My digital painting of Kermit the frog packing an M416 assault rifle

It ain't easy being green.

Spoiler:

lol, perfect

That is a perfect picture for this place.

It's good but watch your dimensioning and perspective. The hands look really small, his knees look too low/thighs to long and the (his) right foot looks out in the perspective. Also the crotch zipper is pointed towards us but his feet, torso, and head are facing down and to the left.

I like it though, do you use a tablet?

Also if you're not a member of Conceptart.org I suggest you join and start a sketch book. No where else have a seen so many professions on one site, you'll learn boat loads on there.

excellent grasp of colors and shading, much better than I ever do. But like crombie said the proportions don't look quite right. Legs seem too long, the hands, etc. Seems like you made it piece by piece while zoomed in and weren't looking at the whole picture while you were doing it.

Frogs have long legs though >_>

Wow! I wasn't expecting such a critique! When I've posted stuff before, people have pretty much just acknowledged it and been on their way, haha.

However, I always appreciate honest and constructive criticism, so - truthfully and 100% - thank you for your comments.

Ok, I guess it's time for Kermit Defence Force

I will say that I wasn't shooting for complete perfection in human anatomy here - I didn't want to basically have a human body with Kermit's head, I wanted it to look like it could be him decked out right there.

So Kermit's profile is very long, beanpole limbs with relatively small hands and large feet. His head and body are disproportionately large in comparison.

I pitched for something in-between - pseudo-realism, but while staying somewhat true to Kermit's original form. I wanted him to retain that gangly, awkwardness that Kermit has.

So I made his limbs look like they could actually carry some weight, while his hands remained quite small and delicate with long fingers. Also, his flak jacket adds quite a bit of mass to his body which isn't reflected in his arms and hands.

The kneepads are intended to be the oversized type that carry on down the shin somewhat. If you consider Kermit's tiny knees to be at the top of the pad, it makes his thigh-shin ratio more even - although I can see that this might not be clear enough from the illustration, and they could benefit from being a bit higher. I reeled his feet in a little to avoid a clown-shoes situation.

His head was originally larger, but I brought it down a little to balance the image better.

I did do an original sketch in full, before zooming in to work the details.

I think his zipper could be fixed with some tweaking of the shading in that area, and taking some sole off the right heel may address the foot as well? Shouldn't be too big of a fix in either case - thank you for pointing them out.



I don't want this to come across as hyper-defensive, but I did want to show that there was some artistic license in place here and it's a quite deliberate composition. He's a bit of a caricature, at the end of the day.

However, it's really interesting to see how you guys have received it. Only a few people have seen it so far, as it was late last night when I finished and posted it here/showed it to people (it's now the following morning and I'm at work haha!).

Perhaps I would have been better off going 'full-Kermit' (or 'human body-Kermit head'), rather than somewhere inbetween - it's certainly not a great position to be in to feel you have to explain your image.

In light of my response above, do you think either of the aforementioned treatments would have been better, or do you see the image differently now?

I'm genuinely interested and thank you very much for your time and feedback - I hope you don't think I'm being dismissive of your criticisms, that certainly isn't my intention

I'll be sure to check out that site as well, Crombie - thanks!

I use a Wacom Intuos3 Special Edition A5 wide and PhotoShop CS

MADEWITHROBOTS wrote:Wow! I wasn't expecting such a critique! When I've posted stuff before, people have pretty much just acknowledged it and been on their way, haha.

However, I always appreciate honest and constructive criticism, so - truthfully and 100% - thank you for your comments.

Ok, I guess it's time for Kermit Defence Force

I will say that I wasn't shooting for complete perfection in human anatomy here - I didn't want to basically have a human body with Kermit's head, I wanted it to look like it could be him decked out right there.

So Kermit's profile is very long, beanpole limbs with relatively small hands and large feet. His head and body are disproportionately large in comparison.

I pitched for something in-between - pseudo-realism, but while staying somewhat true to Kermit's original form. I wanted him to retain that gangly, awkwardness that Kermit has.

So I made his limbs look like they could actually carry some weight, while his hands remained quite small and delicate with long fingers. Also, his flak jacket adds quite a bit of mass to his body which isn't reflected in his arms and hands.

The kneepads are intended to be the oversized type that carry on down the shin somewhat. If you consider Kermit's tiny knees to be at the top of the pad, it makes his thigh-shin ratio more even - although I can see that this might not be clear enough from the illustration, and they could benefit from being a bit higher. I reeled his feet in a little to avoid a clown-shoes situation.

His head was originally larger, but I brought it down a little to balance the image better.

I did do an original sketch in full, before zooming in to work the details.

