your gaze around and through the painting.

Cheers, Valence. Some very good advice and suggestions there. I'm actually liking it more now too, especially after working on it a bit more tonight. - Though I'm finding it easier to work on the body area, and struggling a little on the face/head area. Also felt the need to add some browns, tans and blues into the fur, and I think it's helping even more. (I was even a little worried to not give it a zebra look of just back & white) Hopefully you all agree. ... Thanks again

Dave, thats a massive improvement, I want to bury my hands in the panthers fur, the highlights and additional hues now give a much more realistic feel. I'm sorry to say I think your wife was right (don't you hate it when they do that!).

Thanks, Atto. And nope, I don't mind it at all. I'm always asking her to take peak at work after I've worked on it a bit, or just during breaks. If anything to put fresh eyes on it. ... She usually helps pick out any flaws that I might over look, which I find is easier to do, the longer I look at it.

As for the fur, yeah It's coming out better then I thought. But I also need to watch my highlights/values. I've noticed the front shoulder now looks flat after adding some highlight, and I actually think I need to revisit the entire front shoulder for lack of structure. Seems to blend right into it's side/rib-cage without any definition as to where the shoulder is supposed to be. Guess I was thinking too much about the fur design, and not structure.

But I'm a bit tired tonight, but hope to put some time in on it Friday evening. We have our annual snow dry run this Friday, so I have to be up at 2:00am to be at work by 3:30am. But then again, I will get off before noon, so should have some free time for artwork in evening.

Well, I sat down and did some tweaking on this, mostly changing some things that were bothering me. Like moving the eyes some, and working on that shoulder, as well as a few other things. Hope it's looking a little better now.

Nice work. I can't pin point it but the facial features look disproportionate and look out of perspective. Her left eye looks slightly bigger than her right eye. Hope this helps.