Any more Squirrel recipes?

**michaelp** · 02-27-2008 05:59 PM

New pictures of Meek's Squirrel after suggestions and input. Critiques please. Feel free to tear apart. I would appreciate input

**eastslope** · 02-27-2008 06:39 PM

Nice job Mike. Sure looks good from my greener than grass perspective. Seth

**sdcoxx** · 02-27-2008 06:59 PM

Mike,
Wonderful work....
Love the border....
Thanks,
Stephen

**Andrew Biggs** · 02-27-2008 07:02 PM

Hi Mike

Just my quick thoughts a I have to run....................

Looks great but you could add more shadows to create depth and make it pop (intensity). You've already started and it's looking good. It just a matter of going back and doing a bit more.

Background of some sort behind trees to give the whole seen depth. Maybe "ghost trees" and "ghost branches" to give the appearance of depth. Or maybe sky of some sort.

Think of it in layers. Squirrel in foreground (main character), tree behind squirrel, another tree behind that, background of some sort.

Cheers
Andrew

**pilkguns** · 02-27-2008 07:30 PM

yeah, what Andrew said. Maybe make the tree cuts not as deep next time, or put a lot of of shading lines against the tree limbs to make the squirrel really pop out is what you could do to it now to improve it. . As it is right now, the squirrel and limbs look almost the same.

Really I think your wheat chaff border could also be much improved by cutting the shade lines a little deeper as well. the outline of the wheat looks like a black line. the shade lines coming into should lookd the same basically

**michaelp** · 02-28-2008 06:46 PM

Thanks everyone for the input it's just what I needed. Iwanted to put some sky or a horizon line but was worried it would be too much, and I didn't want the shading to turn into a blob of black. I'm glad I posted now I can go back without fear. thank you all again

**Andrew Biggs** · 02-28-2008 07:34 PM

Hi Mike

I can't remember if you work under a microscope or not.

About turning the shading into a blob of black..............yes, you can run that risk. The way to overcome it is to cut, then look with natural eyesight, cut some more, look again with natural eyesight, cut some more etc. etc..all the while rubbing a bit of finger grease in...and maybe some super light sanding with a bit of oil in the paper. The sanding is to knock off any slight burring on the cuts that can trap dirt/grease/ink.

The sandpaper/wet n dry that I use is 1200 or higher grit. Don't get carried away as a couple of light licks will do the job because you don't want to end up polishing the area.......... you'll get a feel for it pretty quickly.

That way you are keeping in perspective the way the finished work is supposed to be seen, that is with the naked eye.

Another thing that you want to watch out for is...........make sure that you are cutting with the point of your graver and removing metal. Now I know that sounds obvious but with such short cuts it's quite easy to just crease the metal with the heel (creases do not hold ink, cuts do)...............a graver that works extremley well for these types of cuts is the 80 degree bulino graver that Sam has on his DVD with a super long heel. You'll quite often find that you don't even need any power and I have mine set up permanently in a graver handle

If you overshade don't worry as a bit of extra sanding can pull the intensity back quite a bit and give you a few extra chances at it.

When you post larger photos you'll also notice that this can "wash" areas out that seem quite black to the naked eye.

Cheers
Andrew

**michaelp** · 02-28-2008 09:03 PM

Andrew, I do work with a microscope , and the graver I used mostly for this was a 80 that was posted on a tread awile back it has a long heel about 1/4" long and I was surprised at how well it cut with no power. It sounds like the same one that your discribing.
I'm going to go back like you said. I didn't think of lightening it up with paper just in case. I was using 1200 wet dry but went back to 600 because the reflextion of the camera was darkening the photo [still really new to taking pictures]
I am still alittle unshure of the direction the cuts should be on the branch the squirrel is on. nothing I do there seem to look right . I guess this is where mistakes are the teacher. thank you for taking the time to help. I'm going to use the suggestions that you and Scott gave untill it's right or really,really wrong. cheers