couple of questions

[dholverson]

Question #1: Does anybody know of an OS X equivalent of this filter? Thanks!

BTW, that was part of a homage to the Filmation Star Trek.

[dholverson]

Question #2: This is a work in progress of a splash page that's supposed to be a straight-faced spoof of an air-brushed '70s van mural. How would I mimic chrome reflections on the space ship do-dads? Make the head, neck, shoulders, and upper body fit together better on "Space Babe"? Or anything else to make this look more professional or realistic (despite the subject matter working seriously against that)? I'm thinking that when this is near finished up, making the castle and the "Roger Dean splinters" and maybe spaceship and planets slightly desaturated and subtly blueish while making the woman and pet highlight by more of a golden light.

BTW, that space ship was supposed to be a deliberate John Berkey knockoff but it also kind of looks a little Filmation too....

[Charles]

Looks really good. Glad to see you doing something in color and in a different approach. I like the concept about a 70s airbrushed van.

Get references of chrome surfaces through Google and emulate the effect on what you want to look that way. The planets are nicely done. Keep working it until you've reached completion. You have a good base so far. How about a contact shadow under the lady and dragon creature.

Looking forward to the final work.

[dholverson]

Update on this monster, 1/15/2011. Any tips on making the head, neck, shoulder and upper body on the woman fit together better before I add modeling? Anything else?

[dholverson]

Detail of the "dragon lady" with flip. Any tips on making the head, neck, shoulder and upper body on the woman fit together better before I add modeling? Times like this I wish that I was better mentored. Yes, kiddies, I'm ad libbing and guessing how to do this all the way along....

[Charles]

You're doing fine so far. The technique you're using of establishing shapes of color and then rendering those shapes with texture and lighting to define form is working out okay. There's some issues such as the belly color of the dragon creature not integrating with the color of his hide, but that's easily fixed with tinting. Bring it on home.

[dholverson]

Thanks for the support so far. Here is the almost done version of Piebald. Not totally happy with the brass and chrome. Any advice on how to fix anything here?

[Charles]

You did a fine job with this. It's helpful to see the progress of your work. My immediate comment concerning improving the painting is to find a way to blend the color of the dragon's underbelly in with its hide. It's too close in color to the lady as well. The most efficient way of doing this would be to add a slight tint to it. Maybe keying it to the green of its general color. Do this one last step and you'll see a big difference in the overall quality of the composition.

[dholverson]

Here's the as done as it's going to get version of this. Thanks for the advice! If I had to do it again, I'd attempt to build up the colors over white, instead of doing a solid fill.

Now to overcome inertia and get back to my webcomic. I been neglecting it for about a month. It's suffering from being a bit off more than I can chew project meeting too little readership.

[dholverson]

Here's an old drawing from an (yet another) odd transitional period in my life that I recently rediscovered and played with an attempted imitation air brush by building up color over white.

[dholverson]

And a side project with the same technique, plus the Sponge texture filter. It's sort of a mashup of "Go Go Gophers" and some movie.

I'd still would prefer an OS X equivalent of the Lumpy Noise (see first post) over that Sponge filter.

Now off for a burger at Runza.....

[dholverson]

For of my pretend air-brushing with this impossible space map for Catch 'Em Catsos! It's based on one that I drew back in Kindergarten or first grade for a "here there are monsters" sort of place. I even tried to name the planets like a young child, but got reminded of the irony that although cartoonists are like kids at heart, childhood in forty-some years in the rear view mirror and receding. Plup may get renamed Goobly and Goobly may get renamed Patnoogie (which was a word I made up in third grade) if this doesn't get thrown out for adding unnecessary complexity to this universe. Anyway, unlike the morning or evening stars, the Noon Star only shines at noon when nobody can see it, which is why it took forever to be discovered.

[dholverson]

Fake air brushing on Meteor Mining Company. The Prog Rocks are floating in the background.

[dholverson]

The Prog Rocks and the Treehouse of Cosmicness.

They're called the Prog Rocks, "'Cause PROG! ROCKS!!!"

The Treehouse of Cosmicness is cosmic because it's infested with Mini-Chlouroids. Or Dutch Elm. People forgot which.

Sort of lost the style here and defaulted to more of my Iwao Takamoto wannabe style. Figured out how to bring this back into more of a Total TV style about 3AM the next morning after inking this while rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

[dholverson]

Just in case that you didn't see where my mashup of Go Go Gophers and some movie is going....

Barry J. Freezerburn (who may of may not be based on a real person) is the Boss of the Meteor Mining Company outpost on Goobly/Patnoogie. He's fixated on steeling the motherlode of Ludicrium under the Treehouse of Cosmicness despite that there are metric buttloads of the stuff in the Prog Rocks.

Ludicrium is element 6-15/16 on the periodical chart . It's worth a jillion dollars per milli-iota. It super-duper semiconducts. It defies all gravity and most logic. It's more cubic than zirconium. It's better on Moo Goo Gai Pan than MSG, because it doesn't do that queasy and dizzy as it doesn't quite digest thingie.

Sgt. Stormin' Norman D. Beach is the gung-ho head of the mercenary space marines. He's always trying to chase Flora and Dandelion out of the Treehouse of Cosmicness.

Cpl. Haywood Bailer is a good ol' boy and good soldier who always dutifully follows Beach's orders despite knowing better.

Flora N. Fauna and Dandeloin are the two Catsos that live in the Treehouse of Cosmicness. One's a Catsos' princess and one's her jester, but they forget which. It doesn't help that Flora is the wise-guy of the pair, and despite Dandelion's Harpo-like nearly silent simpleton act, will whisper her encyclopedic knowledge and the strategy that she cooks up into others' ears.

[dholverson]

And to bring it all around to home: Cpl. Haywood Bailer in disguise to infiltrate the Catsos.

catsoscostume.jpg (33.54 KiB) Viewed 491 times

This is probably going to go down as an interesting stillborn project. I'd like to dovetail it into Sci Fi Guy! (since that strip loves comic art inside comic art) but it's not a good fit.

[dholverson]

Here's how the mashup played out in my webcomic.

Now to get back to the thing after neglecting it for a few weeks.

[dholverson]

Now here's a start on the next promo piece for my webcomic.

I'm going attempt to color it in 2&1/2 different styles.....

[Charles]

Nice! This is the best art you've done to date so far, and you've been posting your work on AN for a long time going back to the old forums. Thanks for posting.