kittens at airlock 37

[Silly]

Usually I work with high-res images, but this time I tried to paint in low resolution (800x1024) using this more "painterly" style I'm experimenting with. What do you think?

The sketch was for a sci-fi story idea I played with.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y221/silly_pl4c3/art/lrg-232-airlock6.jpg

[Craig D]

looks good if you could fix a couple anatomy issues.

her eyes are too far apart, her left eye needs to come in and a bit larger.

hard to tell where her knees are but they look to be way to close to the ground

Craig

[Poohgee]

C+C :

She has light-green hair & an orange face IMO

She is too saturatd colour-wise IMO.

The cat is really good -wouldnt do anything to the cat.

:-)

[Silly]

Craig: thanks, I see what you mean about the eye, now that you mention it. With the baggy pants, you don't really see where the knees are, but I see that the shadow (which was the cat's originally) on the right leg looks like her knee.

Poohgee: I did it again, going all "ooh pretty colours" and ending up too saturated :p I hope it is a little better now. For the green hair: I was trying for blonde, and didn't want to use orange for the shadows, so green seemed like a good idea at the time...

http://www.truefork.org/Art/plogger/thumbs/lrg-232-airlock6.jpg

[fishquail]

like the purple cat. wish I could get a real one that color.

[Silly]

like the purple cat. wish I could get a real one that color.
Somewhere in space, they are out there... probably ;)

[Snarfevs]

I don't know anything of your story, but the airlock lettering is very cliche. From an engineering perspective, utilitary lettering is normally gothic all caps for maximum readability. I would recommend the use of a font such as Halo Eleven (http://members.tripod.com/~Lavinia_Noir/halo_eleven.zip) (my pet font obssession) or Franklin Gothic.

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/2163/snalockfonts0cn.jpg

For utilitarian space design I strongly recommend you have a look at the design at work the movie 'aliens'

http://img364.imageshack.us/img364/6673/1in12airlock9iq.jpg

Here's a 1/12th scale model of the airlock door used in the Sulaco dropship hangar. As you can see, warning signs strategically placed, definite reinforcement against the pressure differential etc. Has a great feel of engineering authenticity to it. You should go to lengths to make your background more than just mere writing and safety stripes and turn it into a working, compelling mechanism.

[Silly]

I was going for the early-eighties low-budget TV sci-fi wobbly cardboard set look with this, but you are probably right that is passé now.

[Poohgee]

Do U think there is any chance of there ever being a big portrait of that cat ... its absolutly gorgeous ... & I usually dont like cats that much .. Im a Great Dane (dog) person :-)

[Silly]

Do U think there is any chance of there ever being a big portrait of that cat ... its absolutly gorgeous ... & I usually dont like cats that much .. Im a Great Dane (dog) person :-)
Why, thank you! :) I can do works on commission, if you like. Or in return for donations to save the snow leopards (http://www.justgiving.com/pfp/snowleopard) or hurricane relief (http://www.squeep.com/%7Epotlan/cgi_bin/wiki.pl?Silly) charities.

If you want to be miserly, you could just wait, now that you gave me the idea there probably will be a portrait of that cat at some point. Could take a while, though. ;)

the full size image is here (http://www.truefork.org/Art/plogger/images/concepts_and_sketches/miscellaneous/airlock6.jpg)

[rasdasa]

"Real world" the background. It's much too bright and clean, there isn't even a slight degration of tones on it. Grab a white piece of paper, flatten it straight on a table, and observe it. It's not totally white, even on it's small surface there are differenmt subtle shifts of light and dark. Strengthen the base shadow right beside her legs.

The cat's paws are too uneven in size from eachother, I realize that one is dead on and the other is turned but the left one(to us) still seems oversized. The fur closer to the back of the cat is too lit up, especially for purple, it wouldn't reflect that much bounce light so readily.
Shade in it's ears more, and around the neck more.
Study the creasing of pants, yours have a plastic/rubber feel to them and seem rather stiff. Although they follow the contour of her leg well, they still need some more convincing creasing.

I also agree with the comments made of the anatomical issues, and even the font used for the Airlock. I read that you were going for cheesy 70-80' sci-fi shows, but nonetheless, that other font would better lend to the pictures appeal for an unwitting observer.

Keep it coming.

-ras

[look]

It's a little hard to tell the sci-fi element in this picture. Even the purple kitten is too normal looking. (It's cute by the way).

I'm having a hard time telling the girl's age. Part of her look like a 8 or 9 year old, and other part looks like teenager. She has a pretty big forehead, and I think you can add a little more shading on the nose bridge part. Her hair makes her head look like it's bigger on one side. Her right arm (without watch) looks too curved there. The shadow near her left foot is too light and makes it appear as if her foot isn't touching the ground.

I'm not sure what kind of color scheme you were going for, but the pink on the wall is rather close to the sweater color. Maybe you can try different colors to see if there's better match.

[Silly]

Ras, I'm a bit confused on which version you are referring too, seeing as you replied after I changed the font... I see what you mean about the catspaw.

To be honest, I'm a little tired of the grungy "aliens" industrial look, currently I tend to gravitate more towards retro-futuristic designs. Flying saucers and stilyzed phallic rocketships of incomprehensible functionality, if you will. :) I know they are unfashionable right now, but I'm hoping they'll be back someday (just like I'm hoping someday people will stop the idiotic affectation of "distressing" the hell out of sets for historical movies, but I digress...)

look: she's supposed to be about 8 years old. As for sci-fi... you mean the girl should wear spandex and the kitty should have wings and horns and a bionic paw? :D
I'm very much still experimenting with this "no-lines" painting method so I used a fairly simple sketch for practice. I'll try something more ambitious next time. About the right arm; that is the sleeve bunching, it is not actually her arm- although if it looks like her arm then perhaps I should decrease the bulge a bit? Is that what you mean?

[rasdasa]

I understand about not wanting to make it grungy, but like I said, even a white flat piece of paper has tone shifts, while that background is totally lacking of even that. I see now that you've added some wear and tear to the piece, it adds a sense of atmosphere, and now it doesn't seem as though the kid is posing for a Home&Life issue devoted to futuristic living(unless a part of you was aiming for that as well)

keep hacking!
-ras