'Khaleesi' WIP thread

[Sapphirelullaby]

Starting a new painting of Daenerys Targaryen from the series A Song of Ice and Fire. I'm calling this an underpainting just because so far I'm mostly just concerned with establishing value and overall structure; I anticipate changing up the colors as I go along...also, I haven't even painted over the lines yet, haha. Letting this rest for a bit and get some crit before I move on to painting.

[Giacomo]

Looks OK to me.

My only thought is that unless your intent was to paint a portrait of the horse with some other figures around the edges, you might want to crop it a bit tighter to the girl.

[giby]

Hey there love ur sketch .... u were askin abt basic value ...atm the bald guy behind the girl looks lik a drawf riding with the girl ( I am not sure if thtts the case :p) and all of ur chracters hav similar value structure usually characters in the foreground hav darker value and more saturation and the moving horses are gonna kick up some dust ... which can be used to seperate the horses effectively and a top left sun is gonna make the sky more brighter there so i did a PO Hope it helps ..disregard it if it doesnt help ...Cheers

[Vermis]

Can't say I know much about composition but I'd agree with Giacomo and Giby about the horse and the guy behind her. I think I spot a tangent with the white horse's lip and the brown horse's rump, too.

On the subject of the white horse (Silver, innit?): I think the borders of the image are throwing me off, but something seems a bit odd about the shoulders. Neck, blade and muscles don't seem to be lining up or shadows aren't falling in the right places, and it's difficult to tell where the horse's shoulders actually are, and how thick the neck is.
And to nitpick a few other things: the brow/eyeline seems a little too horizontal, laterally; the eyes not lateral enough - too forward-facing, with a bit of a human impression about them; the back of the skull may be a few hairs too wide (or the ears may be a little too spaced); and the face too sloped and wedge-shaped (IMO the snout needs to be a little straighter, and it needs more chin and cheek).

I like where you're going with this, though. I'm looking forward to see what you do with it.

[sone_one]

i like it... espcially the colors.

but you got a lot of tangents happening there...


im also bothered by the elongated horse backs, and the riders position. also the saddles dont make a lot of sense.

[GoldSeven]

Yep, I think you should put in some research for saddle positions and also horse/rider proportions. The man on the left looks all right although he seems to be riding into the frame - but either Dany is extremely tiny or the silver extremely large. As a rule of thumb, a horse's head is about twice as big as the rider's. Definitely enlarge Daenerys. The horse's face structure needs some work too. The far eye wouldn't be showing, and the nose looks slightly stunted in yours.

Look - even a Frisian (reaaaally large breed) doesn't dwarf his rider like that.

The saddles in your image are too close to the withers - in the photo of the Frisian above, it looks a bit like in yours, but the withers of a Frisian are actually massive, so I'd move yours back a bit.

Horses are a beast. Literally. I struggle with them too.

Just found a cool thread on horse/rider proportions: http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/forum...d.php?t=421813

[OmenSpirits]

Is it me or does the muzzle on the white horse look too small in length?

[Kiera]

Nice start!
Where's your focal point? Where should the viewer look at? Remember that not only objects, color and shapes lead the viewer but also people that point or intensivley look at places.
Right now I first look at the horse, then the red saddle, to the girl and then I follow her dramatic gaze and read your join date and your post number and then I contemplate about a weird scratch on the edge of my monitor.

(also the horse anatomy, the horses head is really strange. But the animal is not so important when it's hard to stay focused on the picture because everything points that I should look at the corner there).

[Elwell]

Just seconding GoldSeven's comments about the horse proportions. Get some good ref. In addition to the size issues, there are some serious problems with the head: too much forehead, small ears, eyes too forward facing, muzzle all wrong, etc. Dani and the dragon look really good, but nobody's going to notice them with that giant mutant horse creature taking up most of the picture.

[Candra H]

Just wanted to add a thanks to Goldseven for that link. I'm reading it now and have it bookmarked. Nice one. Thanks!