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Malte's Random LBT fanart

Malte279 · 247 · 38550

Malte279

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I'm sorry I totally forgot to continue here :oops
What I have been doing (still do as it is not yet finished) is land before time embroidery. The as of now unfinished embroidery may be the most time intensive land before time fanart I have done so far. It also took me some failed first attempts before I got down to the real thing. First failed attempt was this one:

As you can see I tried to embroider onto a loose piece of cloth without any frame around it. This is very likely to cause the cloth (and the embroidery) to be distorted. Also I had just taken the whole yarn for it. The yarn consists of six individual threads. If you embroider on a coarse meshed piece of cloth this would work out, but with the piece of cloth I was using there wouldn't have been the space for all that yarn to fit in. Another thing was that at that planning stage I was going only for horizontal and vertical stitches for the outlines rather than including diagonal ones as well which would have made this one look rather "pixeled".
So for the second attempt I got a frame and was using less threads of yarn. There was a mess up with the colors (I tried to use various shades of color to create some light and shadow effect, but it looked really stupid so I gave up on that one).
Now here is the third attempt in which I used just two threads of a yarn:

This is as far as it ever got. Now this one is not a total failure, but I had failed to take some things into account. One thing was that with the x shaped cross stitches that are used to "color" the parts surrounded by the outlines I wasn't really paying too much attention on whether the upper one of the two stitches making the x was slanted like this / or like that \ while perhaps this is not visible on the picture it shows when you look at the real thing. depending the on the direction of the upper one of the stitches the light is reflected differently. This can be employed to create some nice light and shadow effects without using more than one color, but if it comes randomly it looks rather chaotic. Moreover I wasn't happy with the color I had picked for Littlefoot who is "just brown" in this one while in the movies his color (as well as that of some of the others) is a bit more difficult to grasp. Also I had picked so large a scale that with the final motive (Ducky and Spike are to be in there too I would have had to shift the cloth in the frame squeezing some of the embroidered parts into the frame and possibly damaging them in the process). Last put not least, this huge scale really took ages to fill out.
Here is another closer shot of Petrie in this third attempt (here you might also recognize the different looks depending on the direction in which the upper stitch of the x is directed:

At last the fourth attempt is the one which I consider a success and of which most of the pictures in this thread will be about:

I had to make a few little adaptations when I changed the image to a smaller scale. For example unlike in case of the third attempt Petrie's beak is closed here as everything else would have looked rather pixeled in this scale. I also learned the lesson from the third attempt and now employ the light and shadow effects one can cause with the / and \ deliberately. The flat part of Littlefoot's is colored already but the parts of his head in the same color which are adjacent will be stitched "in the other direction".

I did the same with Cera. I must confess mistake with her though. On her frill I accidentally picked a more yellow color than for the rest of her (in the poor light it was hard to tell the difference of the two very similar colors until it was too late). However in the end it looks at least somewhat as if it was intentional and... err did I ever say anything but this had been my plan all along? :smile

So here is an overview from the time by which I began the outlines of Spike while Petrie and the heads of Littlefoot and Cera were fully colored.


Cancerian Tiger

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That's pretty awesome, Malte :o.  Not only 'cuz this is the first time I've known a male who embroiders, but also 'cuz there's no pattern outline being followed (or is there?).  I'm definitely eager to see where this goes :yes.


Pangaea

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I'm so sorry I'm so late with posting here. I'm guessing my feedback won't be much help at this point. :bang

The embroidery looks fantastic! :wow I think my mouth actually dropped open in the manner of this emoticon's when I saw these photos. (So I suppose "textiles" must have been the guess of mine that you said was close, huh?) I especially love Cera. She's close to perfect. :o You added the ridges to her frill and everything. Even her color palette looks just right.

