Cyfa's art challenges and other bits & bobs

[Cyfa]

I was doing another Excelsior MerMay sketch (which didn't come out any better than the first one up thread) and wondered if I could turn it into a starship assignment patch for this month's art challenge (Signs and Symbols). I had a look on Memory Alpha for Excelsior-class starships with aquatic-themed names, and there's only really the "maybe Excelsior" Atlantis - which is good enough for me!
However, while I was at it I remembered the Miranda-class Nautilus, and thought that the shape of the Miranda lends itself well to an actual nautilus cephalopod, so of course I did a sketch of that too:

I'm going to colour this in and use it as a back-up in case I can't get to grips with an Excelsior merman

 

[Cyfa]

Oof! Quick and dirty colouring (I'll put the ship name and registry in the ring at some point).

I'll take my time with Atlantis, the Excelsior merman, as poor Nautilus isn't even fit to be an emergency backup.

 

[Santaman]

What's more terrifying than a space storm? A Moopsy storm!

I was doodling clouds with a biro and noticed one of them looked a little like Moopsy. So then they ALL did!

They remind me of the Poozers!

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[Cyfa]

Did that Poozer near the end blow a snot bubble??

 

[Santaman]

^^ yep! It's a very Poozer thing to do.

 

[Cyfa]

I have finally got around to working on MerMay's Excelsior (thanks to an extremely wet weekend), specifically an assignment patch or nose art for the USS Atlantis which I'll use for this month's art challenge.
Well, I've got as far as these slightly detailed sketched, anyway...

 

[Cyfa]

So, I've kind of decided to go with this Excelsior merman for the USS Atlantis' nose art - or, pennant decoration, anyway. I spent ages working out where & how the Excelsior details would work on a twisting human/icthyoid body, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the head. I've given him pointed ears because originally he was going to be Atlantean, but then I thought he could be a Vulcan merman when I remembered that Excelsior's transwarp engine nacelles were constructed by Shuvinaaljis Warp Technologies of Vulcan (according to Lora Johnson's Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise, at least).

I've coloured him in (except for his head), but the light's too poor to take a photo now, so that will have to wait for another day.

 

[Cyfa]

I rushed the face and messed up his eyes - poor Atlantis! I wanted to give his head some features from the lower/planetary sensor dome of the Excelsior class, but I couldn't get anything to really work. In a last ditch attempt, I tried to at least make his eyes look like the blue-white lights in the six chevrons that encircle the dome, but the ink bled into the paper too much and then I made matters worse by attempting to correct it with a white brush pen! Ah, well...

I'm not going to post this in the challenge thread just yet in case I find time for some corrections (or do something else entirely).

EDIT: I know why he's bald - he had to shave his head due to the Kerplickian lice infestation!

 

[Cyfa]

I've taken some photos for this month's art challenge (which has a buildings theme), but I'm dithering over which one to go with. I think I prefer the first one as it looks less like a shuttle miniature with columns of coffee jar lids in the background, but I feel like the "buildings" should be the focus considering the theme. However, I really like the reflections in the water in the second photo.
If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, please do let me know.

Oh, the scene is of Captain April (in the Al-Biruni) visiting the Twisted Towers of the Colaten Peninsula on Orodanga, home world of the Ithenites.

 

[Starscape]

I really like the second one with the reflections too, but having the shuttle on the ground scales the landscape in an unfortunate way. I would try some in-camera or photochop trickery to make the shuttle appear to be flying over the landscape to help fool the eye.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Is there an editing program you can use to give the buildings texture?

 

[Firebird]

Shot 2 gives the better sense of scale, especially with the "river" between the shuttle and the background, but I think it needs something more in the foreground to better sell the depth of the image. I think it could also do with some additional landscaping details between the towers - maybe a road or smaller out-structures.

