C.O.W. #229. Bouncy, Amphibious Rain-Dancer - VOTING!

[Si_Swe]

C.O.W. #229 Bouncy Amphibious Rain-Dancer_Voting!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROUND #229 VOTING

Topic: Bouncy, Amphibious Rain-Dancer


Deadline for the voting: Sept. 28th

Round Requirements (Read BEFORE Voting):
- The creature must be bouncy in an elastic or locomotive sense (or both)

- The creature must be visibly amphibious

- The creature must be depicted in the act of “rain-dancing” whatever that may be

[defecticon001]

Artist: defecticon001

Concept: Blue Bumper


The blue bumper is a frog-like creature that utilizes self mimicry as a defense, meaning the animal has one body part that mimics another to increase survival during an attack or helps predators appear innocuous. In this case, its backside looks to be the front with eye spots in place.

Inside the creature are pouches of blue luminescents which always float upward. When a storm moves in, the creature's sensitive antennas start glowing and cause the blue bumper to head in the direction of the nearest body of water. The problem here is it doesn't have frontal limbs and cannot direct itself so it leaps into the air haphazardly, often landing on its head, forcing the blue liminescents up to its transparent rear which results in a flash of blue light.

This "dance" is very common in the spring months but can also be seen through the summer on the east coast of North America.

[sepu]

Artist: sepu

Concept: tsu'raga
natives of regions where this rare creature exist know best that when tsu'raga comes out of its hiding holes to dance in first drops of the rain its skin is most poisonous. and if its poison is extracted with care there are many good uses for it.
local tribes fiercely protect their tsu'ragas(and knowledge about tsu'raga rain dance poison) so is still strange but meaningless for explorers who are lucky enough to catch a sight of its dance.

[RicoD]

Artist: RicoD

Concept: Sploop

Description:

When the sun shines, we'll shine together
Told you I'll be here forever
Said I'll always be a friend
Took an oath I'ma stick it out till the end
Now that it's raining more than ever
Know that we'll still have each other
You can stand under my umbrella
You can stand under my umbrella
(Ella ella eh eh eh)

(voice over)Look, what a rare sight! We see a never before captured moment of a very shy and rare being. This strange creature is as if two creatures merged into one, having lungs for breathing above water and gills for under water, 2 sets of eyes and 2 brains and 8 limbs. This creature has both male and female reproduction organs and can reproduce by itself.

The native humans have a fable about the origin of the Sploop in which it describes how a very shy land creature spends the days alone, pining for a mate, but too shy to approach one. Then, one day it decides it can't live like that anymore and decides to commit suicide by throwing itself in the river. As it's about to hit the water a water creature surfaces and they accidentally kiss. The water creature was also alone, also trying to commit suicide, by throwing itself on land. They found each other in their desperation. But they wouldn't be able to live in either world separately, so they searched for a way to be together no matter the consequences. They found it by merging together.

Whenever it rains it starts a mating dance (by itself) by surfacing and flopping about on the water surface. It secretes an oily residue from their skin pores, allowing it to float on water with its' paws. The rain makes the land part wet, while it shields the water part so it stays relatively dry. For a moment the surroundings are reversed, to better understand and appreciate the differing parts. Once it's at the pinnacle of happiness it produces offspring and dies, which is pretty similar to the married lives of the humans that live there.

http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s4/RicoD_PB/concept/creatures/COW229_RICOD_final.jpg

[marko markovic]

e..e...ee....
a litlle humor put on this round !
but like a gentelman look but don't touch!!!!

nice round all ya!!!good luck

[Daniel Hurd]

Artist: Daniel Hurd

Concept: Freshwater Yamatosaur
Native to the coastal swamps of a small chain of islands in the South Pacific.
Mainly a nocturnal predator of small shrimps and snails occasionally they surface during rainstorms clinging to small plants. They bounce and sway back and forth in the storm breeze catching rain droplets in their mouths.

It is thought they need the rain water to hatch their eggs which are contained in a mouth pouch. The larvae then hatch and live in the pouch for several days before being expelled into the open water.
1326763


ARTIST comments- I hope this qualifies, I felt as though a lot more could be done with the image,but over all it captured the essence. Thanks for looking! :)

[Infinitum]

Hope I made it on time. Well done everyone.