I think his zipper could be fixed with some tweaking of the shading in that area, and taking some sole off the right heel may address the foot as well? Shouldn't be too big of a fix in either case - thank you for pointing them out.



I don't want this to come across as hyper-defensive, but I did want to show that there was some artistic license in place here and it's a quite deliberate composition. He's a bit of a caricature, at the end of the day.

However, it's really interesting to see how you guys have received it. Only a few people have seen it so far, as it was late last night when I finished and posted it here/showed it to people (it's now the following morning and I'm at work haha!).

Perhaps I would have been better off going 'full-Kermit' (or 'human body-Kermit head'), rather than somewhere inbetween - it's certainly not a great position to be in to feel you have to explain your image.

In light of my response above, do you think either of the aforementioned treatments would have been better, or do you see the image differently now?

I'm genuinely interested and thank you very much for your time and feedback - I hope you don't think I'm being dismissive of your criticisms, that certainly isn't my intention

I'll be sure to check out that site as well, Crombie - thanks!

I use a Wacom Intuos3 Special Edition A5 wide and PhotoShop CS

I can see you have art skills and that's why I opted for a critique instead of just a submissive comment. I'm glad you didn't think I was just being some dick on the internet and took it for what it's worth, it'll be very important for you in the future to remain humble. I've taken various art classes all my life and I needed thick skin sometimes.

I like the size of the head, it works well, I think the problem is that I was looking at it as "kermit head on human form" so immediately I noticed the form and perspective. I think you could actually exaggerate the form a little more if thats the look your going for. The arms could be a bit longer and his shoulders a bit smaller, almost like his jacket is really adding a bunch of bulk with spindly little arms hanging out. Even a bit baggier attire could add to that character, to really emphasize he's got little to no definition.

I don't think you were being overly defensive, and I really hope you go to and use that site cause it could really excel your skills. I really hope you continue to post WIPs and finalized pieces cause I enjoy looking at em.

Hey Crombie, thanks for posting back.

I checked out the conceptart.org site, but there seemed to be a few technical gremlins messing with it. I'll check back again soon and I'm sure it'll be back up to operations.

I've definitely taken on board the responses from here - I honestly find it so valuable just to get any sort of feedback, really (and I have some art education in my background as well, so my skin is suitably thick!).

I have a few artistic friends who also produce work, and we all try to be as honest as we can with each other as we understand it's better in the long run. However, there's only so far you can go with friends and family, and so that's why I'm starting to branch out a little in who gets to see my work.

This is only the eleventh digital painting I've ever finished - before that it was all biros and pencil (indeed, this is actually only the tenth full colour piece I've ever finished) so it's a totally different medium and I'm learning all the time, which is hugely satisfying and exciting.

I'm not much of one for working back over a piece I've considered 'finished' though (otherwise I'd never finish anything) - I prefer to take my lessons learned and apply them to new pieces.

As such, I won't be going back to Kermit and adjusting any of his proportions, I have plenty of other pieces I want to work on. However, in this case I will be making the changes to his right foot and froggy crotch - so thank you again for bringing them to my attention, it will improve the piece.

I'll certainly post back when the next piece is done, I'm looking to have it finished by the end of the month.

Thanks again for taking the time out to post and show interest, I really appreciate it

its gonna sound dumb but I think the proportions look fine. it's kind of obvious that its not a human body, and I like the proportion of the legs, it made it obvious that he was a frog. really, I like it as is, though the shadow seems a little blobby to me, might just be my own perception.

Pariah wrote:its gonna sound dumb but I think the proportions look fine. it's kind of obvious that its not a human body, and I like the proportion of the legs, it made it obvious that he was a frog. really, I like it as is, though the shadow seems a little blobby to me, might just be my own perception.

Thanks for your comments, Pariah. If you mean the shadow under his feet, yeah it is a bit shite haha.

I just chucked it in late at night when I finished it, but you're right and I think I'll redo it when I make the other changes to his foot and crotch. It was a bit of an afterthought (not cool!) so I kind of forgot about it, so thanks for pointing it out

For fun, here's the M416 isolated from the rest of the image (and without the foregrip and additional shading to fit). I know we've got some enthusiasts here, and I'm pleased with how it came out...so, yeah, here it is

Spoiler:

yeah, I was talking to the underfoot shadow, sorry for not being specific.

And the gun looks really cool, kind of like it was painted almost. For some reason the shading on it kind of reminds me of an impressionist painting, like theres something there below the surface.

Fuckin' hilarious. This is now my MSN pic (if that's cool). If anyone asks I'll link the thread.

unisyst wrote:Fuckin' hilarious. This is now my MSN pic (if that's cool). If anyone asks I'll link the thread.

Ha, yeah that's cool - no worries! Thank you very much