Day 22 - Ashley

[vilakins]

I spent about an hour trying and failing to draw something else for naarmamo and gave up, so here instead is Ashley curled up in a ball and giving me a knowing look. :-)

Ashley



I had a go at adding some texture. I quite like it.

My NaArMaMo 2009 Gallery is here.

Comments

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Your pictures give a very powerful impression of 3-d solidity, and weight. You can feel the overall shape of Ashley. Also, that's a cheeky face.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :-) I love Ashley's sweet little face. They're both gorgeous and lovable girls.

I'll have to draw Jasmin now to make up for two Ashley pictures this month.

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

This is fantastic--so beautifully real.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I was pleased I did the effects on different layers; that made it a lot easier.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I love the way she's peeking out at you...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She's such a cutie. She gives me these upside-down "come and pet me" looks.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

You couldn't get your naarmamo project to work, so you tossed off an amazing portrait of a cat! The fur effect is marvellous. I second all those people who've been saying you should try to get into illustration.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I pick and choose what I'll draw! There's a lot of subjects I'm no good at.

[azdak.livejournal.com]

If you wrote the book yourself, you could choose what to draw :-) I bet you could do something delightful about a kitten's first day exploring a garden.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I could, but it's doubtless been done beautifully before. I need to find an unusual angle, like a typical day on a spaceship. Of course there could be a ship's cat.

[kerravonsen]

Yes! A ship's cat on a spaceship! And it catches a mouse in the hydroponics section!

[trixieleitz]

Awww, she looks so strokable!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And she is! She's got incredibly soft fur.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I love the way her belly fur is there to emphasise the curve of her hind leg.

Please don't take this the wrong way, because I can't draw for toffee, I can only look and be amazed, but the front leg isn't working for me. I think it's the flow and shading of the fur is making the leg look as if it's been twisted backwards. The anatomy of the leg and the patterning of the fur is in slight conflict.

Please don't throw things at me, I don't want to upset you.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I used a photo as reference, and it was like that. You can see the bend of her elbow and the dark fur on the back of her leg (all four are like that), and the paw's curled under. It does look a bit weird.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

It's because I can see the bend of the elbow and the curl of her paw that I'm having trouble seeing the fur right. My head is expecting paler fur towards the back of her leg and insisting dark fur = front, I keep telling it Ashley can grow her fur any way she wants but it's not having it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[goes to gallery to find evidence] OK, here you go:

An early one when she was small which hows the darkening towards the back I was depicting (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/001w9pb6)
A good one showing the black backs of her forelegs (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/001zr2gx)
And her back legs (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/001zqewt)
Kissing Jasmin (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/001zx3ag)

She's a strange little cat!

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

She's a strange little cat!

But very pretty. (and matches your sketch) And the fluffy belly fur is looking softer every time I look at it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She's has very soft, thick fur--and lets me stroke it anywhere, even on her belly. She's a little sweetie, and I like her eccentric markings. She even has a black bob on the roof of her mouth.

I now need to go and cuddle her. :-)

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

Skiffle had a black blob on the roof of her mouth too. You can just see it in the original photo I used to make this icon.

edited to add:

All four paws were white, but each foot had a different combination of pink and black pads.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Cute! Ashley yawns like that a lot, pulling out the corners of her mouth into what looks like a grin. She looks like the Bliss (cat toy range) cat, a "grinning" silver tabby. :-)

[Edit] Ashley's pads are all black. front (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/0022aha7) and back (http://pics.livejournal.com/vilakins/pic/001xq3ec). :-) A previous tabby, Petra, had those mottled pads though.

[kerravonsen]

Awwwwwww.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

:-)

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

So cute. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She's a very cute cat!

I love that one of Happiness. She looks very kittenish.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

She is very kittenish in that one. :) I forget how old she was when it was taken, but she wasn't remotely fully grown yet. Funny... It doesn't seem all that long ago.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Aww lovely!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She's a lovely subject!

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Very cute!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

And she is!

[daiseechain.livejournal.com]

Oh that's just gorgeous. She looks exactly like one of the cats our family had when I was a child.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She's my third tabby (fourth if you count a family cat) but my first silver one. Tabbies really are so pretty, but then most cats are beautiful.