Dragon lady - update 3/14/12

[dierat]

Hey guys. This is a piece that I originally 'finished' last year and have been reworking based on critique I received on the old version. I’m looking for some updated critique to see if there’s anything else I can fix (without redoing the whole thing) and what I should focus on improving in future work. Thanks for stopping by, even if it’s just to look.

[Artfix]

This is nice overall but its lacking convincing lighting. I think the background is a huge stain-glass window behind her? There should be bright light flooding over her from the window, no?

If its not a window, then you should make it look less like a window. I think the piece would come together as looking finished if you can work out the lighting.

[Lhune]

If the title is "Dragon Lady", I'm a little confused as to why; there isn't much about this lady that I would associate with dragons, safe for a partial dragon body in the background.

The focus seems to be primarily on the unicorn, for the most part because the light is centered there. Right now I feel as though the unicorn is the primary focus, the most important part of the piece. It seems like he's trying to tell the lady something, to warn her perhaps? It's just the vibe I get. I also didn't recognize the mirror she was holding until I looked at it for at least a couple of minutes; it just doesn't instantly read as a mirror to me (I though it was kind of a scepter or a spear head at first).

I do have to say the piece is beautifully rendered, I'm especially impressed with the way you painted the cloth. There's just something odd about the composition and the story; it all feels a bit disjointed. Perhaps you can think of a way to tie it all together?

[Venger]

You need to decide on your primary focus (what do you want us to look at?)
At the moment you're somewhere in between the window/wall and the figure.
If you drop this to value - things aren't clear enough.
You need to be (IMO) a bit more extreme, light over dark, or dark over light are a pretty simple base techniques - you can vary this to fit the mood you are after.
Be careful with your background elements - the wing behind the head and the 'smoke'? are interfering with the read of the figure.

Quick scribble for you that isn't 100% right, but hopefully you can see what I'm getting at:

[Conejo Blanco]

Agreed, lighting should be more of a focus. Otherwise your execution is gorgeous and polished, your anatomy is sound, and your color choices bold (though I suppose I would love to see just a bit more subtle variation in tone and color... You've got this painting almost too neatly divided into separate colors, though maybe that works with the stained glass look?). Excellent job!

[dierat]

Thanks everyone, your responses and suggestions have been really insightful. I received a lot of comments prior to this concerning the problem with the window, but I just didn't know how to improve the image and was having obvious problems seeing the 'big picture'.

I’ve reworked the value and color a bit and tried to accentuate the sense of light in the scene based on the comments in this thread. So what do you think - am I pushing it too far or not far enough? Do the light rays on the window look okay or should they be more subtle or something?

(Btw if you're looking at this in Chrome or another browser that doesn't support color profiles, the image will appear to have some flat black areas, like on the shadowed portion of the torso, pillows, and the lowest section of the image. It looks a little better in Firefox.)

If the title is "Dragon Lady", I'm a little confused as to why; there isn't much about this lady that I would associate with dragons, safe for a partial dragon body in the background.

Well it's kind of weird to explain since the narrative of the piece in general doesn't read very well, but the piece is kind of a metaphor for self-reflection and personal examination of character, whether you're the 'hero' (represented by the unicorn) or the 'villain' (represented by the dragon and the color red) in your own story. I wanted the metaphor to be pretty subtle (because I want the viewer to be able to make their own interpretation of it), but it's probably so subtle at this point that no one will ever get it unless I explain it first. Oh well, something else I have to work on.

[tobbA]

I think this is great... Though color wise I think I liked the previous version better. It had more 'punch' to it. I think you should try to make the color and value contrasts be stronger in your area of focus. Right now it mostly looks brownish all over. The BG window doesn't feel as convincing as a light source either now that it's darker.

[TArnell]

Great image rendering, but you do see that she's not looking in/at the mirror right....(I read what you said about reflection etc and wondered if that was intentional since she is looking over her arm & hip rather than at the mirror). Also the horn (thing) protruding from her forehead over "her' left eye is at the wrong angle and appears to be making her forehead on that side bulge out..... May her face ( her right side) also not have reflected light on it too due to the mirror? Anyway that's what I see, hope it helps! The render is awesome !!! but the mechanic's need help imho!