Color schemes, headaches, etc

Here are some (really zoomed in, compared to their print size) backgrounds for a comic I'm doing for school... mostly interested in practicing with color, and digital painting.


I don't like digital painting anymore (it's so much easier to make stuff look good with paint, I think), but it's very cost-effective and there's no loss of luster through a scanning process. Took a lot of cues from Anne in terms of digital application of spongey looks. She's pretty clearly more advanced than I am, but I can't catch up if I don't start! Anyway, it is fun and educational.

More Curly Fuzz Poodle

Another Curly Fuzz Poodle drawing by John.

Round 1: Eek!
I spent quite a while trying for this-- I started a couple of days ago, tried a few times to pick it up again, but I couldn't get it to look right. I didn't bother doing details or cleaning it up because something just seemed wrong about it. I squished it together. Upon closer inspection, I just ATE UP the spaces horizontally. I decided since so much of it was wrong, as a result, to just start on a new piece of paper.
So I started a meticulous do-over, this time checking more frequently how I was doing...
Lots of checking and squishing and fixing.
Finally, it started to look closer to correct.
I don't like the way his ears look. The details are not handled elegantly and the thicknesses of the ears vary. They're also a bit rounded out.

Later edit--
JOHN'S COMMENT:

put perspective in the feet

the one that's closest to us should be bigger than the one that's farther away

be careful of the silhouette while fixing my mistake
So I tried to tweak some things-- I drew the closer foot again on a new piece of paper and Photoshopped it on in (pretty much the same idea as taking an X-acto and taping it in, only less involved with dangerous blades), and also made it so you could kinda see the old foot. Also tweaked the ears while I was at it.

CFP cot'd

I think I should have made the pad a little bit more "straight" and working in perspective better... hmm. I'm not wholly satisfied with his eyes., particularly the one on the right.

Got another in the works. I want to do many.

Curly Fleece Poodle

(I am drawing from the second image, both of these drawings are John's)


My roughest, first attempt at this drawing got deleted, but I still have the overlay (I try to only overlay now during very early stages so as to ensure that I'm seeing the basic proportions correctly).

Couple corrections...

More to come, I'd like to make more corrections before I clean it up. I really like drawing this character a lot. Funny animals are my favorite.

I feel like I misread the cranium, now that I look at it. I should have corrected it when I fixed the eye the first time around... His head is tilted to the left.

Because I want to get in the habit:

- Curly Fleece Poodle has one eye REALLY WIDE and one eye quite narrowed
- He is looking directly at what he's writing... he's really concentrating, because he is a stuffed animal
- His ass is so up in the air that it is coming forward, toward his head
- His big feet are supporting his butt weight