08-09-2013, 09:35 AM
OK, I'm gonna be a real bastard with this, a total son of a bitch, but it serves a purpose, before theat though, I'm gonna say that the suggestions made were good, but also of a particular aesthetic, meaning that your illustration, as is, works great. Whether it needs more saturation, darker values for the character, simulation of subsurface scattering and translucency and all that mush, is totally an aesthetic choice, if this piece packed more punch nobody would give a shit, cause nobody would notice...how many people do you see critiquing Frazetta's Conan pieces and say that they need more so-and-so....exactly, zero, because the images hit you so hard in the balls that you don't care, you don't even notice.
Now on to what I have to say... I hate it...I think you took a classic narrative, threw it in the toilet and flushed it... Technically, it's great, there's awesome craftsmanship there, you render and draw everything nicely, how ever, that's all it is, a nicely done, technical painting, that could have as well been a painting of a brick wall.
Now why am I being such an asshole? Why don't I like it? Simple, you have technical competence, yet no confidence at all. You've gotten caught up in a detail, form dance and show no image-making prowess. The questions you ask for us to answer, show your goals, but not much understanding of what would make the image and why. So let's get to answering those questions first.
Did you succeed in making the character the center of attention? Yes. The matter of the fact is that, we will all look at a human face before anything else. Check James Gurneys' blog, Gurney Journey, in the composition section, look for the Eye Tracking articles and you'll find out that we subconsciously scan an image for a face and focus on that mostly. Making groups of faces together helps organize the chaos and makes for better aesthetics. You have only one face, smack in the center of our field of view, even a blind person wouldn't miss it. Also, large bright mass, mall dark mass in it's center...there's huge contrast of tone, sharp edges, saturation is close so doesn't make or break anything, but yea, you have a great center of interest there.
The feathers and such...OK, that's a big part of your problem. I am thinking you got caught up into the problem of making the feathers that you got carried out of making a compelling painting. First off the feathers may look "feathery" because they have that center-line and those oblique lines describing their feathery parts, but that's not important. Am major "mistake" you made was that, for some reason you rendered them as if the angle between the two major planes created by the center-line is 10-20 degrees or something...well, feathers are generally quite flat, and even those that have a angle difference along the center-line, have a smaller difference than that you have stated. Also (and this is a major problem), all the feathers look to perfectly arrayed. Now, I know you wanted to make them look like snake skin scales, however, snake skin looks more like a smooth uniform surface, with the scales places in like decorative tiles, with little affect to the general mass most of the times. The problem with using feathers, is that the usual randomness and elasticity associated with feathers is lacking. You should study some feathers on birds to see how they look arrayed, are closely knit together, yet for a smooth large surface and had deformations that flow along the body, like cloth. Also, edges, softer edges!!! Those feathers closer to the view are dreadful, they distract so much and are done badly, like it was a boring, dreary task (it would have been for me). My point is, look for more that the single feather.
Now the character. It's nice, if the character were posing in front of a mirror, for a gang of kids, or the circus. You can clearly see all her armor, drapery, hair and nicely made up face. What you cannot see is a character in front of a large fire breathing, feathered snake.
She looks posed, waiting for the photographer to take the snapshot. The drapery is static (save the sash a bit), those little things hanging from her shirt are looking down with a religious zeal, even her braids look like they have a coil of metal in them to keep them there. Her face, with that cutey smile doesn't convey anything other than random kindness or idiocy, both deadly when you're holding a sword.
Now, after all that, on to what the image lacks and should have. It should have context. I can't tell what's going on, what has been going on, or what may or will happen. The image gives me no notion of a fight having taken place, taking place or that is will take place. All I see is two characters (snake and girl) in their sunday clothes saying "cheese" for you to render them. I don't see any movement from the snake. Is he moving, is he retreating, charging, assessing the situation? The girl's even worse. She doesn't look confident, she looks like she's looking at something else. She doesn't look determined to overcome the obastacle on her ass, rather she looks like she's about to put some bread in the oven. There's no twist, no movement, no suspense no nothing. Now, I understand you wanted to have her show "confidence", but there's ways confidence is shown in different situations. A girl walking along the cafeteria, shaking her ass, smiling with glee at everyone, feeling fine and tasty, is a way to convey confidence about her look and sex appeal in such a setting. That, doesn't work here. I know there's a lot of rhetoric and brainwashing going on by some people who are oversensitive about realistic armor, women not having to wear chainmail bikinis' etc, but you can't sterilize and feminize everything. In battle, like it or not, confidence is shown by those who look ready to rip out and eat their own guts and ask for seconds. A barely moving, overly armored dancer doesn't convey much confidence.
What you should do.
First, reorganize the snake, make it's body drive the flow of the composition, if you're gonna chop the picture plane up in pieces with the body, then use light and shade to compose a unified pattern that spirals from down, up to the character, that stays there for a while, and then moves out of the picture. Right now, you have lines moving from one edge to another.
Second, motion. Make the snake look like it's moving. How? Edges! Blur them, The body to make it move, the face to make it look like it's charging, hissing or whatever. Blur your edges to suggest movement, use the longer feathers the suggest movement as well, otherwise, they are just palm tree leaves.
Last a most important. Make the girl look like she's doing something. The "getting ready to fight" takes skill, because you have to think up what "getting ready to act" means. Make her twist in surprise, raise her weapon with vengeance, ready to strike, etc, anything. Make her facial expression follow that, no just a blank "smile". Make the hair move, the clothing mover.