I thought the version of Petrie with his mouth open looked good, but I agree that it does look a little bit “pixellated”, and the new version looks incredible as well. :yes
Not sure if you’d appreciate suggestions at this point, or if they’ll just annoy you. If they do, I’m sorry. If you’ve already progressed to the point where these details are impossible to change, just ignore me. I just thought that Littlefoot’s snout looks a bit long, and, more significantly, his neck is rather skinny, especially towards the base. If you were to change it, I would add more to the back of the neck, and possibly have it connect to his head slightly further to the back (left). Spike’s eyes look like they might be a little too far back, and his snout looks longer and deeper than it should be.

When you get around to Ducky (assuming you haven't already), be careful not to make her tail and beak too short, or her arms too long. Good luck! :)



Pronounced "pan-JEE-uh". Spelled with three A's. Represented by a Lystrosaurus.


Malte279

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Thank you for your feedback and don't worry about annoying me or anything like that. I really welcome any constructive criticism. Even in cases where the errors can no longer be corrected in the current work (as I'm afraid is very often the case with embroidery as often it is very tricky to undo what has been done already without doing more harm than correction) they are still most valuable for future work and I really appreciate that :yes
Alas I fear you know me rather well as I think I did by know some of the mistakes which you anticipated I might make :confused
In case of Spike's head I made a lot of use of the aforementioned effects that can be created by altering the left or right slants / \ of the upper threads. One direction:

Other one:

The final parts are again completely in the other direction and I post this unfinished part of it only because I found it rather funny what Spike looked like with the tip o his snout left white. It almost looks like there was meant to be a beak in a different color:

The same procedure as for the green parts were done with the ocker parts of his chin:

In case of Spike's back I have conducted the largest so far correction. As you can see in the following image the crest on the top of his back is in the same color as the rest of his body (rather than darker, same as his back plates) and also I found his back to be too long:

So I started cutting up the parts of his back which had to be redone. Unfortunately it is close to impossible to just "retrace" the earlier stitches. Either way the threads tend to fray a lot during the correcting work which makes it rather difficult. I used the scalpel blade on the left to do the cutting and I must confess that in an epic failure kind of action I cut up my chin when taking a picture for the GOF while still holding that blade :oops

Anyway, here is the removed parts to be corrected... or rather here they are NOT anymore:

As for Ducky I'm afraid your recommendations have been nothing short of prophetic Pangea. her arms are too long her leg would look more plausible if it was partly concealed by her right arm and though the end of her tail is concealed by Littlefoot's jaw it is still obvious that it would be too short with her leg being attached too low on her body :confused
I'm afraid the only thing that I can try to do about her is to add a few stitches to her tail to make it a bit thicker, but I don't know yet if it will work out. Unfortunately this scale is of such kind that one stitch more can be one stitch too much while one stitch less can be one stitch short of the goal. Anyway, here she is before she was fully colored:

A full view of her in color was already in one of the previous images, but here is a closer shot of her head:


Kor

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Looks like pretty good work.  I bet it takes quite a while to do all that and get it just right to your liking.


Chiletrek

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Hello:
 I agree with Kor, it sure can take a lot of time, I remember I had to do one for a work in school ages ago :smile .
 Keep it up!


Malte279

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It is rather time intensive indeed. I started this one in January. There have been some interruptions during which I didn't work on it at all or only very little. By now I am a bit further than the last stages I posted here, but if I continue roughly with my current speed it might take for the rest of the year to be totally finished if I want to create some background in addition to the characters (which I plan to do).


Kor

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Sounds like quite a while, but it does look like you will be doing very good work.


Malte279

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The next thing to do are all the legs and feeds of the larger characters. The following image of the first attempt at outlining Spike's right forefoot gives a good idea of how much just one or two stitches too much can mess up proportions:

Here is the same foot partly colored in its correct proportions (still without Spike's left forefoot behind it):

Here are the outlines for the legs of Cera and Littlefoot and Spike's left hindleg:

Legs and feed are well suited to create effects with the previously mentioned technique of altering the direction of the topmost stich / or \. The following three images are all about the different sections of direction used on Littlefoot's leg and shoulder:





Next thing were the leftside legs of Littlefoot, Cera, and Spike which were partly covered by their right legs. To set the legs apart from each other I used a darker shade to for parts of the legs that would likely be shadowed by the characters' bodies:



And here is an overview of the current state of the whole thing:


Kor

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That looks very good so far.  Looks like it takes a while to do.


