I decided to start my own thread for my WIPs, drawings and for crit on my work.  Hopefully this will help me push my art forward some more. 

Thanks to the wonderful peeps on this forum I've managed to get some good pointers on how to improve my work; namley to add narrative to my pieces and charcater/back story/purpose to my critters and characters.  Hopefully I cans stick to this.  So after getting said pointers I went back and re-evaluated the pictures I was working on.  The top sketch is what it looked like before and the colour picture beneath is what has come about after going away and thinking about a story and creating a scene.  I'm trying to practice my vector cel shading with this one, so it's looking a bit clean and flat at the moment.

 So, this piece is called 'Le Chicken Freak' and basically every year the Chicken Freak, due to some deep repressed issues surrounding easter, decides to don his chicken costume and terrorise the easter bunnies when they hunt for easter eggs.  I've been debating about changing the bunnies to people in bunny costumes to mirror the Chicken Freak but I'm still not sure about this.  Opinions would be greatly appreciated, as would help with composition as this is my biggest weakness.  I'm still in the very early stages here so changes shouldn't be too much of a pain.

So, thanks for viewing and sorry if this wall of text is a bit boring :)

And here is the other thing I'm working on.  After viewing a ton of youtube videos about critter design I feel a bit more prepared.  It's been a while since I've drawn straight to digital (rather than scanning) so progress is a bit slow.  I'm strating with small simple creatures and working my way up to bigger more complex ones.

Here's the logic behind this one (yet to be named) it's a tree dwelling caterpillar type creature, I'll hopefully be adding branches soon. It uses it's long prehensile body to climb. It's got a green underbelly so it blends with foliage when viewed from below and a mottled furry coat on top to break up it's outline when viewed from above.  I decided to add two green furry points at either end as this is a tactic employed by many caterpillars and snakes too.  This makes it difficult for predators to tell which end is which and the creature can distract attention from it's vulnerable head using the tail.  Finally I added mandible/mouth creation as a mix between insect & mammal.  Basically just checking that I'm getting the gist of critter design.

Still in the early stages with this too.  

Hey Baxter!

The line art is superb. Brilliant stuff.

Not too keen on the colours yet, but it is still very early in the process. When it comes to composition I find that the key to it is to keep any shapes that the characters have started to form are completed. What that means is if you start to construct characters in a shape (say a trangle) but only fill two sides af it, the composition will not work, it will look strangely hollow on the side that is missing.

For example, look at this: http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/domtopias_portfolio/default.aspx (It's called Spiral) It's a painting I did a few months back and although there are loads of things wrong with it, it taught me a fair bit about composition. At first I noticed that the character was only forming two sides af a shape (a triangle in this case) with her legs as a base and her back as one side. I was really struggling with what to put in the gap on the left (I had tried every permutation of arm position you could think of! Plus, all sorts of furniture and background objects!), untill I drew in a sword (a linear object) and angled her arm to complete the shape. It instantly made the whole image come together and the narrative flowed naturally. Hopefully you can see what I mean?

Alternatively, if you are painting a dramatic or comicbook scene you could take a look at the workshop in issue 82 of IFX about character composition on pages 78-82. It explains it better than I just did!

Hope that made some sort of sense!

Thanks Domtopia.  You're right about the colours, they do need a tweak.  Still looking a bit washy at the moment.

Thanks for the advice on composition, I think I'll go back and play around with it a bit more (the joy of vector is that this part is so easy) bearing in mind what you have said.  May change the background a bit too and try to bring the viewer in a bit more. 

Here's two more.  I'm trying to get as much drawing done in PS as possible and try to loosen up these unsteady hands.  No1 is a study of a bat, trying to keep it loose (I'm naff at loose, so much pratice) and another tree dwelling critter idea.  Sorta like an ugly hairless Koala. 

Thanks folks, I've been getting sick of being stuck in a artistic rut, so I'm going to really try & push it.

Glad you like Domtopia, the backgrounds are a simple texture that I found here;  http://knald.deviantart.com/art/Vintage-paper-TEXTURE-PACK-152400787  which I then went over using Photoshop's wet media and thick heavy brushes to add a nice texturey look.  I also have a couple of homegrown brushes with plenty of texture too.  I'm thinking of tead dying my own papers to sacn in too.

Penabled, I'm happy you are seeing improvement.  One of my biggest downfalls is that I often fail to see where I am improving, so it's nice to be on the right track :)

Thanks for the link Baxter! Did someone call you Rachel earlier?

Anyway, I will look into that soon enough because it looks awesome in your recent paintings. Really impressed!

Yep, I am indeed Rachel.  Rachel Baxter to be precise ;)  Have a look at www.bittbox.com too.  That's got loads of great stuff all for free.

Here's another ugly looking character that I've been working on.  It was meant to be a quick loose sketch but I ended up getting really into it.  Anyway he's an ugly little, dog, yoda, alien thing who's confidence comes from is obnoxiously sized weapon.   :) 

Looks loose to me. At least, bits of it are! I have recenlty discovered the smudge tool on PS and by turning that up to 50% it is ace for drawing very loosly. I block in a little colour (or grey scale) and then move it around like oil paint or graphite. Looks pretty cool and is controlable enough to make some cool images.

Nice to meet you Rachel. I'm Dominic. Dominic Kearns to be precise!

Domtopia:

Looks loose to me. At least, bits of it are! I have recenlty discovered the smudge tool on PS and by turning that up to 50% it is ace for drawing very loosly. I block in a little colour (or grey scale) and then move it around like oil paint or graphite. Looks pretty cool and is controlable enough to make some cool images.

Nice to meet you Rachel. I'm Dominic. Dominic Kearns to be precise!

Nice to meet you too Dominic :)

Yeah the body on Yodadogthing is still real loose.  Going to tighten it up methinks.  Thanks for the tips with the smudge tool, I'll give it a go.

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Here's another that I've started.  Dreamed it up in the office today ;)   I'm trying to draw totally in PS and getting slightly better, my lines are slightly less wobbly.  Anyway I've tried drawing it carefully using gesture & construction of forms, which makes it much easier but I think that the right arm is off.  Any suggestions?

Thanks for all the encouragement peeps  :)

The right arm looks fine to me. I think it may be helpful to see the hand and fingers as it will make more sense.

I like the attitude! She looks just a bit 'ard!