[Dranyer]

Artist: Dranyer

Concept: The Azure Flipping Frog
The azure flipping frog is typically found in small bodies of water in south america, it spends most of it's time underwater but during the rainy season it comes up on land where it hops and bounces erratically flipping around in the air, landing right side up and upside down with no real concern for how it ends up, and then returning to the water when the rain subsides. This bizarre "rain dance" has baffled observers for decades.

[albino-Z]

Artist: albino-Z

Concept: Step Devil
This microscopic iridescent critter, member of the drake family, never developed wings due to its obsession to climb and fall. Invisible to the naked eye, features an extended set of gills and unmatched dexterity that allows it to climb to the heights of the stratosphere by stepping on falling rain drops. When desired height is reached, it will free fall using its tail to steer and his gills as flaps. A living bullet with a rock-hard skull, lethal to young fish and invisible to larger predators, often self-implants his body a few millimeters under the skin of large fish, stowaway in search for new territory.

[Misplacedhippos]

Artist: Misplacedhippos

Concept: Jumepud
The Jumepud of Patagonia spends much of it's time underwater in ponds and swamps, using it's flexible legs and fins to swim. It comes to the surface in the rainy seasons, when it jumps and dances from puddle to puddle gorging itself on earthworms.

[ZenithDeLunaris]

Artist: ZenithDeLunaris

Concept: Green DropGulper
This little guy spends most of his life in the water but during rainstorms it comes on land to jump up and catch the raindrops. This peculiar behaviour seems to be because of compounds the rain picks up in the atmosphere that benefit the creature's growth.

[J-Sun]

Artist: J-Sun

Concept: Gog-Hen
This Bouncy Amphibious Rain-dancer loves to frolic whenever there is a downpour.
Hidden beneath the depths of muddy ponds most of the time, Gog-Hens spring to the
surface at the first sign of a drizzle, bouncing and catapulting themselves using their strong supple arms.

http://www.digitaljungle.com/cow/COW229_J-Sun.jpg

[foofoo]

Artist: foofoo

Concept: Redbacked Coral Salamander


These tiny fellas are able to inflate their tails, and when it's raining, they 'dance' by bouncing on their inflated tail...

1327097

[DanSchallock]

Artist: Daniel Schallock

Concept: Ka-Toi Water Dancer
The Ka-Toi are magical creatures who appear deep in the woods in the night to call the rain.

[Lege1]

Artist: Lege1

Concept: Chargabae

The Chargabae are a very, very ancient relative of the frog family dating back to when the world was far beyond primitive from what we know to be throughout what history tells us. Chargabae use their powerful legs and round abdomen to project themselves and then bounce at their landing. Their tale is used for swimming, balance, and ability to better calculate gliding direction when soaring through the air. You can see evolution taking its place as the Chargabae is slowly developing small arms which later on result into arms that they can make precision and safe landings with. The Chargabae are known for getting into a feeding frenzy when rain clouds are present and do what some consider a rain dance as they bounce around from place to place.

[Si_Swe]

Poll is up!

Cuts this week:
Marko Markovic - Reason: Creature is too humanoid, creature has accessories in a round in which we did not explicitly allow use of accessories (Rule 1a and 1d).
Infinitum - Reason: Creature is too humanoid, creature has accessories in a round in which we did not explicitly allow use of accessories (Rule 1a and 1d).

Close to Rejection:
Dan Schallock and sepu were both very borderline humanoid. I would recommend avoiding humanly proportioned bipeds in the future.

[ninety9]

voted foofoo

defecticon001 - the creature is a bit hard to read, i am still not quite sure where´s the front and where´s the back. there´s antennas and eeyes but on different ends, kinda confusing (i know the description explains it but at first look without having this information you cannot decode the creature´s anatomy). looks a bit sketchy too.

concept/idea is fine and i especially like the rendering of the miniature-pictures.

sepu - nice rendering, great pose and concept but for me it´s still too humanoid.

RicoD - reminds me of kermit from the muppets show :D the lighting is very good and fits your style. one of my faves this round.

marko markovic - interesting rendering style but unfortunately it looks very humanoid and doesn´t have any description.

