portrait of the emperor as a young officer UPDATED for the last time! 6/10 22:00

[bwkeough]

So I was picking through my harddrive looking for image to bring in my portfolio for the Workshop and I found this old one, a little less than half done. The head and body weren't done and the hands were just sketched. finished him this afternoon.

Crit it up! :)

http://www.nand.net/~keough/portrait-of-the-colonel.gif

[troll4life]

good..the expression look egoistic a bit but still,full of dreams.

however,you should draw some smoke coming out from his mouth or nose...

the upper hand can be fix more.So as the neck.

The drapery of the shoulder to the for arm could be fix too..

[bwkeough]

troll4life- thanks! yeah I can see now that the fingers in the upper hand are a bit too thick. I'll have to take some pics of myself in that pose and get the hand and the fabric folds better.

[bwkeough]

ok repainted this, hope ya like it better!

http://nand.net/~keough/portrait-of-the-colonel2.gif

EDIT 6/8/04 21:35

ok, scrapped the detail and fixed a few things from above, made the dark side of his face a little lighter.

http://nand.net/~keough/portrait-of-the-colonel3.gif

[bwkeough]

I've decided that the massive apathy this character has received is due to his inherent boringness. (1000 views and one comment from a guy that was banned a few days later) If I'm wrong and some other part of the image sucks, tell me for Pete's sake!

So I started this new image on Sunday evening and just finished it up now. Same character, he's no longer a mid-level officer in Her Majesty's Imperial Fusilliers. He's a few years older, had at least one promotion and become disenchanted with the system. He's now a privateer mercenary/smuggler.

If this one is lousy, too, tell me so.
I'm not 100% certain, but this'll likely be the last image I post before next week. See you in Austin!

:chug:

http://www.nand.net/~keough/grumpy_emperor.gif

[mephisto]

Haha, no one will reply. :P I hate that.

I like the very first image most, seems like the reworks lost some color. The hands on the last one are reallly nice. Overall it is really well painted, looks like you are using an opaque method, I like it, thats how Craig Mullins says to do it. I like how the hair (in the first one) has some relative cools in it, I think it might electrify it some if you put some cools/blues in his coat or skull, seems very monochrome right now. Ash Wood seems to pull off monochrome well, but I think the colors in these arnt varried enough or something. In the last two reworks either the head seems to small, or the hands are too big, hard to tell given the cropping and outfit.

In the last one the lighting isnt as convincing or compelling on the face. Its really cool though, maybe just lacking some shadow planes on the sides of the head/face. The wrest of it is very nice. The nose seems a little too simplified, that hard black line around the bottom of it makes it very flat and cartoon like. It also seems a little big compared to his nose a few years ago. Adding reds to represent blood under the skin in the cheeks or nose might look nicer than putting it around the rim of the face. Cools recede and warms come forward. The red being around the rim of the face is pulling what should be the receding edges of his face forward, since the light areas are desaturated(closer to cool), and this sort of flatens the face. The eyes are awesome, really cool burning intensity.

HAHA ! Bucket full of my opinion, bucket full of uselessness!More should reply, these are awesome. Wish I got to go to Austin, lucky bastard.

[bwkeough]

mephisto- thanks for the suggestions! I had been struggling with the face in the last one flattening out, I think I'll be able to fix it and touch up a few other things tonight. I had been avoiding cool shadows as they sometimes look artificial or bruise-like, but I think if I keep them fairly neutral in chroma they'll work well.

I also see know how I knocked off part of the younger emperor's head in an effort to tame the hair a bit. I think I'll build it back up and let it go a little wilder. That sword-hand is a trifle thick, too, I'll trim that as well.

thanks again!

[Summer Pudding]

The first thing that leapt out at me was the skull gorget around his neck. I would expect an emperor to have a much more richly worked one. The uniform in general looks a bit shabby and careworn for someone of his standing.

Here's a great link for reference. You'll find shitloads of glorious Hussar unforms from the Crimean War. They knew how to dress for death back then.

http://www.ospreypublishing.com/title_detail.php/title=Q1949~ser=MAA

[bwkeough]

So I repainted the face about 3 times. I'm feel like I'm starting to butcher it, so this is it, the last one, I'm moving on to something new!

http://www.nand.net/~keough/grumpy_emperor5.gif


summer pudding- thanks for looking and recommending the book. I'm familiar with Osprey's series and own a couple of them. I do very much like the overly ostentatious European military uniforms of that time period.

one thing that was always in my head about this character was that he's a future emperor, but not the son of royalty. More of a farm kid, then conscript, then office, then outlaw, then freedom fighter, emperor and tyrant.