Trapped

[lpetkov]

Hi,

just sketched this piece, and i'm seeking crit on the composition/perspective/proportions (or anything else) before I go ahead to paint

The creature and the guy are on an arena. That thing up there is a balcony, and there will be dudes watching over the battle. I'm thinking to add a sci-fi feel to the thing, by making the walls out of solid old-looking, rusty metal, and his axe glowing with electricity, that kind of thing.


Any comments are more than welcome!
Thanks!

[lpetkov]

After crit from a friend: larger head for the guy, a bit better monster, lower walls

[DAMJAN]

Ok, well you need to make this a larger place, right now it doesn't have that feel of an arena but some corner alley. I would make them smaller and I would change the angle so it's like we are looking from below up but not too much up where the sky is mostly visible. I think that the lower angle/point of view will make this more epic/hero like. The person is kind of relaxed so maybe a different pose would work better such as battle stance or being ready to defend. The creature is kind of fat and short. Extend it's tail or make the body a bit slimmer.

[Artimatum]

What references are you using for the guy and creature?Right now here is my problem with the pose,it needs more action from the beast,I'd turn the beast so that its facing him more,also having his weapon behind him makes me think that he's not threatened by the creature,he's leaving himself exposed to an attack.

[lpetkov]

Indeed, I wanted to have the guy relaxed, and the creature wounded, powerless, in it's last moments. Obviously, I'm still to communicate that in the piece

Here is my ref for the dude:http://th09.deviantart.net/fs28/PRE/...anum_stock.jpg
And for the creature: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__.../8/8e/Reek.jpg

And an updated image, hopefully looks better now.

Thanks a lot for your comments, keep it up!

[Kyllorac]

The canvas feels too tall, and so everything feels a bit cramped. I think if you were to widen the canvas and crop off maybe 1/8th from the top, it would have more of a dramatic feel. Right now, the scene feels a bit stretched up towards the sky rather than focused on the action on the ground.

Another thing: the creature's posture doesn't say "wounded" to me. Rather, it says "threatened, about to attack". Wounded animals tend to try and make themselves look smaller so that they're less of a target, while animals that are threatened try to make themselves look larger and more intimidating. Exposing its side makes the creature look like it's trying to intimidate the person rather than get away while wounded. Now, if the creature were on the ground and unable to move because it was wounded, the side view would make more sense. Right now though, it looks like the creature is standing under its own power and is capable of moving.

One last thing about the creature: the leftmost foreleg feels off. I'm not sure how it's connecting to that shoulder, unless the shoulder is directly behind the creature's head and thus closer to the spine than the visible one. The angle, also, doesn't make much sense since the fully visible foreleg appears to be bowed, while the one in the back looks like its elbow is bent in the opposite direction.

[lpetkov]

This is why I like posting WIPs here : )) Thanks! Here is an update, following your comments:



Better?

[michaelharris]

You don't have a strong enough grasp on perspective to completely fake it. If you are going to put in buildings in the background, you need to go ahead and put down a horizon line and find your vanishing points. Preferably do some perspective grids. I'd look at some actual architecture for the buildings in the background, because right now, they are just lumps. You need to work the whole composition at the same time, because all of the elements of the image have to work together. So don't finish, just the characters and THEN do the background, try to keep everything at about the same level of finish.

[lpetkov]

You're right - at the moment I'm watching some perspective video tutorials, I do suck at this.
And, those things are not buildings, a wall made of huge blocks of metal Thank you for taking the time to comment!

[self-epidemic]

If I were going to do this piece, I would have him looming over the beast, maybe even just showing a part of him and his shadow, the creature is big, too. So I think you'll have to think about whats going on.

Why is he fighting it? Why is it in a town? Why is it only one guy fighting him, and why is there no one around? Make it make sense, and it'll help with the concept.

[JackGriffin]

Like others have said before me, the perspective is off and it would look far better with a low angle shot making the hero ( if he is the hero) much more daunting/ powerful as hes in the foreground. I dont think portrait best suits this piece though, landscape will help establish more space around him giving a better idea of the arena although the portrait may be exaggerating how little room they both have to move which is pretty good. You could even have a viewing platform in the background above the monster for the wealthy to watch which would give a nice feeling of a futuristic Rome but I dont think you should go ahead with the electricity axe. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished piece

[Kyllorac]

Adding onto what JackGriffin said, the viewing platform could be inset into the wall with a transparent material separating the audience from the action. Also, a landscape orientation would probably work better than portrait, and you could even have a section of wall blocking the view on one or more sides to help emphasize a claustrophobic feel without the awkwardness of the portrait layout.

The position of the creature is much better and more believable. Just one issue: tails are used as counterweights, and so it makes no sense for the tail to be up in the air like that, especially with the head up that high. In that pose, the tail should be down on the ground and mostly (if not entirely) hidden by the legs.

[lpetkov]

Thank you for the great and helpful comments! Here is what I came up with:



What do you think?

[lpetkov]

Right - I spend some more time on this one. Redesigned the creature, etc. And although I drew perspective lines, I still think there's something wrong there, so feel free to do quick paintovers and teach me, if you feel like it

Thank you!

[Father Tiny]

Now this is more of a personal opinion, but you changed the critter to a lowbie level 2 alien I liked your other critter, and would have made it even a bit bigger to show this gladiator dude can really kick some butt! Also, not sure about the blood and entrails spewing out when the warriors axe isn't currently chopping his victim. I know this is pretty early stages, but throwing in some bones and debris on the ground would make it look more interesting. The wall design doesn't seem to look like an arena be it sci-fi or otherwise. It feels like the back entrance to a warehouse or alley. Maybe adding the usual fare of pennants, people/aliens watching, hot dog vendor , etc. may help.

[lpetkov]

Hi, thanks for your comment.
Yeah - I'm not sure about the creature too - maybe will repaint again

You are correct it doesn't look like an arena - i do need to work on that, find some solution I'm also struggling with the scale, I think - maybe it's me having looked at this for too long, but the walls don't look as far away from the characters as I'd like them to. That's also adding to the "alley" feel of the environment :/

[Lightship69]

Just a suggestion but I think you should go back to the thumbnail stage and re-work the idea into something less generic, and by that I mean try putting the guy in a pit with the creature on a raised dias, or chain one leg to a rock or something. You have called the thread "TRAPPED" but nothing about the image says he is trapped, it just comes across as a gladiator. focus on him trapped in a corner with the beast closing in on him.... anything!

So my long winded suggestion is play with the idea some more and see if you can get something better and more dynamic to work with.

[Lhune]

The modern-looking arena is really clashing with the medieval look of the gladiator. I really like the idea of a cyborg/mech gladiator, you could play with that or try to make the arena look older.

The reason why the walls don't look far away is that if you look at the ground, the alien head is as close to the walls as it is to the dude's feet. You'll want to really increase the distance between the alien and the walls; problem is the perspective of the ground isn't right with the perspective of the walls. They currently look like they are standing on an upward slope. Either raise the lower lines of the walls or put the two characters closer together.

[mdog]

One little suggestion is that you could add some foreground that overlaps the character and the creature. Just some simple shapes, like a the edge of a pillar on one side. Something that gives the viewer the impression that the character and creature are close in. It would also add another level of dimension.

[lpetkov]

OK - thank you for the comments and the encouragement.

@Lightship69 - I understand what you're saying, but I think I'm getting somewhere with the current composition. I called it "trapped" because I wanted the creature to be trapped in the corner, then changed my mind (see the very first image).

Here is a quick paintover - let me know if you like it better now, I'm trying to follow the crit!