Daniel Hurd - cute little critter. my only critizism would be the ear-things, they look a bit off. the rest is fine and i like the comical rendering style.

infinitum - rendering looks very plastic-like wich i normally don´t like this much BUT in this case i like it. the colours make it pop and the dancer comes along quite nice, same goes for implementing the dancing. unfortunately also too humanoid in my eyes.

dranyer - my second most favourite entry. perfect rendering and nice composed creature! the tails looks a bit sketchy though. i like how u separated fore- and background to make the creature pop out.

albino-Z - the rendering is very detailed and your idea is unique. very nice entry.

missplacedHippos - the mixture of pencil and watercolour looks great.

ZenithDeLunaris - a good start, perhaps work on the rendering a bit more by blending the colours/volumes more and use some harsher rimlights

j-sun - i miss the aquatic aspect of this creature. doesn´t amphibic mean that the creature can live outside and in the water? can´t see this dude swiming or even living underwater, but that´s just my interpretation. although it looks a bit flat due to missing volumes the rendering is quite nice.

foofoo - wow, u show us one quality piece after another round after round. could have been one of scorge´s creatures (if u take this as a compliment). i see the topic integrated perfectly, especially the bounce-criteria. the rendering is beautiful and the use of unsharp layers make the left guy pop out quite nice. got my vote.

Daniel Schallock - the pose looks a bit stiff and it´s too humanoid for my taste. it´s interesting to see how many people actually went for the lizard-like humanoid-species in this round. wouldn´t have expected that.

Lege1 - had too laugh (meant in a good way) when i took a closer look on your little fellow after i saw his tiny arms compared to the fat belly :D great illustration although i think the head/face has the best volumes and depth. it could be my monior but perhaps try to use the levels to make your creature a bit darker. this could make it more plastic i think.

[albino-Z]

[All that follows is just my personal opinion on the entries, written in a thought -sharing mood, nothing more.]

defecticon001: Great idea and color scheme. I wish the design was a bit clearer.

sepu: The pose on this is a winner. The creature is indulged in a passionate rain-dance, no doubt. The rain drop brush you used does not help as the repetitive pattern distracts from the main figure.

RicoD: a fav for sure. The rendering reminds me of early European animation movies and the connection of the creature with the sky above fascinating. The water effects and rendering work very efficiently too, although the crop on the left hand-tentacle makes the piece a bit unbalanced. Good work on the description also.

marko markovic: Pushing values could help make the piece read more as it is quite confusing at the moment. The photo plate you used distracts, being probably more obvious than it should.

Daniel Hurd: Grotesque design, interesting cocktail of features. The low detail and contrast of the background helps the figure stand out.

Infinitum: Nice pose and skin patterns. More detailed rendering on the falling rain and less saturated colors would help the piece.

Dranyer: Gotta love the design, the idea of a two sided frog is fascinating. A more subtle tongue, would possibly make the design more believable. Great rendering on the ground that is followed by abstract soft brushstrokes- a smoother detail transition could work better here.

Misplacedhippos: Love the sketchy feel of this one, reminds me of european comics. I wish there would be more detailed rendering on the fish-frog-mecha as the design is quite promising. I have to note the very successful presentation and font too.

ZenithDeLunaris: Strong design but the rendering strangles it. Instead of blocking in the local values only, taking light and shapes into account would help for a more 3d effect.

J-Sun: This is a macho little fella isn't he? Cool design. The composition is too symmetrical and makes the piece a bit stiff combined with the flipping of the background guys. Pushing one back with atmospheric fog could solve it and increase depth as a bonus.

foofoo: also a fav, great idea and execution. Impressive use of blur there- you can almost see them bouncing. Some weird things happening at the bottom textures do not distract.

DanSchallock: A bigger view of your creature would help and fill up the piece better. The overly bright and saturated raindrops make it fuzzy and kill depth. Reducing the opacity of the front layer of drops and adding several more of even less opacity could help build up depth and let your design show.

Lege1: Strong composition and neat traditional media feel on this one. The yellow flower could possibly be missing as my eyes started from the head-eye focal and fell off the left side of the frame instead of following the very interesting curve of the creature's tail.

[RicoD]

Just going with the ppl I haven't commented on in the WIP threads:

defecticon001: Nice take on the theme! I also love how you took natural survival defenses into consideration. Big thumbs up!

sepu: Lovely colors. Remind me of tree frogs, but a bit too humanoid I think.

