Viking

[MGH]

Somebody asked me a while back to finish an earlier viking thing I did. Here it is in a 'Manley/Sweet' style....sort of...maybe....
C&C please.
http://homepage.mac.com/mark_harris/.Pictures/V3%20copy.jpg

[killer_gym_sox]

one horn is higher than the other. Some parts are really hard to figure out (blurry). Other than that, awesome.

[MGH]

Thanks killer. Old artist's trick - if you're not sure what to do, make it blurry.

[killer_gym_sox]

ahahahaha

[Magicjuand]

Really nice loose feel to it and good use of complementary colors in the face area (purple vs yellow)! You may want to consider employing that in areas like the shadow (blue vs orange) and the sky (red vs green). Mind you, wichever primary color variation you wish to choose is up to you. What this may help you with too is to lose the lines you have drawn (nice drawing btw) around the figure thus pushing more towards the painting style, I think your going for, of Manley and Sweet. Therefore youd be relying more on shapes, colors, and volume not the line.

Something else to consider is clarity of the right hand and general gesture of this viking. I dont feel threatened by him it looks like he is just standing there with a sword. Exagerate his pose more, maybe in your next painting of him. Nice use of texture on the shawl too. Good Job.

[Magicjuand]

ah just noticed thats already a good use of red vs green in the sky... my bad!

[OLSEN]

Originally posted by MGH
Old artist's trick - if you're not sure what to do, make it blurry.

If you´re showing your art to other artists, dont use tricks. :D

nice pic, i like the style, but i dont think its very Manley\Sweet, although i can see certain influences.

Theres some weird brushstrokes in the BG, im talking about the low opacity/high saturation going over the brown base, it doesnt really work for me and i keep looking at them instead of the viking. Perhaps you should try working over a gradient background instead, it helps when you try to find shapes for the background/sky. But since you already got some good responce on the BG, perhaps you shouldnt listen to me.

I like the outfit, even if it´s more Hollywood then scandinavian, the sword looks good except for the phalic shape at the sharp pointy end. Nice lights, overall nice colors. Nice pose, looks like hes about to jump, or not, it leaves a lot to the viewer, and thats good in my book.

[Carnifex]

nice use of colours and nice pic overall.
but ARGH the legs!way too stiff imo and too short. and you've gotta practice feet. there seems to be no pelvis if you look at it together with the legs-they're coming out directly of the hip.

[yfront]

guess your not from scandinavia. vikings never ever had any kind of horns on their helmets.

think they dug up the remains of some viking in denmark that had a helmet with some hornlike things attached to it.. but thats pretty much it.

[MGH]

Yikes, allways gives me the sweats when a thread I thought was dead & buried pops up again.
Thanks for the crits, though - much appreciated.
Sorry about the cliche yfront. I guess we all fall victim to that.
He maybe should be a bit taller Carnifex. I wonder if that might solve some of those problems?
OLsen-although I didn't do a lot of research I found it difficult to find decent visual ref for vikings on the net. That 'chain-mail' type vest was based one photo and from what I gathered from others, they tended to wear those brown coloured trousers with strappy things for tieing on the foot gear.
Thanks again guys.

[OLSEN]

Heres some reference, the text is in swedish, but the pictures are great imo. When you get to the pages, just click the white text on the main image to get some more detailed pics. Some of the images is also clickable to get larger images.

Lord
http://www.historiska.se/histvarld/drakter/vherre/vherrefr.htm

Warrior
http://www.historiska.se/histvarld/drakter/vkrigare/vkrigfr.htm

Woman
http://www.historiska.se/histvarld/drakter/vkvinna/vkvinfr.htm

Have fun and make more vikings. :)

Edit: Fixed the links, they were broken when i first posted them,,

[MGH]

Thanks OLSEN!

[Fipse]

Here are some other viking-related links that my help you:
Anglo-Saxon and Viking (http://community.webshots.com/user/kimsiddorn)
Gotlandic reenactors (http://www.frojel.com/)
http://www.vikingsonline.org.uk/ Regia anglorum (http://www.regia.org/)

Hope this can help you with research

Fipse
(parttime viking reenactor ;))

[Elwell]

Originally posted by MGH
Old artist's trick - if you're not sure what to do, make it blurry.
Actually, this is more of a new artist's trick :p.