Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post finished and unfinished work here for critique and appraisal.
Xelio
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Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Xelio »

Okay, so here's a composite shot of most of my pets. See spotty kitty on the side there? That's Kofu.
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I'm redrawing Kofu for his lookup picture.

Kofu is a Halloween kougra with desert kougra accessories, and as far as personality goes he's an unbearable snob and more than a little blood thirsty. The thought is that I'll place him on a red velvety looking bedspread with some fancy columns or something behind him, because who doesn't love some garish and ornate columns? Overall, the goal is that he look svelte and arrogant.

Here's what I have so far.
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I'm having a few issues though. I'm trying to make it look as if he has one fore paw tucked under himself as my cat often does and the other forelimb is stretched toward the viewer, perhaps with claws extended and gripping the cloth he'll be on. I just can't tell if that's coming across right or not, since I often have difficulties with perspective.

Also, I'm having a fight settling his wings into the picture. I have his wings (and eventual accessories) on other layers and have redone and redone them. I've tried just flinging them on freehand, building them piece by piece in skeleton form and nothing is working. I think part of it is the back-turned-toward-viewer pose that's throwing me off. If anyone can offer any suggestions, redlining or anything else I'd be most appreciative of the help.
Last edited by Xelio on 07 May 2010 03:05 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Larkspurlane
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Re: Help me make this kougra svelte?

Post by Larkspurlane »

Hmm. Well I'm pretty fail at felines but I gave this a shot with my hairy sketch lines of doom. I would either ditch the back-towards-viewer idea, or rethink the whole positioning of the front -- because right now he looks extremely flexible, haha.

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Okay the wings are such a pain in that position, and I can't even convey the angle I was trying to get the wing to lie at without shading it so... mine are a raggedy-edged fail. It's an awkward pose to render wings @ unless you make them chibi ones, I think.

Btw I love when people make group images of all of their pets. I intend to do one someday, it looks so cool, especially with their custom designs :D great job on that!
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Xelio
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Re: Help me make this kougra svelte?

Post by Xelio »

Okay, so I scraped the back view and tried again.
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I think I'm happy with this, so unless anybody has some suggestions to add to make Kofu look more natural, I'm supposing I'll go ahead with this pose. I guess if/when I get this done I'll upload what I finish. I don't like how he's not a languid and stretched out in this pose, but I suppose I'll be content with how this looks. Now to figure out how to do that cloth he's going to be laying on.
Last edited by Xelio on 07 May 2010 03:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Marah
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Re: Help me make this kougra svelte?

Post by Marah »

Maybe make the tail a little less rigid? It looks like it was neatly put next to a ruler and then layed down. I love the expression on his face!
Xelio
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Re: Help me make this kougra svelte?

Post by Xelio »

Finished him today, so here's Kofu, in all his spiteful glory with his seti, Hieronymus. Thanks for the suggestions on the pose and the tail. I think they helped a lot. By the way, the light colored bar is just so I could have the navigation stand out against the cover. The picture is a bit large, so I put it in a spoiler box.
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Y'know, I really wish I could remember who it was from Neocolours I adopted him. I can't even remember if he was Halloween when I got him or not. I remember painting a kougra Halloween, but I had two of them. Who can say.

Should anyone want to see the image in context, here's his (mostly) finished lookup. Just have to figure out why the text is suddenly bumping to the left side. I'll worry about fixing that when I have more down time.

Kofu's Lookup
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Xelio
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Xelio »

Figured a doublepost would be okay since it seems to be the only way I can get the title to change properly. I don't know why, but eh... it is what it is.

Anyways, still in working on redrawing lookup art for all my pets I've come to try to draw Zyres. I'm just having the hardest time though with his hind legs. I've tried a few different poses for the young Darigan kau and am best liking having him sprawled out. He's going to be looking up at a butterfly that will be massive for being in the foreground. My only issue is I can't figure out where Zyres' second hindleg should be, if it should be visible at all. I've tried stretching it parallel to his other hindleg, hooked over it or tucked under his lower stomach. None of it seems to be working out, so any suggestions for what to try would be most appreciated.

