Alien Pet

[Arcaine]

Hi All:

Finished this one last week. Painted in PS CS2

Full Dimension
http://www.cartoonink.com/AlienPetWeb.jpg

Closeup
http://www.cartoonink.com/AlienPetCloseup.jpg

[Elwell]

I think you went a bit overboard with the textures on the glove, food, and mountains. They're all at appoximately the same scale as the creature's fur, which really draws focus away from it.
Also, be careful of your edges.

[asoir]

it looks kind of...suggestive in the closeup, i'll have to agree with elwells comment on the texture, i don't understand why you gave the hand texture at all.
otherwise, its pretty nice

[Arcaine]

Hi Guys:

Thanks for the comments. The hand is actually not a glove, it's supposed to be an alien hand. Given that I had to differentiate between a human hand and an alien one, I thought texturing it would provide the needed variation. Obviously, I didn't achieve what I was after.

As for being 'suggestive' in the closeup, that was purely unintentional if you're suggesting a phallic representaiton (which is the only thing I could imagine you're talking about.) The intent was that a conical shape is what would happen from gnawing at a stick like that. No undertones were intentionally implied.

I'm inclined to agree with the mountain assessment and will concede the textures on the hand and food as well. As this is my first illustration of this nature, it's the subtle nuances such as that, that I need to become aware of.

Tristan..could you clarify what you meant by, "be careful of your edges?" Thx.

Here are the suggested revisions. Any other comments and critiques are welcome.

http://www.cartoonink.com/AlienPetWeb2.jpg

http://www.cartoonink.com/AlienPetCloseup2.jpg

[theincredibleandy]

When he mentioned edges, Tristan meant to be more sensitive with your use of hard and soft edge relationships. You have a hard-ish edge for the contour of the hand, but you have extremely soft edges between the overlapping fingers that should separate better. Also, if you want it to feel like an alien hand then you ned to make the anatomy of the hand obviously different if you want it to read as alien. Right now it's a gloved hand with fuzzy rendering.

If you're going to keep at this digital thing, you'll need to vary up your texture usage. Vary the texture size, depth, and variety of those textures so that the texture isn't overwhelming and also feels like it relates to the 3d space you're putting it into. As-is, your textures are flattening everything out. Basically, if it looks like you used a digital texture, then you're not being subtle enough.

good luck!

[Arcaine]

When he mentioned edges, Tristan meant to be more sensitive with your use of hard and soft edge relationships. You have a hard-ish edge for the contour of the hand, but you have extremely soft edges between the overlapping fingers that should separate better. Also, if you want it to feel like an alien hand then you ned to make the anatomy of the hand obviously different if you want it to read as alien. Right now it's a gloved hand with fuzzy rendering.

If you're going to keep at this digital thing, you'll need to vary up your texture usage. Vary the texture size, depth, and variety of those textures so that the texture isn't overwhelming and also feels like it relates to the 3d space you're putting it into. As-is, your textures are flattening everything out. Basically, if it looks like you used a digital texture, then you're not being subtle enough.

good luck!

Hi Andy:

Thanks for taking the time to reply and for the edge advice. I can see your point, and I will work on putting better definition for the edging of the hand. I guess I was worried that it would have too much of an edge, and didn't want to make it look like an inked cartoon. I softened out the textures in the revised image, but I'm worried that if I soften them anymore, it'll look flat.

But you're right, I don't want it to look like I'm using a digital texture. All of that is brush work. I haven't used any overlaid textures, so I definitely don't want it to look like I have.

These suggestions have all been great, and having made the changes, I think the image is definitely improved by them. So, thanks to all who've contributed. Much appreciated. I've attached the next revision