Any critique would be helpful...

[Elderscroller]

Hi everyone!

Here is some painting that developed from a sketch of a goblin. It is not the most creative of designs. What do you guys think could be done better (especially in terms of rendering, composition,...)

[par gin]

Elderscroller, this piece is off to a good start. I can think of a few things to try to improve it.

The biggest thing I'm seeing is that the lantern's light is hitting everything. It has a top and a bottom on it that look like they would block light. So, really, there should be a shadow on the ground beneath the lantern, and most of the stuff above his thigh or so wouldn't be catching the light, including the hand that holds it.

As far as that goes, the places lit will be areas of focus, and I don't know that you're trying to focus so much on his knee. I would position the lantern so that it can highlight his face. Right now it's also creating a tangent with his knee.

Compositionally, it's kind of static. Everything is very vertical. Try to work in some diagonals, with his limbs, with some sort of architectural elements coming forward from or taken out of the wall, or with cast shadows. You could even try to rotate or crop the image to see if you can find a more dynamic solution.

Also, the shapes of the roots in the background were a little confusing at first, too. I wasn't sure what they were. I would maybe get some reference for roots doing this to a building. Maybe google Angkor Wat or something. I think roots find existing cracks and push through, whereas what you have looks like the root popped a chunk out by itself.

I hope this helps. I think you've nailed the colors and atmosphere for a night scene like this, it's just a matter of making it work.

[Elderscroller]

@par gin: Thank you very much for your critique! You´re absolutely right, especially with the image being static. I reworked some bits of it and also got rid of the vine background as it was boring. I decided to add some small "story element" instead. I could have positioned the latern a bit higher to the face, but I decided to let it be half way between face and original position as I would have had to redraw most of the lighting.

Here is the updated version:

[warmics]

hey there, nice work so far

here's what i notice:

his head is a little deformed.
one of the horns is too large as is one of his ears.
the mushrooms look out of place.
the lighting in his face looks wrong according to the lamp.
the spider in his head is too distracting.

keep up the good work!

[Mike086]

Sorry for this late post, I should have done this last week, but I live streamed a critique for you, you can listen to it here: VIEW the paintover here.

[Elderscroller]

Thanks a lot for all your critiques, especially to Mike086 for the paintover. I found it really helpful for my future work!