04-30-2019, 08:52 PM
Hello, Baldgate.
It's always interesting to see personal work, to my mind it shows a lot about what person is into at that moment (hopefully). And I have some suggestions for you. Although take into the account that I'm not good at practice only at theory, so my thoughts might not work for you.
First of all what is your piece about? When I'm stuck with something I always try to create a story behind the drawing so that I could push it forward at least at some direction. That's why according to "story potential" I prefer a version in forest. Suppose, mainly because I myself is working on a foresty piece right now, and the second reason it feels more mystical for me, more dangerous and open for interpretation. When guy is at the open space it fells like "straightforward", so he must be fighting with someone, in this case why didn't you show that other guy? If your character is running, then it's not clear whether he is running from or to somebody. Or maybe this is a kind of spartan or roman training, in this case I need sweat, sweat dropping from everywhere XD And one more thing, the char on the beach is out of balance, he is like falling, the first variant is more sturdy.
So, this was my thoughts about potential of two pieces. But because I prefer more the forest one, let me talk solely about it down below.
So, first of all, as you and darktiste noticed your background is indeed too busy, it's happening not because you have too much details (the piece might need even more), but because your background is competing with a char for attention, it is as light as char, have even more contrast than the most contrast piece here (his armor) and saturation is the same or even a bit higher as char has. So, very first treatment to make the forest less busy is to lover contrast, brightness and saturation. You might have some areas of light somewhere around head and sword to bring attention to the person. Here on the left is samples of the lightest and darkest areas of forest and armor of your version, on the right same but for my version. Notice that my "lightest green" is the area under his left foot where I suppose direct sunlight is hitting the ground. Overall this forest has even less contrast.
Secondly, I don't like your composition. Although your piece is about one person, to my taste there is too little space around him, he is like in a cage, not in the open world, you need to play around and add a bit more margin around the figure.
Thirdly, his sword is cutted by the picture plane, which is odd, cause this leads the viewer out of your picture and you don't want it.
Fourthly, he seems like jumping, but there is no clues that someone is attacking him. So, you might add a reflection of some creature into his armor, strong shadow onto his body, and, of course the whole figure should be pointing into the "invisible" attacker.
Take a look at some Frazetta's painting and notice how much space he leaves around his figures in order let them "breathe":
![[Image: Frazetta.jpg]](http://www.scottmcd.net/artanalysis/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Frazetta.jpg)
![[Image: 20841367_10203242034449833_1525059372_o.jpg]](http://frazettamuseum.com/mm5/graphics/00000001/20841367_10203242034449833_1525059372_o.jpg)
![[Image: 51zKCQKvxoL._SY679_.jpg]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zKCQKvxoL._SY679_.jpg)
The last thing, as darktiste mention you should work more on the pose, face emotion and material rendering. I was too lazy to do this (ha-ha, as usual) so I grounded him more and tried to create a feeling of being on the alert as if he knew that someone is watching him (obviously, cause he previously broke his sword in the fight with the monster). I tried to bend him a little with liquify tool (yeap, I'm that lazy), put his leg on the ground, changed his arm+sword position, added some blood near the area with high ligh\dark contrast, resulting in color contrast. Tried to add reflectivity to the armor (but I've never ever painted metal, so I'm suck with it) and also monster on the back supposed to be evil and mysterious but I'm suck with painting animals too.
I hope this huge post help you to push your art forward. And yes, these all are only suggestions, if they interfere with your opinion or ideas than F*CK them.
Cheers.
It's always interesting to see personal work, to my mind it shows a lot about what person is into at that moment (hopefully). And I have some suggestions for you. Although take into the account that I'm not good at practice only at theory, so my thoughts might not work for you.
First of all what is your piece about? When I'm stuck with something I always try to create a story behind the drawing so that I could push it forward at least at some direction. That's why according to "story potential" I prefer a version in forest. Suppose, mainly because I myself is working on a foresty piece right now, and the second reason it feels more mystical for me, more dangerous and open for interpretation. When guy is at the open space it fells like "straightforward", so he must be fighting with someone, in this case why didn't you show that other guy? If your character is running, then it's not clear whether he is running from or to somebody. Or maybe this is a kind of spartan or roman training, in this case I need sweat, sweat dropping from everywhere XD And one more thing, the char on the beach is out of balance, he is like falling, the first variant is more sturdy.
So, this was my thoughts about potential of two pieces. But because I prefer more the forest one, let me talk solely about it down below.
So, first of all, as you and darktiste noticed your background is indeed too busy, it's happening not because you have too much details (the piece might need even more), but because your background is competing with a char for attention, it is as light as char, have even more contrast than the most contrast piece here (his armor) and saturation is the same or even a bit higher as char has. So, very first treatment to make the forest less busy is to lover contrast, brightness and saturation. You might have some areas of light somewhere around head and sword to bring attention to the person. Here on the left is samples of the lightest and darkest areas of forest and armor of your version, on the right same but for my version. Notice that my "lightest green" is the area under his left foot where I suppose direct sunlight is hitting the ground. Overall this forest has even less contrast.
Secondly, I don't like your composition. Although your piece is about one person, to my taste there is too little space around him, he is like in a cage, not in the open world, you need to play around and add a bit more margin around the figure.
Thirdly, his sword is cutted by the picture plane, which is odd, cause this leads the viewer out of your picture and you don't want it.
Fourthly, he seems like jumping, but there is no clues that someone is attacking him. So, you might add a reflection of some creature into his armor, strong shadow onto his body, and, of course the whole figure should be pointing into the "invisible" attacker.
Take a look at some Frazetta's painting and notice how much space he leaves around his figures in order let them "breathe":
The last thing, as darktiste mention you should work more on the pose, face emotion and material rendering. I was too lazy to do this (ha-ha, as usual) so I grounded him more and tried to create a feeling of being on the alert as if he knew that someone is watching him (obviously, cause he previously broke his sword in the fight with the monster). I tried to bend him a little with liquify tool (yeap, I'm that lazy), put his leg on the ground, changed his arm+sword position, added some blood near the area with high ligh\dark contrast, resulting in color contrast. Tried to add reflectivity to the armor (but I've never ever painted metal, so I'm suck with it) and also monster on the back supposed to be evil and mysterious but I'm suck with painting animals too.
I hope this huge post help you to push your art forward. And yes, these all are only suggestions, if they interfere with your opinion or ideas than F*CK them.
Cheers.