Dragon Rider Chick

[smrr]

Hey guys, pushing myself in illustrative work once again!

Made this for a friend, gonna get it printed (as shit as it is) - but wondering if I could get some crits beforehand (I know there's a tonne of things wonky with it, but deadlines be deadlines and lack of skill be lack of skill - also: how to imagination?), there might be things I can tweak before I print it... but either way, I'd much appreciate any input! \o/



100%


100% (resized s bit for uploading onto CD)

[Fedodika]

actually not too bad smrr! the girls cute, nice gradients and textures here and there :). only thing it could use it a little saturation and contrast, specially in those shadows. Wouldn't hurt to bump the values up on the clouds either;

CNTRL SHIFT B= Contrast! (in painter at least..)

[smrr]

ily fedodika!

Thank you muchly, applying dat saturation nows

[OceanuReeves]

Lol "garbage" XD Good one.

I really like this but like Felo said, maybe touch up on some of the values.

I am not sure what was requested/or what you were going for but perhaps have the dragon sort of coming out of the clouds into a nice bright sky would look nice. It would also bump up the overall value of the piece giving it some brightness.

I dunno, them be just my thoughts :)

[Patrick Gaumond]

Hey smrr, its a good start but theres some things that are holding it back in my opinion.

As Fedodika already said, the contrast in value and saturation needs some adjusting, if not in the clouds then at least in the dragon/girl.

Also, which is the one that's the focus here? Is the dragon the part you want to showcase or the girl? Not that they're exclusive but they should either have equal footing or one be dominant over the other, especially in terms of detail. Because both have a lot of detail in them they're kind of competing information wise, but then the contrast and size is heavily in favor of the dragon's head. The title indicates to me that the girl is what's important for you, yet she is tiny in the painting and compositionally doesn't have a whole lot leading you to her.

You could create an interesting relationship between them by emphasizing one over the other a bit more dramatically. For example creating a composition thats very much about the dragon, but having the rider be small and unassuming further away, with less detail and less rendered out. Or you could do something like Maciej's dragon pieces, which generally put them on equal footing in terms of importance (compositionally and story-telling..ly)

http://tinyurl.com/pn8n7hj
http://tiger1313.deviantart.com/art/Lair-258184604

Im not saying completely revamp your comp, but maybe a zoom in would benefit both characters. Lastly watch out for the weird shapes merging into each other, specifically his horn and her torso. Moving his head a bit could help this

Anyways just my two cents, feel free to disregard if you disagree. Good luck with wrapping it up and printing it!

[smrr]

Thanks OceanuReeves!! Yeah, for a long time my values were shot and made my colour muddy (I feel they still are as well o_o)
Here's an update after the adjustments - will probably tweak a bit more...

original:


adjusted:

[meat]

Is it possible to move the wing that's further away from us so that the "arm" is not following the throat? It feels kind of odd, sort of like having a tangent. You can try adding some darker shades where the thigh meets the body, where the mouth closes, and maybe some behind the dragon skull. These are areas like the corner of a room that collects darkness. Those are my 2 cents :)

[smrr]

updateeee:



too far?

[Fedodika]

its super warm now, i liked the other with the paler sky since it had better color contrast, maybe make the wings a little redder with a cheap effect, i wouldn't go all out with these diff colors,

unless you think it looks better this way, it's really my taste at this point

[smrr]

thank you fedodidkdiaka :)
yeah haha I was seeing if anything would change if I highly saturated it, didn't work out - rarely does lol

mmm. so of the 3, which do you prefer? 1st is the original tweak, 2nd - tweaked a bit more, 3rd even more. I have my own opinions, but always good hearing others~

[Fedodika]

i just fixed the contrast mainly, added some brighters here and there hope you can see the diff :)

[Ursula Dorada]

Smrr!
Real quick about the foreshortening of the wing; Also helping a bit with the atmosphere. Hope this helps :D Great piece, keep pushing

[smrr]

My god. Thank you all so very much for helping me polish this turd!!
+rep 4 alllllllllllllllll <3 <3

Back to tweaaakinggg!

[Warburton]

You've already had a ton of awesome crits here man and its already looking ten times more awesome so I wont go crazy on my crit here but that back wing looks off to me.

For the longest time I thought it was a tangent cloud. I would maybe consider darkening it slightly and seeing how it looks and also adjust the position of it. Could be wrong here but to me it feels like it should be more behind the rider as apposed to in front of here based on this positioning.

Even way man I wouldn't call this garbage lol, your friends a lucky dude to have this as an original print! All the best mate.

[ReneAigner]

The biggest issue here is with lighting. The character doesn't seem to be lit with the same light source as the dragon- the dragon is set in contre-jour but the figure seems to be lit fom the front. You need to be more rigorous with your values to get the figure to intergrate into the picture.

Also, if your idea was to make the sword glow, its value will have to be lighter than the surrounding, otherwise it won't read as glowing/shining. Right now its value is much too dark, making it look like it is "colouring" the sky.

When it comes to composition/design, I'm not so sure about the dragon' horn overlapping the figure. Makes the character's pose a bit too ambivalent. ANother reason for that is that I don't get how the character sits on the dragon; it seems way to wide for her to be straddling it without some sort of specific harness.

[smrr]

Warburton - hahaha agreed, I mean look at that wonky-ass wing D: thanks for the crit Will! So appreciated! Will keep it in mind for next time! +rep man <3, thaaank you!

ReneAigner - Hell yeah it is! I really, really, really suck at lighting. I'm studying lighting on form at this very moment, I'm glad you noticed I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Holy shittttt thank you Rene, your feedback is awesome, really. I'm so happy you took the time to take this apart, its like I'm looking at it in a new light. Take dat +rep! :)