seeking critique

[Wolkenfels]

What can i do to push this even further?
I tend to say this is finished but I also know i give up too soon.
Thankful for any pointers!!

[darktiste]

The leather,fur,rock and hair texture at this stage make it look unfinish compare to other texture
also don't forget to make the material wrap around the form when it suppose too
I am not the best at composition but here what i have done to try to bring more interest to the character

[Wolkenfels]

Thanks darktiste

I toned down the mountain and also broke the monotone form of it. Made the girl a bit lighter and desaturated the forground rocks a bit (also made the outline of them a bit softer.
Grateful for any more comment.

[Wolkenfels]

still working on it... dont know if i go in the right direction - at least the likeliness to my friend is better now.

[Flo]

Hi Wolken,

the piece looks good, you really pushed those materials.

I feel like it has some weaknesses fundamentally though. Some of it is surely personal taste or due to the requirements of the piece but here are my thoughts.

1. those feels unbalanced to me, she is leaning to one side. Flip the canvas occasionally to spot that early on.

2. the bird looks out of the picture frame that is closer to it. that way my eye goes out too. make it look to the other end to lead the eye into the frame.

3. the mountains in the BG are too dark to look dark and pointy to be BG elements. my eye always goes there and then again out of the frame because of the pointy tip of the mountain. look up atmospheric perspective, it is the art of making stuff recede in the picture frame.

4. the ground floor looks artificial due to the repeating shapes. also it draws a lot of attention due to the large value range you used. group those values together to make it less attention-grabby.

5. the woman looks straight into the camera which is kinda offputting to me. This is the personal taste part I guess. I would much prefer seeing her doing something than having her looking at me.

I made a quick overpaint (with some Wolken in the bg) to get more action in the painting. The light in your painting is also an issue but I focused more on the comp. But let me say that I helps to read the forms better, when you seperate the light and dark side more. Meaning to push the values farther from each other and have them stay in there areas. If you use values from one side in the other side, things start to get messy.

Hope it helps

[meat]

Wolk, I think I found your reference image, lol! The thing is, in that reference, there isn't a mountain peak behind the girl _also_ leaning towards the same direction. In your painting the leaning peak accentuated the girl's leaning motion, and it's multiplying the Tower of Pisa feel. If you have the bg mountains in the background, flip it horizontally, or just repaint it so that it's not reinforcing her leaning pose, but pushing against it like a support beam. Flo has a point too about the eagle looking out. If you can flip the ref photo eagle's head, or get a different ref photo, having the eagle look towards the girl would create more of a bond between them.

If you didn't see this one, it has more varied rock formation with the same light direction (and same girl), could be useful: http://www.svidensky.com/UploadedFiles/E...G_2437.jpg

https://wallwidehd.com/mt-everest-peak-a...wallpaper/

[Wolkenfels]

thanks a lot for your input Flo and Meat.
I let the picture lie for some weeks not so i could get a bit of distance to it.
Good call on the value groups, Flo. Even when i had to kill some of my favorite parts I think it helped to dimish the value range of the forward rocks and i also shrinked the whole area to give it less attention. Positive side effect was that i could grow the main character a bit.
I also lightened the background more and put some atmospheric stuff at least over the farther peaks. Not sure if i want to tone the main peak done more - as i wanted that mountain to hower over her. Let me think further about it.
Thanks for explaining the Pisa thing, Meat. I adjusted the mountain to give a contra position to her stance. gives a better feel already.
the eagle head is another good point you both raised. My first try went aweful. I couldnt get the light right on it and it was a bit frustrating - but i try to get other references and go at it again.

Cheers guys - big help!!!

actual version

[Wolkenfels]

so - final - thanks for all the help again!!!!

The last step was to adjust the legs a bit, make the head a bit bigger, added a bit light on the right of the front rocks, add some rocks behind her feet to give her something to stand on and last but not least change the direction of the birds head to not lead the view outside of the picture. I am quite happy with that one as i didn't liked the first head anyway. now it looks more like i assume an eagle to look like.

full progress
http://wolkenfels.deviantart.com/art/Eag...-533410539

final image