Malte279

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I submitted an incomplete version of this image (which I didn't finish in time) for the video contest. I changed the background in this version, added some shadow, thinned out some lines etc. The scene is one from an unwritten story of mine. It would be interesting for me to know what you would interpret into the gestures and expressions of the characters with regard to the scene that is taking place (though the context in the story is too complex to be guessed) :)


Amaranthine

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Looking awesome so far Malte. :)

Gah...I remember hating sewing so much growing up. :p I though it was too girly for my liking.

But heck, now I'm trying to make plushies. Anyhow, awesome work and that's awesome that you have the patience for this kind of thing.




Chiletrek

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Hello:
 Well, I might not try to guess what is going on, but the fact of Ruby making a facepalm makes me think something happened, both not the best but still funny to see in a tv episode.


Pangaea

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Hoo boy…it’s been WAY too long since I last posted here. :rolleyes

The progress you’ve made on the embroidery looks great! :yes Are you going to have room for Littlefoot’s tail, though? :unsure: I still think Cera and Petrie look the best. Littlefoot’s head, unfortunately, looks too large for his body, but I guess that can’t be changed now. (By the way, the reason I was so hesitant about pointing out areas for improvement in this piece before is precisely because it’s such a time-intensive project on which it’s extremely difficult to make corrections.)

Your latest picture is very nice. :yes All of the characters are very well drawn, and the background is surprisingly good given its relative simplicity (though I could be wrong; :unsure: maybe it was more complicated to make than it looks). You did a really nice job doing a dense forest with lots of trees close together. The texturing of the background isn’t bad, either.

Spike, Littlefoot, and Cera are all excellent, Cera’s eyes and frill, and her and Littlefoot’s dorsal ridges, being details I particularly like. Spike’s ridge looks a little wide, and the scutes or bumps comprising it are too large and unevenly shaped. Littlefoot’s snout looks too long for his head, and there shouldn’t be a line dividing it from his forehead. There should be an uninterrupted slope from his forehead to the top of his snout tip, with a slight bulge in it where his nostrils are (Speaking of which, he also has no nostrils in this picture).
 
As for Cera, her snout also shouldn’t extend so far forward, but also her toes are a little off. On her back feet, they are all aligned side-by-side, facing the exact same direction. As the quadrupedal characters’ feet are rounded, her toes should splay a little, and some should be farther forward than others. The front part of the foot itself should also protrude a little more from the front of the ankle. The same applies to her front feet, though the toe alignment is not nearly as straight. Also, there shouldn’t be so little space between the heel of her right front foot and her innermost toe.

Ducky looks very good here. :yes She’s more upright than I think she should be, and it looks like her tail is a little short, but other than that, I think it’s one of your best pictures of her so far. :yes The proportions of her arms and legs look pretty good (even though her hands are a bit small), and the proportions of her head and beak are great. Two things she’s missing, though, are eyelashes and the darker green stripe on her back.

Petrie is fantastic. That’s an interesting position you put him in: he seems to be leaning against Ducky, with one leg (his left) bent back at the knee. One minor suggestion is that his crest ought to be slightly upturned. Another is that maybe the bend of his right knee shouldn’t be so sharp, while his left should be the opposite; it should be more distinctly bent and perhaps with some shading or little flexion lines to indicate that the lower part of the leg is bent back. The last is that his right leg shouldn’t be entirely separated from his body by a line. Recently I had a discussion with Sky about an essentially identical issue with one of his pictures (links 1, 2, 3)). The suggestions I made apply here as well, so I’ll just quote them:
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Maybe it would look best if a bit of the body outline extended past the lines where the legs meet the body, but the center of the area of the leg was contiguous with the body, with no line dividing it (Basically, it would be what you have now with the center of the leg/body dividing line erased, but leaving a little on each side).

