Spring hanami - Jugend / Art nouveau [update 5!]

[Zaphod]

Godday. I need a lot of crits on this peice. Paintovers are very welcome. The picture is supposed to be inspired by the Jugend / Art nouveau movement that took place around the beginning of the last centrury. This is the first art nouveau inspired piece I ever do so I'm a begginner here. I have completely fallen in love with the style!

Mostly I have been looking at this guy: Alphonse Mucha (http://www.artchive.com/artchive/M/mucha.html) . His stuff is So great!

The picture is of my girlfriend. Right now it's only her, but I'm gonna add a lot of cherry blossoms (hanami = cherry blossom viewing) and stuff later. The same flowers as in the reference picture. Right now I would mainly like crits about her face and compositional issues. The background forms will probably change too, open for suggestions.

My brother said that he thought that I should have a more dynamic pose since it looks a little flat now. I did some but I'm wondering if I should do more?

I'm gonna add something in her hands (and redo the hands completely, they are totally FUBR), like a scarf or something blowing in the wind.
I'm also gonna make the skirt longer at the bottom (whatever those things are called in English, flounces?).

In the end I'm gonna project the result onto a big canavas with a overhead machine and then paint it with acrylics. So I want it to be flawless before I do that, since I will have enough problems getting used to the colour scheme and medium.

The picture (at last):
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_beta.jpg

The reference:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_sae_ref.jpg

Ok, hope I didn't scare you off with all the text. I really need crits, since I might give it to my girlfriend if it turns out good.

Thanks a bunch! :chug:

[tegehel]

Hi there,

I love Nouveau (Mucha especially, but also Gaudi, for architecture). This will be a nice present.

Since you asked for head criticism, I would humbly point out a few things that came to my mind as I checked the drawing and the picture:

1) the head is too big by comparison to the body. Make sure to check proportions.

2) I'm almost enclined to say that you'd be better off using the picture as a reference for the head. This is why I say this: a) the likeliness will eventually be more obvious (to her) if she's seen the picture already and b) the head on the picture is more interesting insofar as it's angled slightly and upwards a bit. It breaks the stiff "statue-like" aspect (for lack of better word) of a head looking straightforward, unless, of course, this is what you were looking for. Additionally, it will show the charming innocence that she portrays, surrounded by flowers and lil' bunnies, etc...(you get he idea :)

3) to tell you the truth, I think the pose is adequate due to its quasi-symmetry, which can be a recurring theme in Art Nouveau. This will be enhanced if you decide to add symmetry in the background decoration. I am not sure that dynamism (as in a dynamic pose) is a trend in Art Nouveau, but, heh, why not?

Those are just top-of-my-head suggestions, and personal preferences. I hope it helps, or at least, make you think :)

Good luck,

C.

[Zaphod]

Ok, here's an update. I did alot of small countless adjustions, but the main things where:

I checked the propotions a lot and added longer legs and adjusted the arms a little (still didn't do anything about the hands). She has a little more "dynamic" pose now.

tegehel: by dynamic I meant that mucha's girls always have a lot of diagnoal lines or the girls have poses where all the lines are "stressed" do show as much form as possible. Dunno if that made any sense at all. Sorry.

I made the face and head smaller and reworked almost everything in there.

I made the lips thinner mouth shorter and the hair fuller by suggestion from Nimrod.

I also made her a little thinner around her waist and legs (on request from my gf :rolleyes: , who said she's not "that fat"... figures).

The update:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_beta2.jpg

I'm also gonna add another reference picture that I used for the face. I'm still not sure if I should change the direction she is facing. I did so much damn work on that face :( . Painting your gf isn't easy! It still
doesn't look like her 100%.

The ref picture:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_sae_ref2.jpg

I'm still hungering for crits on this one!
How should I make the flounces? I haven't worked on those that much yet.
Are there any folds that don't make any sense?
Does the face look like her?
Any strange propotions.?

Anything and everything is welcome.

Updated url for ref picture.

[Zaphod]

Just to make it look like there is a lot of activity and intrest in this thread, I'm gonna add a quick colortest I did after getting some crits from frost.

I'm not gonna color the final however, since it's going to be printed and projectet onto a canavas with an overhead machine. It would be a pain in the ass to try to trace that in greyscale.