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Seerow
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Seerow »

I have no grand advice as I'm not any sort of artist, I just wanted to say that I really like this sketch, especially the head.
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Huggles
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Huggles »

I too am not a great artist, but Google is your friend. Redudant and snarky, but true. If you search for calf or cow lying down, you'll get quite a few pics. From what I've seen, the missing leg should be brought in underneath the other, with the toe pointed at about a 45 degree angle. I'm not sure where the hoof is on the foreleg that's tucked in, but I don't think it should be showing. Oh bobs. Here's a crappy redline. That is, if I can upload it somewhere.

http://yfrog.com/20zyres1j
Xelio
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Xelio »

A search of Google didn't give me a cow lying down in the position I wanted. I searched cow pictures until I stopped getting images of cows and started getting pictures of spiders and random fruit instead. I'm not sure how one relates to the other, hence my coming here for help. The angle reference I'm looking for isn't out there.

I tried putting the leg there, but I'm afraid that its going to make Zy look like he's turned onto his side, which isn't quite what I was going to go for. I want him to look less stiff than a typical cow, with a greater range of motions to his limbs and was wanting him to look like he's on his stomach entirely with legs sticking straight out behind him, sort of like a Corgi is known to do. Only issue with Googling Corgi images though is their legs are far too stumpy to give me the anatomical framework I'm looking for. I know its not a typical cow pose, but with a youthful, sentient fake version of a cow I figured I could opt for something a bit more mobile than a typical bovine.
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Red Mask Corgi
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Red Mask Corgi »

Alright so I'm actually not too brilliant with anatomy myself, but when you said Corgi Pose! I just had to give it a try. I love it when they lay like that, it's such a cute pose. I don't know if I captured it correctly, but what I know is when they lay like that, they lay with their paw pads laying straight up, so I moved his hind legs to mimic that. I think it made him look even more like he was laying on his stomach and not his side.
Of course I'm not so good with hooves so they look more like...fuzzy, fuzzy paws since I left out the toe.
So yeah, it's kinda bad but I thought I'd attempt x3;

http://i553.photobucket.com/albums/jj38 ... /Zyres.png
Huggles
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Huggles »

Ahh, that does help. Both the redline and your comment, Xelio. The angle of his back and lower torso weren't matching up with the front to me. The back half did look more like he's lying on the side, while the front half looked more like the images I was finding. I know kaus aren't cows, but they do resemble them a bit more than dogs. I am not trying to be mean, but knowing you wantedto him look like a corgi does in a certain position would have helped. Then I wouldn't have bothered since I wouldn't have the slightest clue as to how to mix the two, less so than I do about cows.
Xelio
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Xelio »

In hindsight, I could have been a lot more clear with how I was wanting to pose him and could have avoided some confusion. I like cows, I really do (my aunt raised them when I was a child), but I want a creature a lot more spastic and a lot less sedate with Zyres. To quote a professor from my undergrad, cows are wonderful because cows are the superlative form of indifference. Zyres though, he's a bit of a mix of cow and hyperactive pup in my mind.

That redline though makes it all click into place. The legs should be back-side-up like that and I can't believe I didn't realize it from the start. Looking at that picture, I'm having visions of the corgi a friend of mine used to have, and I suspect all along was the inspiration for the pose I wanted. I know a real cow can't have that range of movement, but with a fictitious species I figured I could get away with pose. No worries on the hooves. I'll find a way to work them. Thank so much for the awesome redline.
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Red Mask Corgi
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Red Mask Corgi »

I'm on of those silly drawers who gives everything human anatomy; not anthro, but I make their limbs move in the same way that a human's can, even if the original animal can't. No worries about if a cow can or can't move in some way, since I'm sure a Kau could to some degree c: I'm glad I could be of some help <3
Xelio
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Xelio »

So back in April I started drawing Zyres. Here on the clear other side of the year I finally finished his lookup image so figured I might as well share it. I super appreciate the help from RMCorgi with his anatomy. I don't know that I could have pulled off the pose I wanted without the help. Spoiler boxed for size. With student teaching coming to a close, I might actually have time for working on the lookups of all my currently undrawn/needing update pets.
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Red Mask Corgi
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Re: Me again... a little bovine anatomy suggestions please?

Post by Red Mask Corgi »

Oh man he's adorable! I was actually thinking about this the other day, I was wondering if you ever finished him :3 I'm really glad I was able to help, he looks great <3
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