Feline Digital Painting

[Tanika]

*giggles* I always bug fozzy since he said once, he wanted to bash my art. XD I did this crummy doodle on my wacom tablet. It's not that good. But since I got good reviews on Deviantart, I figured I'd post it here. I've revised it three times and am aware of most all the errors. I just figured I'd post some art here, since it's been a while.

Funny story about it: I got critted bad on this pic, I mean, this guy tore me up, nit picked on everything. So, what did I do? First I left a comment on his journal, jokingly throwing a fit, then I contacted him and he helped me through the picture. Evidently I was one of the few to take a crit. I don't know, but I think it helped a little. :3 Enjoy.

http://tanikadevour.250free.com/leopard0002.jpg

Go ahead and c/c but don't be too harsh. ^^

[sparth]

hey tanika

yep, it's sometimes hard to give crits, and probably even harder accepting the crits after painful hours of work. however, it'd prefer seeing somebody totally conscious about his/her own errors than somebody not being able to receive a single advice, closed to any dialogue.

as you said yourself, in this piece, there are errors that you're aware of. it is therefore not possible to leave it as it is.
close you eyes, then open them again. and look at your image. the black areas tend to completely anihilate the rest of the details located in brighter areas. some say that an image is good when the image breaths. when the balance between dark and bright areas give a perfect composition to the image. when you're in a dark and closed room, you'll feel some sort of opression. same for your image for now. let it breathe. you see, the human eye, when it encounters an image, want to wander in it, look around, and not being stopped by black areas everywhere that will suddenly finish the visual trip too soon. because the eye wants light rythms at all costs.
an advice: within your image, try to determine where your light source comes from. if there is one light source, or multiples? what color do these light sources have? how big is the brightness. are this light sources natural or artificial? so many question to ask yourself on a single piece! :D

as you stated, this image is just a doodle, you could definitely add extra time to improve it and make it more rich.
hope i'm not being too esoteric.

sparth

[Tanika]

Wow! Finally someone who can give a crit! It's about time! *Hug*
I have trouble with the totally dark area's in this image. showing details on black is difficult when it is under a shadow. As for the light source, imagine a camera was comming in from the middle to left, with a light atop it. That's basically where it is. The only way to -really- show it that I saw was the reflection in the trees.
The hardest part in this piece was not making it, but correcting it! X.x I wish I had a copy of the 1st version, you would have laughed. The shading on it's face was white vs black, and the background was different. Problem: You cannot have white light on black fur and get a white reflection, even more so when it is dark outside.
When I draw, I draw with 'closed eyes' as people call it. I open them, I fix the drawing, while I fix it, my eyes close, then open again. Right now I'm seeing that I need to work on the light source. I was worried about the anatomical errors but there is not much I can do for them right now. A work of art is never finished, it is only abandoned. After a few full days of hard work on this piece, I'm taking a break from it. I'll post the final version of it on my site when I get one. The problem is, like all art pieces, this work will never really be finished, it'll just be abandoned with time.
Do you have any suggestions on what I could do to help this piece? I work with photoshop 7, and I don't know how the bloody hell I managed to even get that far with just photoshop. x.x But if you have any suggestions/techniques, please please PLEASE tell me. Not only will they be useful now, but they will be in the future.
Thanks a bunch! I honor your ability to crit so well. You speak like you are a poet, almost, sort of like me. ^^
Adieu for now
Thanks again!

ps. through all that, I forgot to answer; Yes, the light sources are artificial. If there were to be a caption to this pic, it would be something like "I don't think I'd want to find that thing in a dark ally" ^^'