The color test:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_beta2_color.jpg

To do:
- Add a scarf that will be flowing around her, to break up some of the symmetry that the picture has.
- Fix the hands
- Start painting the background and the frames with flowers, twigs and falling flower petals.

Any suggestions are welcomed with open arms. I need a lot of tips on how to draw those patterns that are so usual for jugend / art nouveau. Im also not sure about the face, should I change the direction she's facing?

Thanks!

[DustinTrimble]

Konichiwa, Here is a quick note/paint over/ manipulation

Her head seems small, and thus she looks plump in the painting, there is some over all proportions that are just minorly off, enough to be noticable. I rotated the nose cause it sits outfrom the face, and you could find a better line for the mouth to sit on too, but it is okay. Define the jaw, she's young and the versions you had previously make her look like she has some face sagging(largle due to the line of the hair next to her left jaw.) Clothe folds are totally arbatrary, but I have my take on the torso folds there. find where the ancor points for the folds are.

Kanojo wa totemo adeyaki desu, ne! You're a lucky man:) Good luck on this peice, it looks good so far, just needs attention!

Whoops heres the link:
http://www.geocities.com/xstin2000/nihongirlcrit.htm

[Zaphod]

This is great! Thanks man. Exactly what I was hoping for! (I was quite confused when I didn't find the link to the paintover at first though:confused: )

I'm definatly gonna make these changes. The only thing I'm not sure of is the mouth. But I'll look into it. The jawline was a good call. I have been thinkig about it, but I was too much of a coward to just draw the damn line.:rolleyes:

Now if I could only learn how to draw those intrinsic patterns/flowers I might have something ready to project onto a canavas soon.

adeyaki wa douiuimi desu ka? denjisho de shirabemashita kedo attenai no desu. "kanojo ga totemo kawaii" no imi dattara arigatou! watashi mo sou to omoimasu kara.:D

How come you know japanese?

[DustinTrimble]

Glad to help:p get some more fresh eyes on it, and that may help more too.
I am learning begining japanese now, and have been studying for almost a year at a community college, but I don't study enough! Hehe, wrong spelling of the adjective, "adeyaka" Sorry, that is why you didn't find it in the dictionary!

Are you gonna do chery blossoms?

[Zaphod]

Ok, here's an update. I have been back and forth on propotions all over the place. Redid the face (a couple of times), I think I'm getting closer to something that I'm happy with (concerning propotions and likeness)

Changed the folds on the dress, what was I thinking?! :rolleyes:
Removed the flounces too. I'm gonna make it so that we can see her feet.

I'm gonna start adding a lot of other elements. I started a little with the scarf/cloth thing behind her. I guess I'll have to make the hair look windy too now that the cloth has a lot of wind in it.

Fire away! I'm always grateful for crits and/or paintovers. If someone have a good idea on how to draw feets I would be grateful. I can't draw feets for shit. :mad:

Update 4:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_beta4.jpg

Oh, and thanks a lot to all you guys on IRC who give me good crits all the time!

[Zaphod]

Another update. I realize that I'm probably the only one who reads this thread, but I'll keep on updating it anyway. I guess it's not that exciting since I'm not exactly making progress in leaps and bounds but I'm refining it constantly.

Lots of small refinements, moved around a lot of things (gotta love the lasso tool) and made the dress look like it did before.

This is the latest update:
http://knarkbox.no-ip.com/images/hanami_beta5.jpg

As usual I'm happy for any crits anyone might have. Not that anyone seems to post here (I bet a lot of people get annoyed when they see it's only me making all those replies :D ). I'm not bitching however, I get crits when I go online on IRC now and then so I'm all happy!

If you feel sad for me though, don't hesitate to post something here.
:D

:chug:

[joel]

really cool, i think itd be cool to somehow incorporate those cherry blossoms (if that's what it is in the photograph) into the painting or the trim border of the ptg.

great ptg.

[Zaphod]

Thanks! :)
Actually, that's what I have been planning on from the beginning. The tiltle "hanami" is japanese for flower looking/watching. Usually it's already understood that it's cherry blossoms that are viewed. The actual flowers are called Sakura.

I have problem drawing those cherry blossoms, but I saw some japanese cherry trees in town, so I might go there and "borrow" a twig for reference. Got some picture off images.google.com too.

I'll update it as soon as I can. I won't have much time this weekt though.