A Xara X Wolf...

[Crow Haven]

Well, this was A LOT of furry fun today and is especially for our "wolves" here, but also anyone who admires these interesting animals...(oh, I've got to throw in something regarding corvids [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] , ravens especially travel with wolves as they are the best hunters).

---As The Crow Flies!---
Maya
Image Copyright© 2002 Maya Doka

[This message was edited by Crow Haven on March 06, 2002 at 10:18.]

[Crow Haven]

Well, this was A LOT of furry fun today and is especially for our "wolves" here, but also anyone who admires these interesting animals...(oh, I've got to throw in something regarding corvids [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] , ravens especially travel with wolves as they are the best hunters).

---As The Crow Flies!---
Maya
Image Copyright© 2002 Maya Doka

[This message was edited by Crow Haven on March 06, 2002 at 10:18.]

[dafipp]

Splendid! Superb!

You all constantly amaze me with the quality and variety of your artwork.

Great work Maya!
Dale
[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

[Soquili]

Maya, that is excellent! I love it! BTW Wolf in Tsalagi is Waya. It's not pronouced similar to your name though. Emphasis is on the last syllable, wa-YA.

Soquili

[pinkbat]

absolutely stunning, Maya. (speechless pause)

Did you make your own brown and grey hair/fur brushes and paint with those?

I read a book by Farley Mowat many many years ago - I think it's called Never Cry Wolf (there was also a movie made from it) - and became really engrossed. Some reviewers accused him of anthropomorphising the wolves; but it didn't feel like that to me.

Regards,
Britta

[Steve Newport]

Awesome! I have seen so many digital paintings popping up around here and they are sooo good! Really convincing in the painting perspective and they just look great! Nice job, I'd be very interested in a tut!

Steve Newport

[RAMWolff44]

Absatootly Gorgeous!!! I'm honored and touched (in more than one, as in nuts) I think I'm in love, that Wolf is so stunning, it's all about the eye's. why, they look like mine [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I second or third the motion. How did you achieve this affect on the fur side of things. If it's a brush, I'm *hit out of luck. ALL the fur type brushes cause stack fault crashes on my system [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_frown.gif[/img]

thanks for sharing Maya.

RAMWolff [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Crow Haven]

Hi again everyone!!! I'm shocked it's been looked at already [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] . Actually I was disgusted with myself when I saw it was too large to look at without scrolling--and I had cut it down quite a bit--so here's also a smaller version attachment I'll post with this.
Is it a full moon?! I haven't even thought about it as I worked on this for several hours and lost track of everything else--I haven't sprouted a furry coat at least [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] !
I know so few techniques with Xara X compared to most of you that I just resorted to "Fun with Fractals" I'm afraid. I discovered that the fractal cloud and fractal plasma transparencies can be adjusted with the arrows to produce very fine line patterns (plasma is finest effect). I first drew the eyes--just for fun on a lark, well they are simply drawn with the freehand tool to the right shape and filled with a med. brown (make all lines colorless), the shape is copied and a circular transparency is made in a lighter golden color, stack these until the tone is right. I also drew darker circle shapes for the pupil areas and used transparencies in black and adjusted the circles sizes smaller. An additional semi-circle for the lower iris gold color was added and a spot highlight on the eye. The final highlight was a line drawn across the eye's upper half, sized to about 4, colored white and feathered down a bit and given a flat transparency. After the eyes were done--well, it just needed a face [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] ...so I began around the eyes by drawing shaped areas filled light grey, feathered them and turned them into fractal plasma transparencies---these in turn were colored med grey at first, later lighter grey, resized and rotated according to the way the fur should lay on the face,ears and ruff. I just kept resizing bits of the pattern to get the texture needed and layered layered layered, changed to black, changed to a few shades of tan here and there and a med. brown sometimes, finally using white fur texture to highlight areas. Wolves vary a lot in their coloration from silver almost white through to almost solid black. I just winged it for the coloration as no two wolves are the same anyway. The ears were just started as flat drawn ear shapes and given a light grey fractal plasma fill in the fine hair-like texture. I copied the shapes a few times in lighter coloring and resized a bit to cover smaller areas. That's about it! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] I had remarked to Soquili the other day about how I did the raven's feathers--same thing, just layered to give more of a pointed feather effect at the tips...I was thinking it could be used for fur or hair--and this is my attempt at that.
Thanks for all your kind comments--the images are for you, if you want to use them in some way feel free to do so, change them, whatever.

Well, here's a smaller one...
---As The Crow Flies!---
Maya
Image Copyright© 2002 Maya Doka

[This message was edited by Crow Haven on March 06, 2002 at 10:19.]

[dk_art]

I'm sorry but the Painter forum is in the other room ... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] .... WOW! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img] You did this is XaraX ... if I saw this somewhere else I wouldn't have believed it. Great technique and great work ... I love the look in the wolf's eyes [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img] [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif[/img]

David K ... www.dkingdesign.com

[Crow Haven]

Glad though that you weren't sure what it was--kinda like having the image "show itself" first, then you can wonder how it was done [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] and I hope my images will sort of have my own "style"...
Thanks again!!! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]
P.S. Corvus can be a tough one for NGC and "M" objects---but there's always the lovely M104 a bit higher (maybe try a filter or use higher magnification to bring out the dust lane [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img] I got really nice results on it using a Nagler 9mm (this isn't a gun for anyone else reading this! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] Although it is about the size of a grenade [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img] )...just amateur astronomer humor...

---As The Crow Sees It---
Maya