My first post! 'Snow Knight'.

[LE0NHEART]

Hello everyone! my name is Tom and I'm a student living and studying in England. My goal is to become a well known illustrator/concept artist. I've been digital for about a year now, since it was last Christmas when I got Photoshop. I've recently got Painter X, which I painted this piece in. I like both programs, but prefer Photoshop for stability (my Painter does weird things sometimes lol). Anyway. Here's the painting. I'm not quite sure what to call it, so I'll stick with 'Snow Knight' for the time being lol. It was done in Painter X because I wanted an oil painting feel and I don't think Photoshop can do this so well. I also chose a cold palette to emphasize the freezing environment. The knight is looking for a great monster in a harsh, snowy environment, but he's not sure what he'll find. Please give me crits where possible as it will really help me out. Thank you, and I hope you like it. :)

p.s - I wasn't sure how many images to post so I decided to just post the final one. But if you want me to put some process shots up I can.

[danlambert]

Sick, you definitely succeeded with the oil painting look
I really like the composition and the contrast between the very loose background and the more rendered character.
Crit wise, the right arm (when looking at it) seems like its either too short or missing the hand

[Darktwin]

Looking at the elbow pad on his left arm, I feel its a bit low, making the forearm and wrist seem very short. I feel you can refine the character more to make him stand out more to become the focal point. I feel he still blends in with the background to much. Also you could establish more of a ground plain while still maintaining the looseness. Thanks for sharing.

[LE0NHEART]

Hey danlambert, I'm glad you like it. Now looking at it I can see the problem with his arm. I think I could have highlighted/shaded it more thoroughly to give it more form. Thanks for the crit. :D

[LE0NHEART]

Thanks for the crit Darktwin. I do see the problem with his arm. I also think refining the character will add to the image. I'll get on to this asap. I'll also refine the ground a tad, mainly near the dark rocks near the bottom. Thanks. :D

[einhender]

Looks really cool! love the oil paints look on the marks,
first I am not sure how he's holding the sword- between index and middle fingers it looks like. secondly separation between his cape like wings and the BG will be great. maybe his cape needs to be rendered enough that we can tell the material? thanks for showing it to us.

Cecil

[Matt Dixon]

This image appears to be suffering from 'concept art syndrome' - a high contrast focal point with everything around it collapsing into abstraction. Concentrating detail and contrast on a single point of interest can be a very effective technique and while it may be an economical approach in the right hands, it's certainly not the short cut it might appear to be at girst glance.

I hope you don't object to a quick paintover to try and illustrate a couple of points.

541116

To your credit, the abstracted areas in this piece look to be manually painted rather than the slap-dash overlay that's more typical of images exhibiting suffering from this problem. There's some very attractive mark making going on there. In fact, if you brush over the few defined areas of your figure, you end up with quite a pleasing abstract painting ( example A ). However, that only reinforces how little information is carried in the areas of abstraction. Other than lending the composition a nice flow, it's really not adding much. It has to mean something.

Look at the folks who do this well ( Mullins or Sparth would be good places to start though based on this piece perhaps the way Justin Sweet tackles this might be more sympathetic to your style ) - the abstraction is far from random. Yours may not be either, but that's how it comes across. Their abstract passages are anchored on details - maybe the hard edge of a mountain peak, the exhaust of a spacecraft, etc. - so that the viewer's eye has a starting point, somewhere to 'set down' so it can begin to explore that area. The abstract area will than have some kind of structure - a definite shape or texture - which provides further information as to what it's trying to indicate. Finally there is separation - a delineation between abstract passages and surrounding areas. Three important points - anchors, structure and separation. Look again at your piece. How many of these do you have?

In example B, I've done some quick scribbling to try and add those three elements to your image.

Anchors. The background now has several anchors - the mountain peak on the right, the bright patch of sunlight defining the peaks on the left, the river in the valley below and the patch of rocks in the centre foreground.

Structure. Previously, your marks were all of similar size, making it very difficult for the eye to 'find' anything other than the movement they suggested. By varying the size of the marks, we introduce structure. A combination of large and small strokes now hopefully gives a more convincing suggestion of a solid rocky surface. Vertical marks attempt to suggest trees in the valley below. You could vary the marks across a surface to indicate the difference between rock and patches of snow, for example.

Separation. The texture in your original piece was a single mass. I've broken it into distinct chunks, and introduced definite edges to help separate the different areas. Most obviously there's now a clear line between the mountain peaks and the sky. The river in the valley provides a literal edge between the foreground mountain and the background, though the opposing flow of the marks in those two areas would provide effective separation even without that line. Lastly and perhaps most importantly I've defined the edges of your character more strongly, adding contrast with the newly-placed peaks behind him, altering the shapes of the flowing fabric, and strengthening the light striking him from the left.

I've not dealt with the figure at all. That's another discussion..!

My modified version may be be a million miles away from what you wanted to acheive, but I hope there's something of interest in what I've done. Point is, it's not easy to figure out quite what you were trying to acheive in your original piece.

[oalexis]

I love the brush strokes you can see in your image but i do agree with matt's crit that tightening up some of the environmental elements could really make this shine!

ps. Great crit matt

[LE0NHEART]

i cant thank you enough Matt. This is exactly the kind of crit i needed. if only more people took the time to do the same :( lol. i think your paint over is awesome, it really brings my image up a notch :D. for a guy like me a crit such as this one is a great way for me to see where i can improve and hopefully get better. thanks again :).

and thanks oalexis, im glad you like my brush strokes :D

[Kan Muftić]

Looking very nice, Matt has some good points to it.

[LE0NHEART]

here is the re paint ive done focusing on the issues Matt bought up. ive detailed the background and just tightened up the image. please re-crit this one, anything i could do to improve it further. thanks :sungod:

[Matt Dixon]

In terms of making sense out of the abstraction in your original image, the latest version is an improvement.

However, much of the subtle stuff which made the original appealing has been destroyed in the process. What happened to those lovely textural marks and the subtle shifts in hue?

I wonder if you've taken my crit a bit too literally? It looks as if you've used a different brush and deliberately adopted some of the rough and scribbled lines from my paintover. NO! The paint in your original was really cool! My image is a 10 minute doodle intended purely to illustrate the points in my text, not a literal suggestion as to how your marks should look. I was trying to show what you might paint, not how.

I feel like an ass for being down on your repaint after you've taken everything I wrote on board, even if it wasn't quite in the way I intended. I'm very sorry if I was unclear.

If you still have the heart to work on this image ( and I think you should ) and you still care what I have to say if you think I've misled you ( and I hope you do ) I'd suggest going back to your original image. Your latest makes more sense but those new marks are butt ugly. All you really need to do is work into the abstract areas to add definition, give it some meaning. Most of the stuff I added was 'found' amongst the marks that you'd already placed - the mountain peak on the right is already there if you look closely.

Does that make sense?

[Twinkie]

...those new marks are butt ugly.

LOL

Matt Dixon, you are awesome. You are one of the most dedicated artists I've seen on CA and for good reason. Going out of your way to help a brotha out is really great, despite your somewhat brutal accuracy at times.

Respec'!!

[katana]

Not to take anything away from the artist on this thread, but Bravo matt, the art world needs more people that approach crits this way.

[LE0NHEART]

hey Matt, as soon as i posted the new one i thought shit lol, its even worse. I'm definitely going to go back to the original and add to it, and this time ill use the same brush :D. give me a few days though cus im abit busy with my college work atm. but much thanks again for the awsome crit :D.