Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/14/2006 @639 | edit post

Hello, I thought I would give this work in progress thing a try. If anything, it should help motivate me to complete the picture in a timely manner. Girl from a fantasy jungle civilization. She's out on an stroll, making her way through some uncomfortable patches of entangling vines, taking the local junior deity (the thing that looks at the pot on the ground) on its morning walk. The sketch for the character art is finished, and I'm moving on to both figuring out the color scheme for the image, as well as details on the background. More on that later, I suppose. (Considering lifting one of the legs on the deity to give it more of an appearance of motion.)

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/15/2006 @011 | edit post

Approximate colors for the characters and background are blocked in. The foliage isn't anything more than paint dabs right now, but it still gives me a good approximation for placement on leaves and vines and things. The next pass on the background should give it the structure it needs to look finished. I also need to remember to dim the luminescent blue plants on the middle left behind the character so that the vines and foreground foliage have a bit more pop. I'm pretty burnt out right now, so I'll get to that later, after I have some time to reflect on things. Woo-hoo! Split complement color scheme action! Overall, I'm pretty happy with where the picture's going. I may just move on to inking the character art in preparation for cel coloring, and leave the rest of the background alone until I'm done with that. (Note to self: you still need to adjust the legs on the mini-deity...)

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Mysteryhunt | 07/15/2006 @273 | edit post

im loving the colors though the face area is confusing to me. keep up the good work!

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
eithedog | 07/15/2006 @903 | edit post

nothing to complain right now - i like the total effect, the colors, the pose. the only critiques i would have it would be that it's too small :] and the eye [don't like manga too much ]

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/17/2006 @913 | edit post

It's been a couple days. I ran into some hardware problems and was concerned that I'd have to stop for a while. Fortunately everything seems fine now, so back to the drawing-tablet. While I'm anxious to ink and finish the character artwork, I wanted to get somewhere with a background first. Background art to me is like an important nuisance, a chore. I hate doing it, but I realize it's important and necessary for the picture on a whole. I try to force myself to nibble off little pieces of it between bites on the part of the picture I really enjoy, the character art. I decided to go back and formalize the environment before moving any further on the picture. I turned down the opacity on the character and background sketches (the art as seen in the previous image), and started drawing on a new layer, using the sketches as a basic guide. It seems like a completely backwards way of creating an image, and it probably is, but I think it'll turn out okay. It's also let me address a couple of the not so well placed elements in the picture. The most major revision, as far as I can see it, involved the omission of the luminescent fern-tendrilly thingy jutting out from the left most part of the picture, and the lengthening and twisting of the vines directly in front of the character. I think these vines create a nice path, and divide the image nicely. Likewise, the ground on the bottom right now shows signs an orderly stone path leading through the jungle. That's about as much background art as I can take for now. Now moving on to inking the character. So you guys don't like the face, huh? I suppose the eyes are a "bit" large. I'm afraid that's the way I like them though. I'm actually going for something a bit extreme with the eyes. I was modeling them off of the nocturnal douroucouli monkeys. Still, it's great to hear your comments.

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/18/2006 @643 | edit post

The inks on the character art are finished. Full size version of the inks. Now, back to work on the background. [Message edited on 07/18 @644]

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/21/2006 @678 | edit post

Working my way through the background, from top to bottom. The large void in the center of the image is where the character art will be placed, once that's take care of. I'm not sure about the luminescent blue fungus stalks. I don't think I'm handling them very well, and besides that, they're certainly competing with the blue vines. Any advice, or links to luminescent fungus painting tutorials would be appreciated. I'll probably go back and either shift the color on the vines, or greatly brighten them to give them more pop from the background. More on that later though. I think I'll work on the characters for a bit. [Message edited on 07/21 @678]

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
bigkate | 07/21/2006 @679 | edit post

Lookin good! lots of nice colors you have going on all throughout

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Carpet-Crawler | 07/31/2006 @526 | edit post

Nothing I can really critic, the piece is turning really nice. I guess I'll try harder on my suggestions when I see the inked character and the background all together.

Re: Jungle Walk - WIP
Quasimanga | 07/31/2006 @735 | edit post

Sorry about the delay in updates. The picture was officially finished on July 27. I was very busy at the time, rushing to prepare for a local anime convention, so I was unable to post my progress on the picture until now. I have two more WIP shots and then the final image. The color fill base tone on the character art was completed in another document. A flattened version was transferred over to the file with the WIP background for use as a stand in. This way I could work around the character art without wasting my time painting sections of the image that no one would ever see. With the background more or less completed it was time to move back to cel coloring on the character art. While not a simple process, it's far less time consuming then the background painting. The character art took a couple of days to separate and color. The background took close to a week... Looking at it now I'm wondering where that time was spent ... Anyhow, one thing leads to another. The cel art done, the picture is composed together and the overlapping elements painted in the background are separated and pasted on an overlying layer. A bit of glowing overlay lighting effect is applied to the character's head and that's pretty much it. Click here for the finished image. Thanks to everyone for their commentary. If anyone has any problems, opinions, or pointers on the final piece, please feel free to post. [Message edited on 07/31 @735]