Misplacedhippos: heh, this creature reminds me of the reverse mermaid from Slayers, but less silly. I love the water colour effects! Is that from Painter?

J-Sun: Nice, it has a very different look from the other entries. It looks very sturdy and could probably bounce all over the place without much problems. I wonder how it would propel itself though, with those stumpy duck legs ^^

foofoo: wow, surprise winner for me. Out of nowhere swooped in and grabbed my pick right from Albino's entry away! Looks cute and fun and the rendering is very nice! From an illustration point, the piece couls use some foreground elements. You put some vague blurry dark shapes there, but a little bit more defines, dark shapes there would give the piece a connection with the viewer and somewhat voyeuristic properties. Like a photographer suddenly spotting this scene through the leaves, before the creatures spot the giant humanoid creature pointing something at them and flee.

DanSchallock: Nice colour scheme, but problems similar to sepu. It's pose also looks very stiff for something that would portray bouncy and rain dance.

[DanSchallock]

HI everyone. Thank you very much for the feedback! I totally agree with feedback I got, and I look forward to working on the next piece.
Si_Swe: Thank you for your tolerance of my almost too humanoid for my first real cow. I will make sure my future entries are not that close again!
I had a great time and I'm looking forward to more cows!

Here are my thoughts for others:

defecticon001: I like your texture on the creature. Like mine, I don't feel the bouncy nature of yours, although I could see how it "could" bounce based on the legs.

Sepu: One of my favorites. I love the wild pose, your colors, rendering and rain. Some of the twisted muscle anatomy looks off to me instead of alien and foreign. Really nice piece!

RicoD: Beautiful Rico. I have a mature feel to it. I makes me feel like it is part of serious story. The lighting is very well done, but makes me feel a little sad.

Marko markovic: (I know yours got cut but here are my thoughts contest aside) A very fun piece Marco. I like your loose style overall but (like mine) it seems like a little more rendering time would have strengthened the final. I do really like the painterly pink strokes in the bubbles.

Daniel Hurd: A very fine illustration. It doesn't show it being bouncy IMO but it looks like the creature certainly "could" be. I like your colors and rendering.

Infinitum: (I know yours got cut but here are my thoughts contest aside) Nice bold colors! Its electric!

Dranyer: Very realistic rendering. Your water drop splashes are excellent! Your creature reminds me of some radiation accident, but its very well rendered. I think the really blurred out BG adds to the realism (camera effect) and I bet saved time too!

Albino-Z: Yours was my pick. I think the concept rocks. The drawing is excellent. And I have never seen rendering that accomplished that iridecent effect quite like yours. Super cool!

Misplacedhippos: I really like your style. I think the pencil and watercolor is beautiful to look at. I would happily look at a whole sketch book filled with this style. I would have liked to see more in the actual illustration, but it looks great.

ZenithDeLunaris: Cool idea. Nice graphic style. Some of the anatomy gets a little confusing to me, but overall I like it!

Jsun: Very original. nice rendering. I love the finger nails and the reflections in the water.

foofoo: Very cool. Looks 3d rendered. Very realistic. I think this was my 2nd choice. Well done.

Lege1: Overall a very nice work. Perhaps a little more contrast and texture, but then again, it is nice as it is.

Great work everyone!
-Dan

[Misplacedhippos]

Misplacedhippos: heh, this creature reminds me of the reverse mermaid from Slayers, but less silly. I love the water colour effects! Is that from Painter?


Had to do a google search, this thing?http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/kanzaka/images/thumb/5/56/Suck_Face.jpg/200px-Suck_Face.jpg :[
It's actually just photoshop, but I have some scanned in watercolor textures on multiply.



Voted foofoo. Creature design is great. Right on topic. Not sure why they are bouncing around though or why they would have developed inflatable tails. Maybe could have used some explanation on evolutionary purpose. Unfinished looking right corner is a bit distracting. Rain looks good, everything looks nice and wet.


Would probably have voted for defecticon if the design was not so hidden.

[foofoo]

I'm not good at giving constructive comments, but mostly also because i'm lazy, but i'm gonna try anyway.