Chomper is pretty good. I think the overall shape of his body and legs is very well done. His right hind leg in particular looks very good. Maybe his tail should be slightly longer, and his arms a tiny bit shorter, with the hands a little larger and more distinct from the wrists. Also his snout and jaws should be longer and deeper.

I think Ruby looks great. :yes For some reason I really like how you did the shading on her beak. One potential area of improvement is the proportioning of her legs. Comparison to what Ruby’s accurate appearance aside, the legs you drew are very well done, in my opinion. Ruby, however, has much longer ankles, and very short shins. Her feet and neck are also a bit longer. Finally, her hands look too small, and have only three fingers (even though real oviraptorids were three-fingered, it would be truer to Ruby’s LBT design to give her four, especially if you’re still drawing Chomper with an extra finger).

Okay, here’s my idea of what Chomper might be saying in this picture: :P:
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“I didn’t know Cera’s dad liked to nap in those bushes! I thought that tail belonged to a scaly creeper! Now he’s talking to the other grownups about throwing me out of the valley! Do you think if I brought him a bunch of ground crawlers as an apology he would be less mad at me?”



Pronounced "pan-JEE-uh". Spelled with three A's. Represented by a Lystrosaurus.


Malte279

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Thank you all for your responses and feedback and sorry for me being so late about my own response :oops
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Well, I might not try to guess what is going on, but the fact of Ruby making a facepalm makes me think something happened, both not the best but still funny to see in a tv episode.
Something did and something would be going to in that story, but it is a more dramatic live and death kind of matter than the picture may reflect.
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The progress you’ve made on the embroidery looks great! in-yes.gif Are you going to have room for Littlefoot’s tail, though?
There would be enough room to complete the tail. However I must admit I haven't been working on it for a while. I admit being a little discouraged by the messed up proportions (especially about Littlefoot) which I had spotted too before. One of the major problems with this kind of fanart is that correcting is sometimes impossible and even if it is (especially in case of such matters as proportions) corrections are extremely difficult, time consuming, and come with a risk of damaging the parts of the embroidery that weren't meant to be touched.
Perhaps I'm going to start another one as I am too perfectionist (in spite of the awareness that perfectness is an illusory goal, especially in arts) to continue working with all spirit on something that I know is flawed.
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You did a really nice job doing a dense forest with lots of trees close together.
Now that's something that I COULD correct ;)
In an earlier version of the image I had put way too few trees in the middle to far background resulting in the remaining trees looking like some downtown alleyway ;)
You are right about the proportion issues in the image as well as with the ridges on Spike's back. I guess one problem with my photoshop images is that I am scanning pencil drawings and then edit them on photoshop which sometimes leads to rather odd results. It would be really good if I got the hang of working with the graphic tablet instead.
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There should be an uninterrupted slope from his forehead to the top of his snout tip, with a slight bulge in it where his nostrils are (Speaking of which, he also has no nostrils in this picture).
Aye, very often one sees but only one of Littlefoot's nostrils, but none at all... I'd be making excuses if I pretended for that one to be intentional ;)


TITANOSAUR

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Hey malte, your art is fantastic! please keep it up.


