tall ship ...

[THUNDERCOCK]

Another little sketch that ended up going to the next level. perhaps not as dynamic as my last post but i had fun working on it. hope y'all enjoy!!!
crits and comments always welcomed....dont worry I can take the abuse.

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b32/thundercock/blowinshituplowres.jpg

[Dutton]

Hey TC, another nice one. I especially like the color treatment and ripple effect in the sails. Also diggin' the transitioning blues to purples in your sky.
There are two things that stand out most that, in my opinion, could use work. First, the bow of the ship is about to collide into the left border of your painting. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on in the negative space around the sails that is making it look cluttered at the moment being that close to the left border. Open that side up some. Even if it means more open sea and skies, it'd be nice to know the ship has somewhere to go. The other thing that's getting me is the horizon line. It's a little too flat. Of course it's the open sea and I shouldn't expect volcanos spewing out of the surface to make it more exciting, however, you've got a lot of drama going on in the foreground with what looks like cannonballs splashing into the waves (tell me if those splashes are something different). With this sort of intensity, you might want to break up that horizon line by using the foreground waves. Luckily, the viewer is almost at sea level so it shouldn't take much once to tweak it once you expand the canvas dimensions.
Take a look at these for example:

Howard Pyle:
http://www.goodart.org/blog/HowardPyle-AttackOnAGalleon1905Large.jpg

Bernie Fuchs:
http://www.illustrationhouse.com/current/A31/a31_150.html

http://www.salon-d-arts.org/artists/fuchs1.jpg

The Man, N.C. Wyeth
http://www.podgallery.com/images/gallery/205A.jpg

http://www.stockton.lib.ca.us/images/ships3.jpg

Hope this helps!

[THUNDERCOCK]

Dutton_
yeah you're absolutely right about the edge of the page...i actually caught that before hand but just wanted to put this out there to see what the general feedback is. I think you're right about the horizon line being flat too...I mean...it is. I busted this whole thing out in about 2 hours time...i didn't really put much thought into this either....it really was just a runaway sketch i had done. but thx for those links too. all fresh stuff...if you can't learn from the masters then who's gonna teach us? I like that Bernie Fuchs one...pretty tight. I'll rework this one too then repost. and yeah its cannon ball splashes...i know it's a bit out of context considering you don't see the other ship firing. but it helped make some action occur to an otherwise boring piece. thanks for the crit.

[dogfood]

I love the subject matter. I assume this is some non-traditional tall ship (futuristic or alternate past-type stuff) because I really don't recognize what's happening with the hull (which is fine, because it still looks cool).

One way to make it look much more dramatic is to allow the ship to do what it would actually do in this situation and that is heel over to the port (our right). It is sailing really close to the wind and the evident strength of the wind with all of that sail flying would really make the ship lean over.

Pretty cool, and nice sails and rigging.

[THUNDERCOCK]

thx. dogfood...it was a traditional ship but most of the stuff i just sort of made up as I went along...the hull thing can sort of throw you off a bit. but yeah you're right about having that thing lean a bit...that might be really cool...I'm gonna tweak it a bit and repost soon...I'll play around with your idea and see if i can make it better...thanks for the crit!!

[THUNDERCOCK]

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b32/thundercock/blowinshitupcopy2.jpg

I know it shouldn't have taken me so long to repost....sorry for dragging ass yall....here's a little retouch based on the courteous crits of Dutton and dogfood....(thanks kids..) enjoy!!!....oh yeah...i see the smudgy thing on the right side....I'll clean it up after...I hate when i get too ahead of myself....well...that's it for now kids.....capt'n Will signing off...