@defecticon001 - Unique idea, although i'm not sure how does making the rear looking like the head helps increase chance of survival? like what others have pointed out, needs a clearer presentation.

@sepu - I think the rain could use a more natural treatment. Cool idea making the limbs twisted, makes it look elastic.

@ricoD - Like the mood and rendering in your piece. Maybe add some splashes on the sea to show interaction between creature and sea? To show that the creature actually jumped out of the sea, cus right now it feels to me like its just foating in the air. By the way, really liked your war mount piece, great mood and details!

As for the vague shapes on foreground in my piece,i was running out of time so i thought i would submit 1st. After that i did carry on working on it. And those vague shapes were already dealt with :).

@marko markovic - hmmm... i dont really know what to say. Hope u enjoyed and learn something of this :P

@Daniel Hurd - It's got a nasty grin. After reading your description, i guessed it's doing the action of collecting rain water. Not too sure how this creature executes the bounce, and the dance part is missing too. maybe a more dynamic pose or action could help?

@Infinitum - This definitly needs more bounce and less humanoid like what others said. Interesting pose though.

@Dranyer - Conjoined frog twins! Cool idea.. makes me of think of interesting ways of how this creature's gonna move and bounce. The inbetween, where the black patch is, could use better treatment though. Right now it feels like a burnt patch or a birthmark or something like that.

@albino-Z - Fav! Interesting, unique idea! Very good rendering. I do feel that this thing can be abit translucent, so that you can see it's innards, like how microscopic organisms normally look like. Just an idea. Cool piece!

@Misplacedhippos - I do see a fish with a pair of legs! But it's still an interesting idea :)

@ZenithDeLunaris - interesting design, however the idea of a water dwelling creature that needs to jump out of water to collect rainwater... doesn't really work for me.

@J-Sun - Just wondering how does the catapulting out of water part works. Dont think the strong arms can help much with that. It does lacks abit of the amphibious quality in diesgn. Its looking abit like gremlin :P.

@DanSchallock - As mentioned, need to tone down on the rain as its pretty distracting.

@Lege1 - Like the feelers type thing on its head. The segmented underside of the tail feels inconsistent. Either have it on the stomach as well, or dont have it at all. I think the light source on it could be better defined, and the contrast of values pushed higher.

@ninety9 - Thanks! I always enjoyed rendering more then brainstorming. I always cannot wait to start on doing the colors and polishing/refining things. I feel that if i want to do this, i want to produce something that is good enough as portfolio piece, and so i always push the rendering as far as i could. Unfortunately, that is also my weakness, resulting in boring designs, as can be seen in the past few rounds.

I felt have that i have gain good experience working on this piece, studying images from artists like Micheal Kutsch and trying to push the quality of my work to their standard. Of course i still have a long way to go but i will get there :). And partly the motivation comes from remarks made by people suggesting that votes on me were not genuine, but fake votes... you know what i mean. I'm trying to prove to this people, and most importantly to myself that i can do it. Real winners are people who gain and learn something out of this activity, not by the number of votes you received from people.
That's a lesson i just learnt :).

[Rob Powell]

Great stuff this round guys!

Fav's are as follows

Dranyer: Really neat idea, an RC frog, I can picture this guy jumping arpund quite erradically, only crit I have is that your missing some important things in your piece, rain. I can see the splashes from the rain hitting the water, but no rain drops

Misplacedhippoes: A neat little design, but what sold this piece for me was the watercoloured textures, possibly the best presentation this round, and adding the earthworms was a nice effective way to show the creature's scale

Foofoo: your designs are imporving a little, this is probably the best rendering I've seen you do, they do have a noce charm to them, I can almost picture David Atenborough narrating as these little guys are bouncing around with their gills flapping up and down as they go, as mentioned before a little more work on the ground in the two corners because it is quite distracting, you got my vote this round simply becuase your critters best examplified Bouncy, amphibious, rain-dancer

additional crits...because I'm too lazy to crit each person so I'll just have a quick run through of some things I noticed in some or all pieces...
-I noticed a couple people had the tendency to paint each individual rain drop, I'd avoid doing so because 1 it's quite time consuming and 2 it hides your creature's design quite a bit so it doesn't show up as clear as you may have intended
-Another thing, although some people have done well to show some atmosphere with the rain in the background, no one had any raindrops in the foreground, if you give it soft edges and keep it transparent it shouldn't take away from your piece, of course keep the composition in mind as well
-finally, a few people have neglegted, or just simply forgotten, to show the rain drops splashing on their creature's, they appear to be dancing so well that they're dodging the rain drops

