Kiss of the chameleon(updated).

[John P.]

Ahh, the nerve wrecking feeling when one submits new work to this place..... *bites nails* :eek:

:D


Anyway, this is what I've been up to the last week.

Ok, to the piece:

This piece even has a story to it!

-You've heard the fairytails about princesses kissing frogs in the hopes that it will turn into a prince? Well, this is a fairytail gone bad... - She found this chameleon, and kissed it to see what it would turn into, hopefully a 'prince' of sorts. But alas, it made her skin change, and she and the chameleon are starting to swap features and skin colours!

In this piece, the chameleon has climbed onto her shoulder to comfort her in their mutual misfortune...

Awwwww....





(look further down for update)

[Scotty]

That's very cool. The hair is nuts, and the feeling of depression is quite evident as a whole. Nicely done.:)

[Dreamed-Reality]

Oh man, that picture is awesome!

I love how the chameleon has skin tones and the girl has the skin of the chameleon!
You must post how you did the hair!

This is why I love conceptart.org, because the people rock here. And not just throw randon shapes together.

Great work!

[ODIN SIX]

Excellent NG !!!!

Very moving....
I think the cameleon could use a little more work....

Totally AWESOME :chug:

[John P.]

Thanks you three!


Originally posted by ODIN SIX
I think the cameleon could use a little more work....


Yeah, I was thinking about that, but to be honest, I'm not sure what more I can do, except accentuate a few of the lines perhaps... Any suggestions?

Even though it's 'finished', I'm up for suggestions.

I have 35 work in progress .psd files to choose from... http://home.online.no/~johmoe/smilies/erm.gif

I just wanted to add that since I know someone's gonna mention that the eye to the left(her right) looks off compared to the other, that the reference I used looks the same! :D

I can post the reference later if needed.

About the hair. I started every part of this image by finding an "average" colour, and then filling in the shapes(sketch) with those colours. So the chameleon(which was on it's own layer) got a light beige/orange kinda flat colour, the girl got a light grey flat colour, and the background got a light...erm...sand colour. The hair got a very dark red flat colour.

All these were 'flat', no shadows. Then I added shadows and tones and light by playing on the colours I already had. Used the colour picker and palette and just went a bit darker to create shadow and so on.


The hair was just a matter of using a thin brush and lots of elaborate strokes onto that dark red flat area. Strokes of light brown, medium brown and black.
I kept the 'hair detail'(as I called it) on it's own layer, just in case.

Pretty much it. Sorry for not being good at explaining things. :(
While I'm submerged in drawings I almost don't notice what I'm doing, I just do it...kinda. And the hours fly by...

But I've learnt a lot here at concept art the short period of time I've spent here, but have miles and miles to go still.

One thing I need to work hard with, is that I spend waaay too much time on each piece. The others here churn out one of these every day, almost...

And my replies here tend to be long winding...... http://home.online.no/~johmoe/smilies/erm.gif


:D

[Fozzybar]

Wow, NG...you're improving...you're improving...

The rendering is very nice...but this brown shade of the dark parts looks odd...you should work this out...

35 wips...OMG :eek:

[nottabird]

I don't think I would have noticed the eye thing, they look right to me. But the thing that stands out the most to me is the mind boggling hair. Whenever I do a painting a never know how to do the hair, so the explanation is very much appreciated. My only crit would be like Odin said, it looks like much much more work went into the girl than the chameleon. Good luck in finishing some of those other wips.

[davi]

very cool piece, my suggestion would making the background more detailed to give her skin a softer feel, right now the only thing that has sharp detail is the face and chameleon, so the rest of the piece contrasts too much i feel.
great piece though, love the story too.

[ODIN SIX]

I think I said something about this on some elses thread,,
not sure....
Since you are working in photoshop ::::::

Channels and Grunge Maps......
If you do not understand I can try and post a small Explaination
of what I am talking about

Would help it a lot...
I also sgree with The Fozz on the brown.... Maybe make it
black or some small details in there...

As for "WIPS" one at a time .... I learned the Hard way on that.
try and get those wips down to 5:chug: :chug:

[ZeeWire]

Great work! I love the concept & the story behind.

I also love the small details, the tears , the great hair & crusty skin scales. It not only shows your talent but it also shows you put your thinking into the piece.

Suggestions? besides the ones other members gave you...
may be the background. I would like to see a little bit more separation to accentuate the three dimensional feeling.

You could try some kind of gradation on the sand so it gets darker and shows more detail closer to her, and then fades in intensity & detail further out.

If you go that way, you could also try to match closer the light & shade of the small bumps in the sand to the woman's light source (mainly the footprint area)

Keep up the good work! :)

Zee Ya!

[taff]

Good work NG, there's no reason to be nervous, when you are showing us such great paintings! :D

[John P.]

Thanks for all the suggestions and nice comments, I have something to work with now.


I need some more explanation on what you mean about "brown shade of the dark parts".....? You mean on the chameleon I assume? Should I use black/dark grey to shade it instead you mean?
EDIT: Oh, you mean the shadow underneath the chameleon? If so, I was told by another artist that it's a good thing to add some of the colour of the object that casts the shadow into the shadow, at least if the object is something thin or if it's skin or whatever. But I'll try a couple of things out.

Grunge maps and channels... Yeah, I guess I know what you mean, but I'm trying to keep it to "drawing only", and as few photoshop tricks as possible, although I have used a couple of layer effects(ehm...not layer effects, but what I meant was that the green skin detail on the woman is on it's own layer, and that layer is set to 'multiply').

The background is what i spent the least time on, so...

Actually I spent a lot of time on the chameleon, probably almost as much as the woman(at least comparably when size is considered), but the work doesn't seem to come through...

