An Elephant

So this is an elephant...made from clay and painted with acrylics. He holds a cup of Pepsi in his right...erm, hand. And a bag of popcorn in the other. the other two elephants weren't so good, so I left them kinda out of the picture deliberately.
The background is mixed, but you can tell from it that I'm not a neat person. (You can see my algebra book and a drawing of a frilled-neck lizard I traced, look at my drawing thread to see that one more clearly)

Sorry that it's a little too big.

Hey Jeth, I'm Moo, stopping by for a quick review of your elephants.

Lmao! I love this little guy on the left. The 3D glasses totally make him as a character. Clay is seriously difficult to do and do well (I had to create a teapot for my GCSE coursework :O) and I think you've pulled it off fairly, taking into account that cartoon like characters tend to be quite simplistic. I think I'd like to see a little more detail in him though; how about wrinkly knees and some toenails perhaps? I also think clothes on him would be quite cool.

The great thing about clay is the versatility of it. You can create all sorts of patterns and such, which I think would have come in handy for the elephant on the right, some patterns on his head cloth might look cool. You could also give him more dimension by actually making his little decorations and sticking them on. (Do this my using slip, clay mixed with water to glue separate pieces together.)

Some nitpicks: The left elephant's trunk is also too thick for my liking and he seems to lack ears. O.e Also, the front half of his body seems much thicker than the bottom half, which makes him look quite out of proportion. And the pupiless eye kinda creeps me out a little o.e

I think the right elephant is by far the best, and I've got no criticism for the little guy. Too freaking cute. xD

Nice work, keep 'em coming!

-Moo

Heya, Jen. I saw this a while ago and could have sworn I commented, but apparently not. So here I am to fix that.

The first thing I noticed was that this picture is a lot bigger than it could have been. A lot of the space is taken up by stuff that isn't the main focus. If you have a program that can crop images (MS Paint will do the trick), I suggest cropping this picture so that it's just large enough to see all the elephants with maybe a five pixel buffer. If you don't have a program on your computer, sites like Photobucket have image resizing and cropping (among others) features. Right now, there's a lot of space not taken up by the elephants, and it's distracting.

My favorite of the elephants is the one with the 3D glasses. He just has so much personality. I'm also wondering how you made the glasses. From the picture, it looks like paper and plastic film colored with marker, but you did a really good job on them, and they're a really nice touch.

As far as the second elephant goes, the proportions really need work. Also, the blanket looks a bit messy to me. I think it would have been better if you'd maybe made the blanket out of either paper or a sheet of clay. I do like how the toenails came out, though; they're really cute. I think that if the glasses elephant had toenails, he'd be even better.

Overall, these are really good and way better than what I can generally manage with clay.

OMG, Jenth, these are so cute! *loves elephants*

The guy on the left is just adorable. He has a very relaxed look about him. However, he does lack a lot of detail, even if he is a cartoon, he should have some detail like in his feet, knees and trunk. You did seem to put a lot of detail into the littler stuff like the pop and the popcorn containers. And the glasses which are just too freakin’ cuuuute.

The idea of the elephant on the right is only really a little off a think. It would most likely be a matter of shaving some off the trunk and adding it to the stomach. At least, I think that would help. I couldn’t really be sure until after you, like, do it, ya’ know? ^^

Still, I would totally like to put that first little guy on my computer desk for when I watch movies. Gosh he’s cute!

~lilymoore

Hey there, Jenthura.

Haha, that's *really* awesome. I love the 3D glasses he has. xD The only thing that really bothers me about him is his Pepsi, because at first glance with the straw and such, it looks like a cigarette in an ash tray. But once you see the logo you can tell it is Pepsi. Otherwise though, he is really awesome and cute. xD

C'ya around, and let me know if you need anything!

~Heather

Aw, cool! For some reason I'm not digging the one on the right, though; something about it seems... off. I don't know, it just does. The one on the left, though, is super cute. I like the glasses and Pepsi, and how it looks kind of laid back, but almost sneaky. Overall, pretty good.

Lol, I'll tell you why the guy on the right is a little 'off' and it's not his fault. The second one I made (the glasses elephant, who, by the way, has a name: Popcorn) was made from a giant tube of clay I bought, the first elephant (sitting in the Sphinx position, who, by the way, has a name: Peanuts) was made from a little more organic material.
Are you familiar with Asian termites? If not, then understand this. As the termites climb trees (which they do for some heinous, unknown reason) they build a ceiling of dirt over their heads by carrying tiny grains of dirt and mixing it with their saliva.
I converted a large patch of termite clay into Peanuts here, but the termites obviously didn't use the finest clays they could find. Not to mention all the termites that fell into my mixture as I was harvesting it.
As a result, poor Peanuts turned out lumpy and bumpy, and the whole thing was made worse by the fact that he was my first elephant, and therefor, all my untried skill went into him.
Popcorn was much better, I agree, but yeah, I'll paint his toenails.

lol, painting an elephant's toenails.

That is officially the most awesome elephant on YWS. The second one seems more tribal or ceremonial, but to me it isn't even there. The first one is just to amazing for me to notice the second. I love the special touches you added like the 3D glasses, popcorn and coffee. The lay back pose it is in makes it all the more funny. Next you should do another exotic animal.

~Day

Lol, it's funny that you should say it's an exotic animal. Here it's something you might meet any old day. lol