Character- Centaur

[Drewgilbert]

This is going to be cross-posted on the CG Talk forum, so I apologize for any crossover people seeing the same thread twice, and I apologize if I am breaking a rule by cross posting.

So I wanted to do a piece using approximately the same techniques I found in Adi Granov's wonderful tutorial found here (http://www.sofos.com/adi/tutorial.htm) so I drew up a centaur, because I'm looking for a gaming job, and I need to pad my portfolio with Sci Fi and/or fantasy work. I started with this sketch;

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur.jpg

Then on a lightbox, I traced it lightly;

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur-2.jpg

Then rendered it.

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur-3.jpg

Then colored it flatly after doubling the layers of the pencil, making the top layer a multiply at 50% transparancy. The other pencil layer was also multiply, come to think of it. That's the only way I would have gotten the color to come through.

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur-4.jpg

Then I put a watercolor wash in the background, made a layer over that set to screen, so I could color the wash any way I liked, then flattened the picture, and with the dodge tool set to highlight and about 35% opacity, I put highlights where I thought they would be appropriate. This is the completed image.

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur-5.jpg

In the future, I need to experiment with using the watercolors the way Adi does, as well as spend more time rendering the figure in pencil. There's far too much white space in the figure for my taste. I did this in about 8-10 hours. It's interesting that Adi uses a different technique now. I'm new to his work, and I far prefer this older technique to the newer work on his site. It must be more labor intensive than the way he does things now. Or maybe my taste is just skewed.

Anyway, I hope you all like it. Any helpful critiquing would be greatly appreciated.

Take care,

[nikia]

It's a nice concept, but I find it to be kind of flat looking. Is this a cartoon style you're going for? If not it would help to look into some horse anatomy. The horse part of your centaur is very flat. Try rounding the belly more, also more of a upward curve to the rump on the back. The top of the rump itself needs to be more rounded and the rear of the rump shorter, going down into the legs. Also, the thigh needs to be higher up. That's the (shaped curve at the top of the hind leg, in front. And thicken the hoofs up, they are too shallow.

[silverslash]

very cool, the final piece looks like it came along way. your time put in shows.

why the gray areas at the bottom?

[alkaline111]

heh reminds me of freedy got fingered!.... "LOOK AT MY HOOOVSS".. is cool stuff though:)

[pstraub]

good work Drew.

your pal Phil

[Drewgilbert]

Hi everyone, sorry for not getting back to this sooner. I've reworked the rendering some, changed the colors a bit as well as the background. I'm calling this finished, even though I feel it could be stronger.

Nikia, some of your crit was right on, though I'm not sure I agree with the shallowness of the hooves.

I found alot of people thought it looked really dark, and I noticed on a couple of other monitors that it really did, so I darkened my own monitor so I could come closer to what everyone else was getting.

http://www.drewgilbert.com/centaur/centaur-6.jpg

Hope everyone enjoys.