Pangaea

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Quote from: Malte279,Aug 26 2010 on  12:02 PM
Thank you all for your responses and feedback and sorry for me being so late about my own response :oops
Oh, don't worry about it. I took ten days just to post my feedback in the first place! :p And five days to leave feedback on your feedback of my feedback! :P:

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Something did and something would be going to in that story, but it is a more dramatic live and death kind of matter than the picture may reflect.
Uh-oh. Now I'm thinking that it still had something to do with Chomper biting something he shouldn't have, but a lot more serious. :unsure:

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I admit being a little discouraged by the messed up proportions (especially about Littlefoot) which I had spotted too before. One of the major problems with this kind of fanart is that correcting is sometimes impossible and even if it is (especially in case of such matters as proportions) corrections are extremely difficult, time consuming, and come with a risk of damaging the parts of the embroidery that weren't meant to be touched.
Perhaps I'm going to start another one as I am too perfectionist (in spite of the awareness that perfectness is an illusory goal, especially in arts) to continue working with all spirit on something that I know is flawed.
Sorry to hear that. :( I know the feeling of being dissatisfied with something you put a lot of time and effort into. If you do start a new embroidery project, would there be any way of plotting out the shapes of the characters ahead of time, like with a marker or something?

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You are right about the proportion issues in the image as well as with the ridges on Spike's back. I guess one problem with my photoshop images is that I am scanning pencil drawings and then edit them on photoshop which sometimes leads to rather odd results. It would be really good if I got the hang of working with the graphic tablet instead.
You could probably go back onto Photoshop and edit a picture that had a flaw in it. I also find thatóupon reaching a point in which a certain stage of a picture would be considered completeóit's helpful for me to take a long break (enough for the mental image of the picture to fade a little) before moving onto the next stage (which may even be posting the picture). Often, when I return, I see flaws in the picture that I hadn't noticed while working on it, and can correct those before progressing further with the picture. (Maybe it only works for me because of my weird memory, though. :unsure:)



Pronounced "pan-JEE-uh". Spelled with three A's. Represented by a Lystrosaurus.


Malte279

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^ Thank you for your encouragement TITAMOSAUR.
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Uh-oh. Now I'm thinking that it still had something to do with Chomper biting something he shouldn't have, but a lot more serious.
Not really ;)
Nothing that one can guess without knowing the story. So much I can tell, it is not about something that happened in this scene but rather about what is going to happen and not Chomper would be the causer what happened. It has not primarily to do with eating (though matter of life and death it remains). For reasons beyond guessing without knowing the story Ruby is in the very worst kind of distress in this situation without anyone else being aware of it.
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I know the feeling of being dissatisfied with something you put a lot of time and effort into. If you do start a new embroidery project, would there be any way of plotting out the shapes of the characters ahead of time, like with a marker or something?
There is and when I started I did plot out on a piece of graph-paper. Not really sure if I'm going to resort to that in case of another piece of embroidery. I would have to come up with a new motive (something general LBT like the motive I have done so far, that should not take up too much space but at the same time be not so small as to get "pixeled").
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You could probably go back onto Photoshop and edit a picture that had a flaw in it.
I admit that what perfectionism I have rarely gets the better of a certain sense of... laziness? wish not to dwell on something considered complete at a time? However to call it, I must admit that I have rarely picked up a "completed" picture again to correct the mistakes I realized at a later stage. This goes in particular for stuff like proportion issues which are the most tricky to correct.


Malte279

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I made some creative use of the leisure suddenly optained by the finishing of the final exam for this semester last friday and did my first LBT drawing in a while. It shows a likely scene from a story not yet written (and unlikely to be written down any time soon seeing that it would be the third part of a trilogy of which not even the first one is written). Perhaps I develop some leisure to explore Photoshop a bit more some of these days as I feel that there are many possibilities I havent really got the hang of. Also it is kind of embarassing that I have a good graphic tablet but am never using it at all (this image too has been done entirely without the use of the tablet). Anyway, here it is (and I appologize to everyone I may have offended by being very silent during recent MSN "chats" conducted while at the same time working with this picture):


DarkWolf91

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Ah, Malte, this is so cool! I really love it!
The textures and shadows add a great sense of depth! The character expressions and gestures are awesome! There is definitely a story to tell here, and the way you've rendered it makes it one I'd love to hear :smile
(I'd really like to go into more depth with that, but I've been a bit strapped for time lately :oops
So just wanted to briefly express my excitement :p )