Men of Honor

[Erik]

Hi,

here a pic i made from photo reference.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~erikedf/art/wip/menofhonor.jpg

It's certainly not perfect but i'm at least a little more confident - enough to post here again.

So now crit and don't hold back!

[AfroLaxMan]

I would suggest to get more light areas in the face to help the eyes move a bit.
Right now, my eye went directly to the suit, then I spent some time (not much, but a little) deciphering where the metal connectons end the body starts, just because they are so close in hue and saturation (especially when compared to the rest of the suit.
I have see a lot of your portraits, and this is one of the best ones so far.

[arkain]

i think it is cool but the problem is that some area like the rope near the neck look flat and i think the suit as too mutch of light.

[Erik]

Thanx for the critiques! That's the stuff i need!

I agree on the suit - the left side should be darker - and the face should be lit up a little more. True true. I get problems with face colour though - maybe more saturated color in the lighter parts?

About the flatness : i'm not entirely sure how this can be accomplished , do the ropes need more shadow?

I don't really understand about the metal connections, but maybe it's because i only hinted their presence and did not actually paint everything there.

[behemot5]

you wrote me you learn painting... it seems you are good painter :)

[blackhand]

I think the colors of the face are fine, Erik, just add some brighter highlights like people have already suggested. The contrast on the suit is too much. I don't mind the bright intensity of the white parts, but you've also got some nearly black shadows above the belt--that seems a little inconsistent.

I haven't seen the movie or the suit, so maybe that part is supposed to be black.

The ropes could definitely use more shadow. As it is, they look like a uniform color, even if they're not. I think part of the problem is the contrast between the relatively bright ropes and the very dark helmet mount.

Your colors are working well, though, and it's good to see you implementing sound color theory [of which I know only because of Prometheus' color tutorial].

[Erik]

Hey!

Since everybody agreed on the face i updated the picture above and gave the face more highlight.

I also gave more shadow to some parts of the suit, but it is white, so it will look white when sitting in the sun ;-)

Don't really know what to do about that any further...

The ropes are hard to fix because in the reference they appear to be of that sort of thin-woven rope stuff they make climbing-gear from, that has no visible weave or texture other than tiny hairs. It is also matte and looks flat because of that. But since the ref is not strictly followed anyway i could change that, After all it's not painting by numbers ;-)

About the colors : well i don't know, i read some of the color theory stuff in that thread and it rules but it's difficult to go from there to a painting. It does help me look better and understand what i see though!

I mainly try to paint what i see in the ref in these posts - it's not real life but i'm forced to watch very closely what colors there are in the picture, and that hopefuly makes me see better and be better in non-ref work and life work. At least the ref picture won't move! ;-)

[arkain]

good job i think with the update on the suit , face , rope it give the picture a bigger punch, good job, i really love the texture on the left arm(our view), great work

[Erik]

thnx!