Legacy LD5

Hi everybody! Happy New Year from RipRoarRex!



There's not really a lot I can say about this one. In the mood for smelly turtle paws, got a silly idea in my head, so... *does the David Brent 'Melting Pot' gesture*... Lol! I wanted this one to be a mixture of sexy, cute and funny at the same time, so I hope it achieves that. The one thing I should point out about this one is I finally feel that I've found that happy medium regarding the presence of outlines. It's largely down to Paint Shop Pro's 'Edge Dilate' tool, which I think narrows my chunky outlines rather nicely. Oh, and I've gone for a semi-lazy background; it's not just a gradient, but it's not far off! Lol!



My first bit of work for what will hopefully be a very productive 2009. Fingers crossed.






Those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles really should wash their feet more often. If nothing else, the smell leaves the local rodents feeling thoroughly confused...






RRRex

I think you succeeded my friend...you hit 'em all...smexy, funny, and third and fourth things, too! I actually do have a bit of advice for you, since you mentioned about lines and outlines and how to handle 'em. There's an example of good and and almost-good and not-as-good regarding that in this pic.

To summarize my point, though, I think that outlines that are crease lines (not just the outline of the whole foot) work best when they fade into something. First, take those lines that fork off in the Y shape to the upper left of the ball of the foot. Now that's perfect...the black of the outline fades into the darker green and then finally into the lighter green. That's perfect 'cause then it's just "I used a fill tool to stick some color in this shape like I was making a suncatcher". It looks like real stuff then, not colored in cartoon cels...of course, sometimes that's what you want, but not in this case.

Second best is in the underside of the toeknuckle closest...there are dark crease lines, and they're surrounded by green, but there's not a smooth dithering between 'em. Then the 'not as good' is the bit of crease line on the ankle. Because it's only surrounded by a lighter green, it's almost just distracting to the eye too much.

However, having said all this, I bet there's a good reason for it -- the lines and the coloring are on different layers, and you'd have to flatten them and lose the ability to go back if you wanted to do some mixing. Still, could make it the last part of the process, or maybe there's some layer blending magic it can do...

What are you using anyway, by the way? Are you using Painter or just Photoshop? As you could see by my Chinese translations, I really need to get more familiar with Photoshop CS4...I'm too spoiled by the Corel software and used to finding everything there.

I must admit Dino that I'm not too sure what you are referring to with regard to the toe knuckle. Maybe I'm not looking at the right bit, but I don't know what is supposedly wrong with it. Could you perhaps point it out for me graphically? I take your point on the ankle crease because the tonal range around it is not as great as elsewhere, but I don't personally believe it to be as distracting as you suggest.


And as ever, I used Paint Shop Pro 7 for this.


Anyway, thanks for the comments.

Sure thing, Rexar...I got stuff to do tonight, but tomorrow I'll clip out the sections and show you what I means.

Okay, it's like 3 in the morning and I'm crazy, but I figured I'd try and point out what I was talking about.

Here's two of the sections I mentioned. The one to the left/top is the "best" one, where the outline is faded very slowly into the coloring. And the bottom/right one is the "not as" best one, where there is dithering (and accursed smoothing in Photoshop makes it look even MORE smoothed than it does normally, unfortunately) but the dithering is too sharp, doesn't fade over a great enough distance.

But...the more I think about it, and how I think about the Rexar shower pic, the more I think it's just me thinking that I guess the world is actually better off without outlines at all sometimes.

3:00am?! Lol!! Well thanks for clarifying Dino, because I had indeed gotten completely the wrong idea about where it was you were referring to! Lol!

I can see what you're saying, but I don't personally agree that it looks any better or worse, because if one is to become too concerned with how well outlines are blended into the colouring, one might as well not have outlines at all. In the case of the 'best' bit that you refer to, that was not actually an intentional effect - I applied a lighter layer on top to make the skin on the arch paler, but of course, it ended up going over the outline as well.

Oh, and just for the record, I don't actually know what 'dithering' is! Lol!

Hahaha! Awesome picture! It's indeed a sexy, cute and funny one!

I especially enjoy the way you did all the dirt covering the sole. It's so lovely that way instead of clean paws. My tongue is out right now, wishing to clean all that!

Great work again triple R!

Actually, I'm wondering if dithering is even the proper term for what I'm talking about. I think maybe dithering is doing patterns to diffuse an edge, whereas...yes, I think gradient is the proper term, and that's having a range of colors from A to B to smooth the transition.

awesome work RRR
I particularly love the expression on the mouse

That's funny.

HOWEVER...

The texture on the mouse seem too smooth--as if it were bathed in water.

That would be the result of me feeling like I couldn't be bothered by the time I got round to shading the mouse.

Lol!

Wow great work keep it up Rex, And Dino we need to organise that thing you wanted the other day

"That thing I wanted?" Is that like Harvey Birdman...didja get that thing I sentcha?

It's too cute >:[