 

[Cyfa]

Thank you @Starscape, @Laura Cynthia Chambers, and @Firebird for your feedback and suggestions - they're greatly appreciated and have given me some ideas. The amendments and enhancements I have in mind will be minor due to available programs (i.e. Microsoft Photos & FotoSketcher for filters and MSPaint for additional details) and time (I have a bit more time than anticipated as, unexpectedly, it is raining here so I won't be doing all the gardening & allotment jobs that I'd planned to this morning), but I'm probably going to use a different photo now as I think the sense of scale is better (or will be after the amendments, I hope!):

 

[SCE2Aux]

If the available options for photo editing are limiting what you're looking to do, there are options that offer free image editing capabilities.
https://skylum.com/blog/best-free-photoshop-alternatives

I'm not familiar with all of these, but I have used GIMP fairly regularly when I haven't had access to photoshop. Pixlr is apparently rather good too.

I love your shuttle+building photo, and the idea of using the lids for the building. You could do some cool vivid TOS style skies with something like this, making it green would be something I'd be tempted to do!

 

[Cyfa]

Ah, thank you, @SCE2Aux

I'll have a look into those Photoshop alternatives - hopefully I'll be using at least one of them for an upcoming challenge! Not this one though. As this morning's rain didn't last long I was out working in the garden & allotment and only had a few minutes to do something with this photo:

 

[Starscape]

That one looks so much better, @Cyfa, having the shuttle in focus really helps with the scaling.

It's amazing what you've achieved, once again, with just a few items arranged on the beach. It's simple, yet so effective. Bravo!

 

[Cyfa]

Determined not to leave my contribution to this month's art challenge until last minute yet again, I have decided what I'm going to do, gathered together some screencaps from TrekCore, and put together a rough draft:

The only thing is, as it's such a well regarded and popular episode (I mean, it's up there in the top ten Trek episodes of all time, isn't it?) I'm not sure a "Precious Cargo" poster is a good choice for art inspired by unpopular episodes

 

[Cyfa]

I've been working on my Precious Cargo poster (very slowly), but before I go any further, I'd like your help/opinion/advice please. I've been experimenting with adding highlights/light rims to the characters (as @Michael suggested for a poster I did last year), but I can't tell whether it looks better or worse now because I think I've been looking at it for too long. Plus, due to my laziness/lack of time to learn something new, this is all being done in MSPaint with the various limitations therein (and in my Paint "skills"). In case it's not obvious (I hope that's not the case), the highlighted one is on the right

Something I didn't mention before was that the inspiration for this came from the Romancing the Stone movie - specifically the odd couple romance and the crashing around in a jungle (I love that movie!). I made the "Precious" part of the title by chopping up & amending a screenshot of the "Romancing" typeface (because I couldn't find a suitable substitute online), and the "CARGO" is Trek's (and sci-fi in general) ubiquitous Microgramma Bold Extended superimposed over Kaitaama's sparkly dress. (That took some doing in Paint, I can tell you!)

Anyway, if you can weigh in with your opinions on my pitiful attempts at highlighting the characters (and anything else that needs critiquing), I'd be very grateful

P.S. All Trek screenshots are from Trekcore.

 

[Starscape]

Hmmm, I think the addition of rimlights do help the piece where they work with the existing highlights on the screencaps, e.g. around Trip's shoulders, but not so good when they're surrounding a shadowed area, e.g. around T'pol's left arm.

This probably isn't helpful since you can't do this in paint but what, I think, Michael was suggesting would be accomplished better with an overlay on top of the screencaps... done very quickly here:

What I can suggest is a minor upgrade to Paint 3D (likely already on your system) it has an Effects tab which allows you to change the "lighting" of an image. It'd be a way to match the colour tones on separate elements, I'd say the foreground characters need to go warmer to match Trip/Cargo.

Btw, I love the title lettering.

 

[Cyfa]

Oh, wow, thanks @Starscape! That looks more like it! I do have Paint 3D - we don't get along very well, but I'm going to give it a go after work tomorrow.