[AdrianNagorski]

Most of these entries this week are phenomenal!!

loving albino-Z, foofoo ,Dranyer, marko markovic, sepu ,RicoD and everyone else that i didn't name no worries next time!

loved Daniel Hurd's the most

- - - - - - - - - -
Things I Do Weekly -- sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=224706)

Wasted - The game's production sketchbook (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=225181)

Ctrl+Paint, a place for beginners, many helpful videos! (http://www.ctrlpaint.com/)
- - - - - - - - - -

[Infinitum]

Oh well, didn't make it to poll. I can see why though. I'll get it on the next one.

Replies

Si_Swe - I can see it is a little too humanoid, thanks for explaining. I'll make it less humanoid next time.

ninety9 - Thanks for your comment. Yeah i don't normally like a plastic-like rendering either. But in this case I was going for the sort of skin frogs have. I based the plastic look on poison arrow frogs skin. I'm glad you like it and the dancing, but yeah, too humanoid.

Albino-Z - Glad you like the pose and skin. I intended to do more with the rain but I didn't have time in the end. It would have helped though. I played around with the colours and saturation quite a bit. I kept thinking it should be less saturated but then i'd put it back up a bit to get the exotic vividness back. Was trying to get a balance but I agree it's a bit over saturated. Thank for your comment.

DanSchallock - Thanks! I was going for the sort of vividness that poison arrow frogs have. I may have overdone it a little though! Thanks for your comment.

foofoo - Yeah, I can see that. I guess it's almost more a character than a creature. Glad you like the pose though. Thanks for your comment.

Feedback

defecticon001 - I like your description of the concept but I'm not sure it fully comes across in your illustration. Nice colours though!

sepu - Nice detail on the rain drops and I like the pose. Maybe a little more patterning to the skin would make it stand out from the background a bit more.

RicoD - Not totally sold on the concept but I like the illustration. The lighting works really well.

marko markovic - Shame you didn't make it to the poll either. Same reason as me I think. A little to character like rather than creature. I like your illustration though. It has a kind of Victorian feel with the design on the creature and the bubble idea is quite amusing.

Daniel Hurd - I like the creature and the way he's holding the reed but the background could do with a little more. Maybe if you cropped it in to the creature more it would be a stronger overall image.

Drayner - I like the concept of a double frog. You've got the skin and colours really well too.

Albino-Z - I like the iridescent effect you've got on the skin. How did you achieve that. I like how you've balanced the tones as well.

Misplacedhippos - I like the watercolour look. It suits the subject very well.

ZenithDeLunaris - A good concept but could do with a little more development of the image. Maybe some more tones on the creature and a hint of a background

J-Sun - I like the idea of them using their arms. Perhaps some more hints of stronger colour would make the creature stand out more.

foofoo - Nice concept. Those creatures look like their having fun! Nice colours and lighting too.

DanSchallock - The creature gets a little lost in the background but I like the magical aspect.

Lege1 - Nice pose and colours. A little more contrast might make it stand out some more but nice image.

Well done everyone. Really nice work.

[marko markovic]

Thank you AdrianNagorski !!!
thank you Infinitium!!! you noticed nice things ( for everyone)
so that is one of the most preciuos gifts that artists can have, not
effects or anything similar.....but eye and good critics....even child can noticed that creature can be too humanoid or not...(others don't take serius )
( foofoo) of course i know it is
to humanoid so forget it... this chow i done it in way that is interesting to me. learning things every day even from you....so learn you something....
i also wanted to support everyone who try to do something diffrent
couse art is that ....we as artist must realise that we control others including marketing (not oposite)....so i like nice rendering and effects but one day only some small things will be remain...dont forget that many bunch of art things were sold in history but only couple of others artists...are well known to children in schools///

....take a good look of our fathers...or maybe you noticed only effects in there art....
be smart and do what is good,, if you sell yourself for a fistfull of dollars dont talk to me...