Dave's Digitals

Thanks, Charlotte. Haven't fooled with the mountains just yet, still trying to get some veggie-brushes worked out. Will probably just knock them down and around some and see where it goes. ... And yep, request for more structures has been made and seconded.

Was thinking I might try adding a main structure in/about the mountain in the front/center. As long as it doesn't turn out to be a whole mall/outlet, with parking.

Just wanted to stop in and say hey to everyone. Hope you all have been doing well. ... I happened to log in yesterday to get caught up some, but had to leave right out when the vet's office called back. I had gotten a call at work from the wife not an hour after getting in the office, that my male pup 'Kito' had got hurt due to the neighbor's dogs coming over and he must have slipped in the wet grass while running along the fence-lines with his two sisters. ... Though he's hurting pretty bad right now, at least it turned out to be no broken bones or torn ACL like his older sister a couple years ago. So unless he gets worse for some reason, with a little R&R he should be back to sorts in a week or two.

Though we had a pretty mild winter here, that didn't stop the work-load from building up to crazy levels. That, plus my Division Chief has been pulling me into just about every departmental function we've had. Conventions, seminars, site reviews and basically anything that might resemble a meeting! So between work and stuff here at home, I just haven't had much free time, or desire. - I did have a guy in my office the other morning and after seeing the dream-catcher my wife had made me for my office last year, asked if I could re-work up a logo for him, incorporating a dream-catcher into it. Told him I hadn't been doing any artwork as of late, but that I might see if I can kick myself a little this weekend and maybe fool around with it some. If I do, I'll post something.

After spending a load of time this weekend working outside in this heat, I took a few hours of free time tonight to work on a few things. ... Pulled out an image my wife has been bugging me about, and did some touching up on it.



Then just did some quick doodles...

She's right to bug you about that picture - it deserves to be properly finished! I really like how the spots on her neck "mixes" with the spots on the cat's neck, and the softness of the dark cat's fur pattern. I like her face too, with that raised eyebrow and the mouth looks like she just said something instead of just being a generic mouth. I'm thinking maybe the eye whites are a tad too white at the moment and maybe the green in the surroundings would reflect some in the eyes, but then again pushing them back too much will remove some of her expression...

Thanks, Charlotte. I believe I actually dimmed them once before a while back, but I couldn't seem to get them to look right. ... I actually worked the eyes on the lower, right cat yesterday, because his were too bright and too yellow. But I will definitely revisit her eyes again. Maybe I just tried to dim them too much last time?

Thanks again.

Hey Dave!
I can't see too much of how you rendered the eyes here but something I tried out some time back that I thought worked reasonably well:






I darkened the white of the eyes to a mid-tone grey and then picked out one side of the pupil with pure white to give them a little intensity. A little of the skin tone reflected in the white helps too I think.
Perhaps something to try?

Thanks, Atto. Might have to give that a try. - I actually recalled a method I saw a while back that I wanted to try, but it took me about 20 minutes to remember how it worked. Not sure if there's a name for it, but it's using a '50% gray filled layer'? ... I know the shortcut is holding Shift/Command+N, and setting mode to soft-light. Then just using Black/White to paint in highlights or shadows. (Can't recall where I watched the video, but believe it was YouTube? The guy used this method to put some highlights and shadows on a male body builder. It was pretty cool, and I like how it worked. I'm sure I will try this some more as well. Nice way to add-in light/shadow and on it's own layer and then just add if you like the way it looks.

Hopefully this looks better? I didn't want to knock them back too much. I tried it a little darker, but wasn't really liking them too dark. ... Thanks again! You might have to look at them side=by-side to actually see the difference.



Oh, and here's the eyes up close. I was also working on doing eyes better at the time, so probably over-worked them some. Hope this screenshot comes out ok.

He he! These are actually worked up a lot more than I thought (and a lot better than mine were). I would suggest knocking back the opacity of the strong white highlight a little to see the iris and pupil showing through a little but other than that I'm gonna leave it to you - you're obviously working at a level of detail I have never tried.

Thanks Atto, no worries. Suggestions always welcome.

Had am idea pop in my head yesterday, so quickly roughed in a sketch before bed last night. ... A girl, sitting on a split-rail fence, with a guitar. Instead of playing, I originally thought maybe she would just be day-dreaming or going through the song in her head. But then thought maybe she should be playing and singing??? Now, I'm not sure which I like better? ... The angle of the fence is not show correct, but I just threw it in for reference. I envisioned it more at an angle.

I think the eyes look better now - the cornea is usually closer to the skin colour than one expects The highlight looks a bit strange in the close up (what kind of light would give long rectangualr reflections in the jungle?) but I think they still work when zoomed out.

For the girl with the guitar I rather like the idea of capturing a "singing face", myself The day dreamer will probably have a more neutral expression.