Sorry for the length, the mistakes and the harsh tone, I'm half asleep but I wanted to crit you on this because it shows signs of a great artist, but needs a direction, not just a technical exercise.
Now on to what I have to say... I hate it...I think you took a classic narrative, threw it in the toilet and flushed it... Technically, it's great, there's awesome craftsmanship there, you render and draw everything nicely, how ever, that's all it is, a nicely done, technical painting, that could have as well been a painting of a brick wall.
Now why am I being such an asshole? Why don't I like it? Simple, you have technical competence, yet no confidence at all. You've gotten caught up in a detail, form dance and show no image-making prowess. The questions you ask for us to answer, show your goals, but not much understanding of what would make the image and why. So let's get to answering those questions first.
Did you succeed in making the character the center of attention? Yes. The matter of the fact is that, we will all look at a human face before anything else. Check James Gurneys' blog, Gurney Journey, in the composition section, look for the Eye Tracking articles and you'll find out that we subconsciously scan an image for a face and focus on that mostly. Making groups of faces together helps organize the chaos and makes for better aesthetics. You have only one face, smack in the center of our field of view, even a blind person wouldn't miss it. Also, large bright mass, mall dark mass in it's center...there's huge contrast of tone, sharp edges, saturation is close so doesn't make or break anything, but yea, you have a great center of interest there.
The feathers and such...OK, that's a big part of your problem. I am thinking you got caught up into the problem of making the feathers that you got carried out of making a compelling painting. First off the feathers may look "feathery" because they have that center-line and those oblique lines describing their feathery parts, but that's not important. Am major "mistake" you made was that, for some reason you rendered them as if the angle between the two major planes created by the center-line is 10-20 degrees or something...well, feathers are generally quite flat, and even those that have a angle difference along the center-line, have a smaller difference than that you have stated. Also (and this is a major problem), all the feathers look to perfectly arrayed. Now, I know you wanted to make them look like snake skin scales, however, snake skin looks more like a smooth uniform surface, with the scales places in like decorative tiles, with little affect to the general mass most of the times. The problem with using feathers, is that the usual randomness and elasticity associated with feathers is lacking. You should study some feathers on birds to see how they look arrayed, are closely knit together, yet for a smooth large surface and had deformations that flow along the body, like cloth. Also, edges, softer edges!!! Those feathers closer to the view are dreadful, they distract so much and are done badly, like it was a boring, dreary task (it would have been for me). My point is, look for more that the single feather.
Now the character. It's nice, if the character were posing in front of a mirror, for a gang of kids, or the circus. You can clearly see all her armor, drapery, hair and nicely made up face. What you cannot see is a character in front of a large fire breathing, feathered snake.
She looks posed, waiting for the photographer to take the snapshot. The drapery is static (save the sash a bit), those little things hanging from her shirt are looking down with a religious zeal, even her braids look like they have a coil of metal in them to keep them there. Her face, with that cutey smile doesn't convey anything other than random kindness or idiocy, both deadly when you're holding a sword.
Now, after all that, on to what the image lacks and should have. It should have context. I can't tell what's going on, what has been going on, or what may or will happen. The image gives me no notion of a fight having taken place, taking place or that is will take place. All I see is two characters (snake and girl) in their sunday clothes saying "cheese" for you to render them. I don't see any movement from the snake. Is he moving, is he retreating, charging, assessing the situation? The girl's even worse. She doesn't look confident, she looks like she's looking at something else. She doesn't look determined to overcome the obastacle on her ass, rather she looks like she's about to put some bread in the oven. There's no twist, no movement, no suspense no nothing. Now, I understand you wanted to have her show "confidence", but there's ways confidence is shown in different situations. A girl walking along the cafeteria, shaking her ass, smiling with glee at everyone, feeling fine and tasty, is a way to convey confidence about her look and sex appeal in such a setting. That, doesn't work here. I know there's a lot of rhetoric and brainwashing going on by some people who are oversensitive about realistic armor, women not having to wear chainmail bikinis' etc, but you can't sterilize and feminize everything. In battle, like it or not, confidence is shown by those who look ready to rip out and eat their own guts and ask for seconds. A barely moving, overly armored dancer doesn't convey much confidence.
What you should do.
First, reorganize the snake, make it's body drive the flow of the composition, if you're gonna chop the picture plane up in pieces with the body, then use light and shade to compose a unified pattern that spirals from down, up to the character, that stays there for a while, and then moves out of the picture. Right now, you have lines moving from one edge to another.
Second, motion. Make the snake look like it's moving. How? Edges! Blur them, The body to make it move, the face to make it look like it's charging, hissing or whatever. Blur your edges to suggest movement, use the longer feathers the suggest movement as well, otherwise, they are just palm tree leaves.
Last a most important. Make the girl look like she's doing something. The "getting ready to fight" takes skill, because you have to think up what "getting ready to act" means. Make her twist in surprise, raise her weapon with vengeance, ready to strike, etc, anything. Make her facial expression follow that, no just a blank "smile". Make the hair move, the clothing mover.
Sorry for the length, the mistakes and the harsh tone, I'm half asleep but I wanted to crit you on this because it shows signs of a great artist, but needs a direction, not just a technical exercise.