Barsoomian Zingball - a reinterpreted masterwork

[masque]

The Giordano Gambit

113017

This image is based on Luca Giordano's The Fall of the Rebel Angels (http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giordano/rebel_an.jpg) (1666), one of the masterworks used as reference in the latest Open Figure Drawing Workshop (OFDW), which our own Rebeccak often spearheads on both this forum and at CGTalk. The theme for session 021 is Angels & Devils, and the pose of the archangel in Giordano's work reminded me strongly of a sketch i did a few decades ago depicting a zero-gravity sport:

113140

the clouds & hues of the masterwork immediately suggested to me a Martian dust storm, and so a new future sport was born, which i've christened Barsoomian Zingball (Barsoom, for the woefully underinformed, is the natives' name for Mars in the series of wonderfully pulpy Edgar Rice Burroughs novels featuring John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and scads of other of froody Martian denizens).

in the match depicted, the Blue Devils are executing the only sports play known to have been directly inspired by a 17th century painting -- the "Giordano Gambit" -- which is typical of the flamboyant acrobatics this sport is famous for. even the huge Martian dust storms can't impede attendance at major tournaments, and fans pay exorbitant prices for tickets and often have to reserve the floating box seats years ahead of time. Martian years, that is!

please do C&C to your heart's content, your insights would be welcome.

[the_allejo05]

I like that you are using a masterwork to learn..but shouldnt the angels be on top..just like the painting.. or is it that you think "the Devils" always win...:) Damn the devil!

[daniel ching]

ours Masque…. very interesting its image,its imagination does not have limits. its drawing and composition without commentaries ...very good

[masque]

hmmm, almost forgot about this thread. update time... made a few small changes to this that helped deepen the sense of space and unify the whole thing. final image as submitted to the CGTalk OFDW21 is in the first post.

[Ramon Hurtado]

Hey masque, I think you did a fanstastic job with this, the figures look awesome as is the overall design. funny how the same basic composition can be effective for two different images.

[Raoul Duke]

what I am about to say probably sounds like total nonsense.

It looks like a renaissance painting from the 80's of the future. I hope that was your intention, because it's convoluted and I like it.

Now I want to play Streetfighter The Movie The Video Game.

[masque]

Raoul Duke, eh? That's a name that raises my fear & loathing quotient considerably. ;)
Anyway, thanks for the necro & the comment, but take my advice & skip the vidgame. Draw instead! :D