Cow Abduction

[exStatic1]

I decided to take out the farmer, I think I'm going to replace him with the ground and a barn and some debris also getting taken up with the cow, did some work on some details;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction.jpg

[exStatic1]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction3.jpg

Took the farmer out, going to add some sort of ground, more detail on the cow.

[exStatic1]

A tiny update, I had to rework some of the layers to make it a little easier for myself. Took out the star field and the farmer. I was thinking about the perspective on the ground and with the way the cow looks now, and the spaceship, and I'm not exactly sure how to draw it. As the camera angle looks like you are looking from ground level, up towards the spaceship, I'm not sure how to incorporate the ground... any ideas? I also polished up the cow a bit more, with lots more to go, so here's what I've got so far, comments/c&c appreciated. :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction7.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction7800.jpg

Thanks for taking a look.

[Greenham]

This is a very funny piece. Well done.

I agree with your decision to remove the farmer whole-heartedly. I would suggest placing a barn with a hole in the roof where the cow has just been 'sucked' through, but I can't see it working from the angle you've chosen. Unless you adopt the perspective of inside the barn, looking up through a hole at the ascending cow.

I'm not sure if you've purposefully elongated your cow to emphasize the fact that he's being beamed up at high speeds, in the same fashion as cartoons and CGI movies stretch and skew body parts to show movement, or not. If this isn't the case, the back half of the cow looks too small from this perspective. Just slightly.

I'd make the tail straight and rigid, as if the whole cow is being pulled tail first. Every other part of the cow's body is showing strain at being pulled, yet the tail is relaxed and 'wiggly.'

The jaw needs some attention. Although it's fun to use the classic 'drop jaw' pose, it doesn't look right and is distracting for me. Move the jaw into a half plausible position and have it attached to the skull instead of just, well, flapping about. Also, work on those teeth. They look great in the smaller version, but don't hold up when you zoom in. Pay careful attention to shading and textures to get a set of more realistic and aesthetically pleasing teeth.

You're going to have to do something with the left ear (right as viewed). It took me at least half a second of searching to find it, my eyes seemed to skip over it a number of times and I thought you'd presented me with a one-eared cow. That may have just been me, though.

The left leg (right as viewed) is too far right of the image. If you imagine the cow being pulled down the centre of its spine, it's two front legs would fly out in front of it - much like the right (and by that I mean non-left, not correct) leg is. Rotate it in a little.

[Tymotzues]

I'd also look at the right ear (left viewed) as the spot on the ear makes it resemble one of the cows eyes on initial view.
Love the idea and the execution ;)

[exStatic1]

Ahh, this is why I like the crits, thanks for bringing those issues to my attention. You're right about the ear, it is a little confusing to distinguish between that and the body, I'll tweak that a bit, also right about the tail, now that I think about it, it probably would be straight, maybe do the same with the utters too? Kind of point them towards the beam of light from the UFO.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

[Greenham]

I considered the utter and it looks alright as is. If you are indeed going to go with the 'pulling by the tail' the utters would probably point down, as their inertia resisted the pull from the tail. However, if the whole animal is being 'sucked' by some mysterious other-worldly beam, the utters would point upwards. You make up the physics, it's your work; but I'd leave the utter as is or have it pointing down. ;)

[exStatic1]

Bit of an update, been slowly working on a few different things. Added in the stars and ground, perspective on the ground looks a bit odd to me, also turned the cows ear around, making it easier to see, threw in a cowbell, plan on touching up the grass, all I did with that so far was add it from a stock pic. C&C Appreciated. 8^D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction11.jpg

[Tymotzues]

Hi ExStatic

good to see your update. That right ear is still oogling at me like it's a third eye. Maybe you could remove the black spot?
Take a rough brush eraser to the edge of the grass too just to break up the silhouette. Also try copying the grass layer and using a blend over the top of the original, might give you a bit more of a night feel - it's just a bit bright outisde the spot at the moment. If you multiply the grass and remove the ground spot of the beam on the second grass layer might lift it a bit.
T

[Ilikesoup]

Wow, fantastic job on that cow! The expression and the pose are really exceptional. I have a couple of crits, though:

It doesn't make sense that the cow's right ear would be curled -- if you're trying to imply that the cow is being sucked into the space ship then both ears should be straight up/back. Also, every reference pic I can find of a holstein cow shows the ears as totally black. I only mention this because the cow's face looks a bit dog like and you might want to minimize that resemblance. The nose, too, looks like it belongs to a dog. See if you can move it down closer to the lip line.

As for the grass I think it's fine to crop it from a stock photo but you'll want to get the right look and perspective. With this grass you can see all the individual blades right up to the horizon line so it looks like we're on the edge of a hill. If there were depth to the scene you wouldn't be able to see individual blades of grass going into the distance. If we are at the edge of a hill the blades of grass should make for a jagged horizon line. Lastly, the grass has very little in the way of shadows -- looks like it's all done in shades of green as though all the color info was removed from the source pic and replaced with green.

[exStatic1]

Oh man, silly me, I thought you guys were talking about the left ear in the previous posts, as I was looking at it I noticed it didn't look quite right, so that's where the pink came in, I think that makes it stand out a bit better as an ear, but I completely missed the right ear, I'll fix that the next time I get working on it. I really don't like the grass as it is, I replaced the picture I used with a different one, I think it suits the pic better and looks more natural. I also threw in a barn and some clouds, so next is the UFO, prolly some trees in the background, and I was thinking of other stuff that would be sucked up along with the cow, random stuff you would find on a farm, my buddy suggested a chicken, lol, any other ideas are welcome, I just want to keep the main focus on the cow and don't want to make it look too cluttered.

Thanks for the responses, keep em coming, I'll update more as I go along. :D

[exStatic1]

Ok, fixed the ear, added in the barn, fixed the ufo light, threw in some tire tracks and clouds, lots more to go!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction14.jpg

[mark-jenkins]

Wow,

This is looking so much better now. The composition is tighter and I like the texture of the sky. Luv it, luv it, luv it. Keep going mate

[Chriz5]

Hi there, :)

the cow is really funny, I enjoy to look at it. I am going to keep watching the development of this piece.

But there is one point which is let me looking at it again and again.

I´m not sure if the tire tracks come up with the barn in the background.
When I look at the barn, than it looks if I have to walk for a long time until I reach this building.
In the same time, the tracks show me a more short distance to the corner of the barn.

I hope you understand what I mean.

May anyone does see it too?



Christoph

[Tymotzues]

Yep, see what you mean Chriz
Maybe the barn could be shrunk and moved over the horizon slightly might fix the problem.
But nice going ExStatic - looking good. Like the changes.

[exStatic1]

Started some details on the cow;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowDetails.jpg

Changed the barn (shrunk it down, looks 10 times better, also moved it over) and opened the doors, still needs some wood and shingles layed down;

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/BarnDetails.jpg

[exStatic1]

OK, here's some high res pics at 100% (sorry if they are overly huge, I plan on resizing everything once the picture is done to about 50%). Spent a lot of time on th wood texture for the barn, used a custom brush for the trees in the background, still have a ton of things I want to do to this, but here's what I've got so far, C&C appreciated!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/CowAbduction17.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/Cowdetail2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v55/Nsane87/Barnwithwooddetail.jpg

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