Army man

[aco2099]

An old painting that i did. Hope to receive some comments and critiques on it. Thanks!

[Izi]

First thing I see is that his face is like a chubby gnome...small and strange. Did you use reference of any kind? It might help in the second version.

I like the brown rough color, it's a nice textured "old" feeling.

The highlights on the helmet make me think it is dented into his skull. They are placed wrongly, I suggest studying a helmet, but what I would say about this is that the highlights are too big and too bright. Brightness like that only happens rarely at highly reflective points directly facing the light.

Another issue with the head I have is that he appears to be leaning over, walking, while his head is straight up facing us. The correct perspective seems to be lost.

What you could correct immediately is to get rid of all the light and highlights around his left side of the face. His cheekbone could not possibly stick out that far to catch all of that light, nor could his jaw do the same. This is assuming your light source is coming from the hard left on the piece.

The hands are lumpy and it's hard to make out how he's holding the gun, though it is clear it's not right. You could rethink the placement of the hands or study more accurately how they should appear.


The gun barrel itself is not hard and industrial enough. It must be very accurate to make a statement and precision in perspective is a must not have those soft sloppy edges without first having a hard underlying form that says "GUN".

Best of luck :)