Topic awaiting preservation: non-digital WIP

Thought I'd share a WIP of a more traditional kind and try to get some tips.

This is a oilpainting (size 100*80cm) for a friend and it is done from a photo of her boxer (dog) lounging in a chair.
She wanted it in few colours so I tried my hand at this style, which is quite far from my ordinary work...



I can tell you that boxers are no picnic drawing this way imho. In a human face you at least have some idea were the shadows should be, but boxers... sheesh.. To me it seems to end up as a gremlin of some sort...

The only thing I *do* know that I'm going to change is the blue. I didn't know that Paynes Gray turned out blue when mixed with white, so I'm changing it to a coffee-with-milk brown instead.

Oh, and the greyish tone in the outline/shadow is just reflection from the wet canvas. It's black in real life..

All tips on making it look more doglike welcome.

(edit) added dog-remark after boxer (/edit)



[This message has been edited by Nimraw (edited 09-19-2003).]

oh man, I was about to write I couldnt make out what you had drawn.. was looking for a boxer not a type of dog

Its really good I like it, the face looks a little dragged down, I know they have saggy faces but its a little too much maybe. Also maybe his face should be bigger and left a pinch?

Am looking forward to updates, looks great so far and certaintly looks very promising.
You using a reference pic? If so please post it.

The blue suits the dog as it gives it a sorta sad look/feel about it.

I think it looks nice so far, Nimraw. Are you going for the cut out style? Is that what you mean by few colours?

The dog looks like he's going to be both sad and cute. He also looks pretty dog-like to me so not sure how you could make him even more dog-like.

I also like the blue



Amerasu

Heh.. not every girl has her own boxer at home, Hugh.

I totally agree with you, and when finding the ref that I apparently have forgotten to look at when doing parts of the face I start to see where things went downhill...

Yep, I'm trying my hand at cut-out. She want's it kind of minimalistic to fit in with the style of their house.
(also a reason that I'm considering losing the blue.. but that's the least of my problems )

The ref pic is here
And an update with colour in the paws is here

Oh well.. I have to let it dry for a couple of days anyway before trying to fix things..


[This message has been edited by Nimraw (edited 09-19-2003).]

good work so far. The only thing that bothers me (and mind you I am *no* artist, just a critic ) is that the nose does not come out enough. His snout looks more like a Pug's than a Boxer's.

I've often wanted to have a painting of my dogs but don't know if I could leave then up after something happens to them

Later,

C:\


~Binary is best~

Now that I see the ref I agree that the snout needs a bit of work to stick out more.

He's very cute



Amerasu

Awesome job... really sweet.

okay, enough of that, I am really drawn to look at that squarish black patch in the center-ish of his face.

You got to break that up a bit. I realy need to be able to see both of his eyes clearly. I think that would help one easily tell what they were looking at.

And that white strip on the dogs ear (camera left) breaks the ear up, and generally confuses me. You need to try to bring that ear out just a little bit more.

home that helps a bit. really sweet so far. i am diggin the style. with a shovel.




[This message has been edited by eyezaer (edited 09-22-2003).]

Yup, what ^he said.

Nice work all around. But Before I saw the photo I couldn't tell which way the dog was looking.

If you can break that up well enough to seperate the facial features, it'll be much better.

OK, apologizes for digging up this old thread, but I finally got the time to finish this one and thought I'd share the result.

I fully agreed with your crits and tried to rework the face, and IMHO it improved. However since the dog is looking down it did look wrong when I tried to bring out the eyes more, so I reverted to the former look.



Now, the painting is OK'd by my friend (even if I had wanted to work some more of it) so I guess I'll try to find inspiration and time for a new project.

(e) stupid ubb (/e)



[This message has been edited by Nimraw (edited 11-18-2003).]

I love it when an artist takes a critique to heart. You did a really good job correcting the errors in the image. The final looks awesome! Great job!

apologizes for digging up this old thread????

what tha? Awesome man. Awesome.