Remember that the chameleon gets human skin, so it doesn't(and isn't supposed to)have scales or such anymore.

I guess I perhaps worded myself a bit wrong about those WIPs. What I meant was that I have 35 "saves"... I tend to save my work with a new filename(adding a number) a lot, in case something goes wrong, so I can go back. I save a lot when I play games too, so maybe that's where it comes from. :D

[Happeh]

I think the cameleon could use a little more work....

-

Yeah, I was thinking about that, but to be honest, I'm not sure what more I can do, except accentuate a few of the lines perhaps... Any suggestions?

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


The palettes appear different. The chameleon appears to use colors that are brighter than the palette used for the woman. Makes the chameleon look like it is "on top" of the rest of the pic.

Have no idea how to change it. ;)

[John P.]

Thanks. It looks a lot 'paler' in earlier versions, so I'll look into that. :)

[John P.]

Sorry guys; this seems to be the best I can do at the moment, so I consider myself finished with this one now. :(

Maybe I'll come back to it when i've gotten better though.

Actually, the chameleon is darker in the first one because I thought it was too pale, and upped the contrast and levels a bit... So this update is more like I first drew it.

Here's the update:




http://home.online.no/~johmoe/art_portfolio/Kiss_of_the_chameleon.jpg

[Fozzybar]

What i meant was not the color itself...i think the area needs some structure...it's a flat brown area currently...this looks odd compared to the rest...

[John P.]

So what you're saying is that the chameleon needs some texture to the skin?

I need to be spoon fed here. 'flat brown area' doesn't tell me much.
Are you saying that even though I've shaded it and fleshed it out, the chameleon is a big flat brown 'area'?
Or do you mean a certain area on the chameleon, like the belly?

Or are you saying I should add other colours to it(more than I've already done. I've put red and yellow in there to give it more of a skin tone, but...).


I'll see if I can do something. Right now I'm too tired, as I've been working this weekend.

[Fozzybar]

Nononononono....did I mention "no"?...

I mean this area, which should be her right arm/breast...right under the chameleon's head...

[John P.]

Ok, you could've been a bit clearer, but on the other hand i misunderstood, 'cause that 'area' was a dark red(not brown), so I didn't connect it when you said brown and others mentioned the chameleon(which is brownish), so I put two and two together and got five...


Anyway, I updated the image, but I uploaded it to the same location and same file name, so if it looks exactly the same still, you'll have to clear your internet cache and reload the page.

The thing is that in the reference pic, that area is just a plain very dark colour, an almost black red shadow. So that's what I painted.

Now I've changed the colour of it, and added some subtle lighting, but most dominantly I've let the hair go further down.

Finished. :mad:


:D

[Mr.Magnetichead]

Nice work Norweigen Guy:D

[John P.]

Hey, shut up, you're giving me away!! :eek:

:D

Nice seeing you arund! :)

Thanks, btw, and - - it's "Norwegian".... ;)



Ok, this was just an inside joke between me and Mr.Magnetichead. We come from the same forum(gaming, not art related), and I went by the name Norwegianguy there before I changed my nick. That's all. :)

[Mr.Magnetichead]

Originally posted by ¤ N G ¤
Hey, shut up, you're giving me away!! :eek:

:D

Nice seeing you arund! :)

Thanks, btw, and - - it's "Norwegian".... ;)

Bah you know me and my spelling :p

[Fozzybar]

Yes, this is better now...thx :)

[redehlert]

I like the idea and the irony therein. Nicely rendered and bravo on the hair!
My only additional crit to those posted by our peers is the trail of the tear on the face.
To me, she's been contemplating this scenario for some time, so her head would be resting on her hand for the duration of the tear (pictured) to have made its long, slow trek down her face. This would mean that the tear would follow the natural form of the face as it is pulled downward by gravity.
See, her head is on a tilt, so the tear would spill from the medial most aspect of the girl's left eye (as you have conveyed), rounding over and down to the left nostril and trek over the smile line space caused by the pooching of orbicularis oris (mouth muscle) and the connection poin of the cheek muscles (zygomaticus majora and minora, the nasalis muscles and the risorius muscle).
As it stands now, it seems to be trekking the gravity route fairly okay, but not with the girls features in mind. That simple tear is flattening the girls face.

Too much info, I'm sure of it....but see if it helps you out in any way.

Cheers!
D

[Fozzybar]

redehlert, you're a psycho! :p

[redehlert]

hehehe....i know f.bar....i know.
it's my day job - i sit and do med illus all day and what i'd rather be doing is drawing with the rest of y'all.

peace.
d

[MindCandyMan]

Man I can't get over that hair...looks awesome...great job

[John P.]

Finally Fozzybar is pleased! :D

Seriously though; thank you all for making me better. :)

Thanks also to MindCandyMan for the nice compliments. :)

And thanks for the crit redehlert. :)

Sometimes, real life looks odd when you draw it.

What would you say if I told you the reference pic has a teardrop that has run down her face(although not as accentuated as in my drawing, and not highlighted), and the trail in the reference is actually ending up more to the right than I drew it?

That's right.
Sometimes things look wrong when drawn. ;)




(although in the ref, there is no visible teardrop, so one could say that the drop in the ref has already long since run down her face, before she lowered her head. But since I want to be right and have the last word, let's say we don't say that! :D)


EDIT: I could argue that she has had her head up, the drop has run down her chin, and then she has bowed her head.

Yeah, I think I can get away with that! :D

[redehlert]

You win, buddy...you win.
It's alllllll good.
Cheers and keep up the great work!

D

[ODIN SIX]

Well Its al been said ,,, but I wanted to say it looks so so
much better now!!!!!

Great Job!!!!:beer: :thumbsup:

Now to the Next Project :cool: