VOTING!!--Fresh Meat

[Azrael]

Good entries, gentelmen, and good times. Thanks for the bout. :rendered:

JLAlfaro

[Azrael]

mrgrumble

[Azrael]

misledtomisery

[Azrael]

Azrael

[mrgrumble]

we pulled through! funny how each of us...on our own...have a knife and some sort of aquatic/amphibious beast...:)

[misledtomisery]

voted jla. was the cleanest and most finished. here are some small quick crits.

JLAlfaro - solid piece overall. i would have liked to see more interaction. a tentacle groping up her leg and so on. the beast face and pose is awesome, but the female needs a little refining.

mrgrumble - i dig the idea, the mood, but the whole painting looks unfinished. the colors are muddy and almost entirely one tone. push the contrast on the figures, with tone and harder outlines. that should pull this piece up.

Azrael - i like the composition, and feel of this piece. the looming creatures and the helpless little man. would like to see color. and maybe more of an interest by the creatures. have the central creature loom down more, maybe drooling onto the knight.

theres my quick 2 cents. hope it helps some. or works you up to bash and slash my awful piece.
good job to us for posting something, and sorry to all the puss out peeps. spineless baastards.....
:yayca:

[v0rbiss]

Voted for mr.grumble, for taking the time to paint his entry! :D

[JL.Alfaro]

Voted for Mrgrumble,

Crits:
1. JLAlfaro- you suck
2. Mrgrumble- I really like your style man, you bring something a little different than what everyone else is doing. It reminds me of the renesaince days. I do wish you would push some of the contrasts a bit further, Making your darks the darkest you can go might take you into a whole new stage. The arms on the character on the left are lost in his cloth, due to the same color being applied to the whole. His left hand is almost completely lost in the bg, again due to the hues being at the same level-try turning it into greyscale in PS and you will see what I mean. While you are at it play around with the brightness/contrast alot. Love your characters man!

3. Misledtomisery- Looks a little unfinished, but allow me to elaborate; The sky is very bland. It lacks characteristics which would make it more interesting. The positioning of the legs on the main character seem off somehow. It might be your proportions or it just might be the way the foot lands on the ground, either way it looks a little unnatural. There is a bright yellow light hitting the armor of the main guy, but it doesnt seem to affect the other three characters. And last...the ground man, give it some love man, give it some love... I do love the color palatte you used, seems as if you grabbed it right out of a complimentary color book, great contrasts and brightness. The monsters have a great look about them too, and it the jaggy,sketchy lines you used on their bodies works very well for them, IMO.

4. Azrael- I dont know man, Im a little dissapointed that you didnt go with color on this, I mean it was your challenge and all and I was expecting something kick ass and colorful...WTF happened man? crits; to start off,I really like the idea and the story is told well here. your anatomy is a little off, mostly noticeable on the neck and shoulder area. The neck is way to broad for his body, but if this was what you wanted to go for then aight... The pecs are too far apart, if you were to take that chest plate off of him, the curveature of the muscle would lead one to believe that there is a very large gap between them. The lizard monster, I know you didnt reference this pose, you winged it and it shows man. you should have referenced the anatomy of a mountain lion or a big cat and mixed it in with the anatomy of a lizard or dinosaur, THAT would have made the difference here. Right now his shoulder looks dislocated and his arm looks odd, his hind leg is gimpy. The sky looks like a photoshop filter, you uniformed it too much, break it up a little and add some detail. In my personal opinion, I think that there is too much space at the top of the monster, with the other little monsters on the side I think that you could get away with cropping some of the big one out...but again that just IMO.

[asoir]

voted grumble! fucking amazing piece, foster-esque.

[Azrael]

Man, I tell you it is hard to appease other artists. Most of the beating I took is about that which I already criticized about myself, yet ran out of time to correct. However, you guys gave some great feedback that I didn’t even consider. Thank you for that. The background did bothered me quite a bit. I was going for a bit of a Frazetta feel, but instead I ended up with a cheesy movie backdrop. I did render one with a better background, but it was post deadline, so I didn’t post it up for integrity sake. The monster’s pose is very static indeed. I had the same idea that you mentioned, Misledtomisery, about the head pointing towards the guy and maybe licking his head, but ran out of time (yeah I know I even extended the deadline, but work, school and women got the best of me). And yeah, I pussed it on color. I suppose I got what I deserve. I appreciate the battle and the great feedback!

Now to dish a little back out…
JLAlfaro: This image is a great idea, yet I feel that it could have been executed with more intent. The light at the end tunnel almost draws more attention then the subjects. This image would have drawn more emotion if maybe the tunnel gradually got darker and faded out or if there was a silhouette at the end of the tunnel to signify something. The monster is a cool concept and rendered well. The woman has some anatomy issues and the lighting is off a bit, but I’m sure that you already considered that. I love the concept and the execution is good, just a few minor tweaks. Thanks for the beating.

Mrgrumble: Good work and extra kudos for the medium. I dig the feel of the piece. The biggest drawback is the lack of contrast, and I find it difficult to make out the background. The abstraction is what got my vote. This piece leans much more towards fine art than any of the other entries, especially compared to my commercial garbage. Good work and maybe you can bump up the values and contrast in Photoshop to make it really pop. Hat’s off to you, matey. :hatsoff:

Misledtomisery: Lots of emotion and action in this one. Being that it is a wip it is a bit difficult to critic, being that anything crit on, you probably already had in mind. Good direction here, it is a shame you didn’t get to finish. Thanks for participating.

Well, I’m off to get really chapped in the Gods at War Challenge, and from the looks of it, I will see you all there. Best of luck gentlemen, and rest assured you will see the blade of my sword again. Vengeance will be mine.
:evilmustache:

[JL.Alfaro]

thanks for the crits guys, much appreciated. I do wish you all would have elaborated a bit more on the anatomical issues on the woman.I decided to finish this piece and turn it in on another contest... I will post it for crits when its done.

-JL

[arttorney]

I got something JL: It looks like her near side pec is beefier by far than the other and I think this is related to my feeling that the breast on the near side would be kind of pulled toward the monster more than hanging naturally (due to the pressure of the pulled blouse compressing it toward the center chest. Her far thigh seems bigger than her near one when perspective would have it the other way around. (Facial expression was reasonably agonized and loathing)

[JL.Alfaro]

Yup, I noticed that bro, check the critique area for my new post there...and thanks man.

-JL

[JL.Alfaro]

egads!! A Tie!!

[mrgrumble]

to be continued in the next thunderdome!!!

[Azrael]

hey, I got one vote. Allllriiight! :confident