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Description
Vantage, n. - a position or place offering a commanding view.

For some time, I had wanted to update my wolf OC Lauren's visual design and color palette to a more natural look. In my writing, thus far, the colors of her wolf fursona are referred to as "white, tan, and gray" while her previous colors were gray-blue, tan, and brown. Perhaps I should mention that the protagonist of my story "Transpecies" in fact becomes her fursona in the course of events well beyond her control that lead her into a challenging journey. I sought to provide continuity with my canon writing, previous art of her, and the natural appearance of her species in this new design. The recolor doesn't reflect on her personality, which has been developing at its own pace regardless of visual depictions.

Her best friend Byron, who likewise has become his cross fox fursona, sits to the right and glances out at the landscape before them. As they approach a small settlement at the crossroads of a river and sinuous roadway, in the Great Smoky Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains region, each has stopped to evaluate their observations thus far and the options that lie ahead. Silvia, a common color phase red fox fursona, remains in the vicinity, though she is not pictured in this digital painting. Silvia already had a really popular picture, so I want to give these two a chance. I can just imagine her "I'm the favorite!" attitude if she knew.
I like mountainous forests a lot, though you probably already know that if you're a long-time watcher or have scouted out my gallery. The Smoky Mountains can be contrasted against the Rocky Mountains by numerous climatological and geographical features, and I used numerous photo references as guides to help distinguish the landscape here from that of the Rocky Mountains as seen in other digital paintings I've drawn.

In making this, I took on the challenge of drawing a different region from usual while also incorporating Lauren's new color pattern and the enhanced features that Photoshop Creative Cloud has in comparison to the Creative Suite 4 version. This was 23 hours of drawing (5/8-5/15) in Photoshop Creative Cloud, using my Intuos 4 Wacom Large and the Flex/Standard/Felt nibs. I used the softer flex nib for shading and highlight work, while the stiffer felt nib was used to make lineart. I found the virtual 3D brushes with pen tilt, which weren't around in CS4, to be of use in painting graceful strokes for lineart and fur color areas. I used two brushed aluminum textures, a water texture, and two rocky textures from the free cgtextures website in this composition. Several default patterns included in Photoshop CC were used on the terrain and trees. The (palette knife --> smudge stick --> cutout) stacked smart filters with a luminosity clipping mask over mostly solid colo regions produced the front rock formations derived from the rocky photographed textures. The two brushed aluminum textures were set to low opacity overlay for the whole image, and this film grain texture was used underneath the aluminum textures (californianinja.deviantart.com… ). I also used these tree brushes (just-nate.deviantart.com/art/F… ). This fur shading tutorial was of use; I applied the erase-away painterly shading method (tamberella.deviantart.com/art/… ).

I'm proud to say that this is my new personal favorite digital painting that I've created. I expect that it will serve as a useful inspiration and motivating factor for the continuance of the"Transpecies" manuscript. I'll have to see if it makes a nice print for a photo album or wall of mine, too. Click for the expanded view to see the correct colors. The full resolution file (2292 x 1440) is available for download, if you'd like to see all the details. Unlike other high resolution paintings I've made in the past, I've paid significant attention to details even at the 100% view. Artwork "Vantage" (c) foxstory 2014. Original characters Lauren, Byron, Silvia and the story "Transpecies" (c) foxstory 2014.

Comments and thoughtful critiques are greatly appreciated. Receiving constructive criticism and finding out what my online audience liked best in a picture are significant motivations for me to continue producing artwork. I think back to previous comments when creating successive pictures, and I am working to improve in every picture. I think this one's my best so far, and I'd like to be even better in the future.

Description
Vantage, n. - a position or place offering a commanding view.

For some time, I had wanted to update my wolf OC Lauren's visual design and color palette to a more natural look. In my writing, thus far, the colors of her wolf fursona are referred to as "white, tan, and gray" while her previous colors were gray-blue, tan, and brown. Perhaps I should mention that the protagonist of my story "Transpecies" in fact becomes her fursona in the course of events well beyond her control that lead her into a challenging journey. I sought to provide continuity with my canon writing, previous art of her, and the natural appearance of her species in this new design. The recolor doesn't reflect on her personality, which has been developing at its own pace regardless of visual depictions.

Her best friend Byron, who likewise has become his cross fox fursona, sits to the right and glances out at the landscape before them. As they approach a small settlement at the crossroads of a river and sinuous roadway, in the Great Smoky Mountains / Blue Ridge Mountains region, each has stopped to evaluate their observations thus far and the options that lie ahead. Silvia, a common color phase red fox fursona, remains in the vicinity, though she is not pictured in this digital painting. Silvia already had a really popular picture, so I want to give these two a chance. I can just imagine her "I'm the favorite!" attitude if she knew.
I like mountainous forests a lot, though you probably already know that if you're a long-time watcher or have scouted out my gallery. The Smoky Mountains can be contrasted against the Rocky Mountains by numerous climatological and geographical features, and I used numerous photo references as guides to help distinguish the landscape here from that of the Rocky Mountains as seen in other digital paintings I've drawn.

In making this, I took on the challenge of drawing a different region from usual while also incorporating Lauren's new color pattern and the enhanced features that Photoshop Creative Cloud has in comparison to the Creative Suite 4 version. This was 23 hours of drawing (5/8-5/15) in Photoshop Creative Cloud, using my Intuos 4 Wacom Large and the Flex/Standard/Felt nibs. I used the softer flex nib for shading and highlight work, while the stiffer felt nib was used to make lineart. I found the virtual 3D brushes with pen tilt, which weren't around in CS4, to be of use in painting graceful strokes for lineart and fur color areas. I used two brushed aluminum textures, a water texture, and two rocky textures from the free cgtextures website in this composition. Several default patterns included in Photoshop CC were used on the terrain and trees. The (palette knife --> smudge stick --> cutout) stacked smart filters with a luminosity clipping mask over mostly solid colo regions produced the front rock formations derived from the rocky photographed textures. The two brushed aluminum textures were set to low opacity overlay for the whole image, and this film grain texture was used underneath the aluminum textures (californianinja.deviantart.com… ). I also used these tree brushes (just-nate.deviantart.com/art/F… ). This fur shading tutorial was of use; I applied the erase-away painterly shading method (tamberella.deviantart.com/art/… ).

I'm proud to say that this is my new personal favorite digital painting that I've created. I expect that it will serve as a useful inspiration and motivating factor for the continuance of the"Transpecies" manuscript. I'll have to see if it makes a nice print for a photo album or wall of mine, too. Click for the expanded view to see the correct colors. The full resolution file (2292 x 1440) is available for download, if you'd like to see all the details. Unlike other high resolution paintings I've made in the past, I've paid significant attention to details even at the 100% view. Artwork "Vantage" (c) foxstory 2014. Original characters Lauren, Byron, Silvia and the story "Transpecies" (c) foxstory 2014.

Comments and thoughtful critiques are greatly appreciated. Receiving constructive criticism and finding out what my online audience liked best in a picture are significant motivations for me to continue producing artwork. I think back to previous comments when creating successive pictures, and I am working to improve in every picture. I think this one's my best so far, and I'd like to be even better in the future.