The Breakup

[kennygeeze]

This is an illustration I'm working on for a short story assignment.
The author wanted the couple standing in the street with the scenery on fire around them.
I also drew some smaller sketches in the polaroids falling around the characters as there's some significance to 'found photos' during the plot.


Edit -- second revision:



The blue one is the older version.

[Giacomo]

The drawing is pretty solid--but everything here except the woman's flesh and the borders of the Polariods is the same value and the same level of detail and the piece feels incredibly flat as result.

(With all due respect: every single piece you've posted on this forum has had the exact same problem (described above), and I've never seen you even try to address it.)

[kennygeeze]

Thanks for the input. I'll see about fixing the values.

[KenHatch]

Ouch, that is very good and resonates on many emotional levels for me. It may be flat in some aspects of values, but it captures a feeling and a moment and what at that age feels like forever ending.

The values suggest something to me, a feeling of disconnection between the girl and a world she is finding to painful to see clearly. There is a statement in the flatness of everything but the girl. But if its unintentional then you don't want to be stuck with that in all your work, and if it is intentional, then maybe explore new ways to present emotion/scene connections.

Very nice work, and as with all art, endless room for improvement.

[MagicianOnstrike]

This is a good illustration but something about the male figures right arm seems awkward, I think there's a foreshortening issue here. Good piece though I enjoy the gestures alot think you're saying alot in a subtle way with the hands.

[kennygeeze]

MagicianOnstrike, thankyou. I'm going to get some reference and see about correcting his hand/arm more. I think the main problem was a big blotch of highlight that didn't make any sense in the previous version, but yeah... I'm still going to fix up that area. Thanks

Ken Hatch, thankyou. It's nice to know that it reads storyline-wise the way it's supposed to. Although yes... the lack of depth is unintentional. I'm going to fix it up more so it appears less flat.
I think the challenge was the fact that I was asked to make the deep background on fire so it was diffcult for me to put bright warms in the background and still have them sitting back behind the figures properly.

Maybe if I really softened everything back there so it looks like the figures were shot with a wide aperture lens? Not sure... I'll keep experimenting

Thanks for the input!
Here is where I've gotten it so far. I've changed some of the values and color scheme to get rid of the monochrome blue.. I've added some better depth cues. I'm still going to figure out a way to summarize the background more and paint out some of that detail so it sits back more.

[Tony Meijer]

Okey, here comes a quick dissection on the last image. I might not sound very optimistic about it but I think you are doing a very good job

Lighting: There is light all over the scene No seriously, it is. Its very bland, try doing something interesting with it.
Design: The fire in the background interferes with my read of the couple instead of enhancing my reading of them. I like the photographs falling from the sky.

Guy on the left
General proportions: Head is 99 pixels high and whole body is 636 pixels high, thus 6.4 heads high. Almost a bit short to be honest, but almost does not count

Bodypart by bodypart then:
Head: The guys ears are way to high on his head.
Arms: There seems to be some sort of foreshortening issue going on here, I would guess that his lower arm are a little but to short.
Torso: Looks ok.
Legs: Hard to seem them, but they look good, you might want to work a bit on his butt though, it seems a tad bit off...
Feet: They are hard to see. Remember, feet ground us, so they are important, give it a little bit of light so that I can see them and I think he will seem a bit more solid.
Hands: Looks ok.

Girl on the right
General proportions: She is 586 pixels high, her head is 82 pixels high and this gives us a general length of 6.7 heads, so looks ok.

Again, bodypart by bodypart:
Head: Looks good.
Arms: Okey, here comes trouble . Her lower arm are too short in relation to her upper arm, even if its foreshortened. I think this is a result of two things, namely that her upper arm is a little bit to long and, more importantly, that its position is too far forward. Try standing like she does and feel how your scapula and humerus interacts.
Torso: Seems ok to me.
Legs: To short in relation to the rest of the body, but not by much, you would get away with it I think . You might want to exagerate her gastrocnemius muscle a little bit.
Feet: I think they are to small and I think this is a result of the upper arms being too large. But I'm far from certain.
Hands: Looks ok.

So, Good work, keep it up

[Giacomo]

Not to be a total dick, but you're just not getting what I'm trying to say. I'm suggesting you think a lot harder about how the overall design of the thing is working--really focus on the relationship between "foreground" and "background" and how to communicate it visually. One possible solution is in the JPEG below...there are a million ways to do it, but all of them require you be a bit braver in your use of value.

As always, just my two cents.

[kennygeeze]

Hi Tony,
Thanks so much for the detailed critique about each part. I'll see what I can do about the anatomy, and yeah... first priority is definitely the lighting. Between yours and Giacomo's latest comment I can definitely see what needs to be done to it.

Giacomo, thanks so much for making the jpeg examples. I see what you mean now. I dropped an orange fill like you have on my painting behind the main figures and it already works better -- just like in your thumbnail. Thankyou so much for taking the time make that and help me.

I'll hopefully have time to work on it over the next couple of days and I'll post my results soon.

Thanks!

[Stryno]

To Tony: wouldnt that be right 6.4 heads for a tall young man, not quite an adult? I know this is not really a crit and I am not trying to call Tony out, more or less reminding everyone that may read through this. The progress is coming along, cant wait to see what happens with this.

[Tony Meijer]

To Tony: wouldnt that be right 6.4 heads for a tall young man, not quite an adult? I know this is not really a crit and I am not trying to call Tony out, more or less reminding everyone that may read through this. The progress is coming along, cant wait to see what happens with this.

Yeah, thats right, my bad. Good point Stryno

[lennon]

This is really a great piece. I don't think she's gonna take it very well though...
I overpainted the older version (I liked it more). The main thing I did was adding a backlight wich I thought it was really needed, specially on him. It's just a thought. You may also want to blend a little more the values, specially on her.

[Pavel Sokov]

Is it weird if I liked the blue version in the original post more? The character stood out and it gave a melancholy mood with the blue. The actual painting seems to be harder to read.