charging knight - need crits!

[gekitsu]

hi

i just finished this doodle in painter 8:

http://www.polycount.com/cottages/gekitsu/pimp/knight_charge_web.jpg

it was about 2 hours, mainly pencil sketch, digial water color and a light rework with custom brushes and chalks.

now i need crits, since this image shows some of my main problems, namely getting my values right.

in retrospect, i'd say it was a bad idea to make the horse head armor the same highlight value as the tip of the lance.
also, the sky could be a bit brighter to make the horse's silhouette more readable.

please, rip it apart

raphael/gekitsu

[Feinder]

Your colouring looks real good the problem would be posing.
You should research horses running/charging, they will throw one hoof a little farther foreward than the other. Hence the clipklop.
And your knight if he was leaning over and back a little, bracing for impact but the anticipation bieng the lean. Maybe you could get a feeling of bloodlust from man and beast. Both bieng parts of a death machine.

[Sammy]

yea.. the horse ends up looking like it's paused/rearing back.. and not lunging towards us..
This makes the knight look as if he's pointing at us giving orders

the colors look great tho

[Clodhopper]

Looks promising. I'd say you need more highlights all over the horse and the knight to really bring it out....the horse's head looks a little strange to me, sorta like a kangaroo. I think you need one of those heavy metal "bits" that go in the horses mouth-it looks to me like you just have straps wrapped under the chin. The lips are weird too, the bottom lip of the horse should be peeled back and show the bottom line of teeth. I tihnk the nostrals should be alot bigger for a horse...and maybe some steam coming out, thats always looks cool-IMHO. The feet are really small, which maybe stylish, but personally i like the huge trample-yer-ass hooves. especially the front legs- right now the front legs are hard to see, you should maybe bring those out more. and the rear ones kicking up dirt! Anyway thats just how i see it. looks cool though.

[metalwinds]

lookin good.. ..got a couple of crits though. i think the metal could use more texture/effects in it, and the rock formation to the right looks odd because the edge is fairly linear and smooth. maybe tone down the highlight on the horses helmet too. hope this helps

peace

[DragonGX]

the highlights on the horses head shield are way too stong. the rest of the image except for the lance is dark and mid toned.. the shininess of the horses head is really disracting.. tone it down a bit and add a few small bits of the brighter color for small highlights..

[benjiazn]

dude the hoursy is not runnin... that is wa he tryin to do..we are the vitim of that knight!:chug:

[catterpillar]

well, I can't think of any more crits than the ones already here. all I can say is that its COOL! I very much like the colour scheme, even with its small probs. very nice! do some more!

:beer:

[gekitsu]

thank you all

i'll be away for ~2 days (commercial painting job, weeeeeeeeee :)) and i hope i have the muse to go back at the knight again when i come home. the little bit of distance might be useful for reworking the faults.

things i have in mind to change are:

leg posture (runnng instead of rearing)
horse armor shape (make it more form-fitting) and highlights
the reigns should be a bit more organic in form and i should add the mentioned metal bit
add more depth to the horse
lightening the sky a bit

and some small things like dust kicking up etcetera

man, i hope justin sweet continues his hulk demo soon since i have no idea how he deals with all the pencil lines underneath his p6 watercolor showing through. :)
when i have to repaint parts of the picture i like, just to get rid of some lines, i feel i destroy everything.

[battlemonkey]

maybe im a little late but... when i first saw the picture, the rein on his lance side looked like a clear shield, made of plexiglass or something. i guess the angular shape? same with the rein on the side of the horse, i thought it was some sort of armor. once i focused on the piece i realized what was what, but that was my first impression~
still... quite beautiful work!
:D

[Krail]

besides whats already been said,

Id play around with the composition a little bit, either bring the tip of the lance into the dead center of the pic(or close to it) or resize your canvas and give yourself some more breathing room.

Maybe break it down into grayscale and get your values nailed down and come back with color.

anyhow,

a good start!