I need critics on this finished painting (nudity) *FINISHED VERSION*

[Theking78]

Hi everybody,
I've just finished reworking this painting and I would like to receive some critics from you to correct the errors I cannot notice since I draw it.
I have had many great constructive crits for the last one so I would really appreciate any constructive critic and help by you for this one too.
Thank you very much for your time.

[Madfishmonger]

I like your work with colour and light on this, very nicely done. One eye is hard to be expressive with. I don't see anything glaringly wrong with it, maybe her hair in the back could be a little higher or a little more defined?

[omarx646]

I am not an expert but i cant see mistakes or something wrong. one day I coul draw so. That is a nice pic.

[kev ferrara]

Some nice realistic touches on here. Good wood texture and nice sail. Nice sexy outfit. I like the dynamic symmetry of the sail, but the composition still looks a bit too posed/symmetrical to me. I understand you were going for a some kind of iconic old school illustrators thing, but the wheel is just attaching to her shoulders, rather than staying in the background. It looks like she is lifting the wheel on her shoulders. So the design isn't quite designed enough to be a good "iconic" design, but it is close.

This reminds me of cheesecake, but lacks a sense of fun and innocence. The moment is way over the top unbelievable and doesn't really have an emotional tone. There's no mystery here, no mood. Just a pose... The face she is making seems more related to a porn face than a drama face. Other anatomy issues: Her left boob seems to be lacking in form, and the hair doesn't quite look like hair, looks like red snakes... the eye patch seems too big and placed too high. The color of her skin is also monotonous. There's no cool to warm contrast, no pink versus orange versus yellow. Check out Gil Elvgren to see how he achieves softness in the skin and hair and how he uses innocence to make the girls sexier. And how he arranges his compositions and how he uses perspective.

When you put a 21st century porn star on a 17th century pirate ship, you really have to work hard to blend the two together. Otherwise it looks like "hey, he painted a porn star on a pirate ship." which ruins the reality of the moment.

Google "Gil Elvgren"

Good luck
kev

[Blue]

A lot of good effort put into this... but your main character is naked.. why?

[JamesOmori]

Nice Work! Your balance of details may be throwing the eye off. The woman is naturally a smooth surface and the ship is naturally a rough surface... Both of them rendered at the same level of "focus" and colour makes the woman look like she isnt finished maybe? If you differentiate more between the background and your subject, add depth to the image, it may "pop" better. I also think the hair is rendered too flat. Perhaps add some depth to that as well? When I say depth I mean near and far from the "camera" .

Other than that I cant see anything wrong with it. Keep up the good work!

[Elwell]

When you put a 21st century porn star on a 17th century pirate ship, you really have to work hard to blend the two together. Otherwise it looks like "hey, he painted a porn star on a pirate ship." which ruins the reality of the moment.

Google "Gil Elvgren"

^this

[newman]

her hair and nipples in particular look very "fuzzy", try using a harder edged brush. also the thin bright highlight on the right side of her face (our left) looks weird.

[Kaffinated]

i would definitely put some more work in the hair. it kind gives the suggestion to me that she has dreds. also i agree with above mentioned crits. keep up the great work!

[Stoat]

You've done an absolutely beautiful job on the ship's wheel. Pity there's a naked woman in front of it.

Not being a smartass: the way you've got the light hitting the flat of the wood on the left (at 9 o'clock) but hitting the edge of the wood on the right (at 3 o'clock) is perfect. Can I have mine with more pirate?

[shiNIN]

I agree with the others about the hair (it needs some more work) and the wheel as well. the wheel really not some object in the background, it's a frame behind the girl, too close and damn well rendered... I am the typ who can enjoy the beauty of a female body (though I don't like those too-round silicon boobs too much, but it's not important ), but the wheel is fighting with the naked babe for my attention, it's too nice and detailed.
the gal's right little finger seems to be awkward to me.
some hairlocks have too sharp angles and the wrinkles at the nose are too simple and hard, I think... bit I don't want to be too nitpicking and I may be wrong.

so this picture isn't perfect, but I would be really glad if I could produce such rendering quality in the not too far future

[Theking78]

Thank you to everybody who's criticized this one.
Here are some updates I did:
I blurred the bg, redo the hairs, diminished the dimension of the eye patch and worked on the left boob.

Please let me know if it's better now.
Thank you

[KingCobra00]

Her left nipple seems kind of indistinct and unformed, especially as compared to her other nipple. I think her hair on her left side needs maybe a little more highlights. Other than that, I really like this piece, and I'd love to see more.

[Blue]

This image would do a lot more if she were clothed. Put her in some 14th century Victorian dress and lose the eye patch and you'll have an image that screams story.... right now it's just the first photo of a porn shoot.

Nudity has it's place and it's context, this is not it.

[Stoat]

My wheel! My beautiful, beautiful wheel! <sniff>

[Blue]

My wheel! My beautiful, beautiful wheel! <sniff>

Yea, that wheel was beautiful, blurring it ruined it.


Just to reiterate how good it can look with clothing...

[kev ferrara]

sigh.

Blurring something is not the way to go. There is no "easy way out" of a design/composition problem, nor out of a conception problem. Nor out of drawing problems.

Have you seen the way Gil Elvgren does hair, btw? Really really look at how he does it and analyze what he's doing. Its about structure and form. Not about individual strands of hair. You have to design the hair sculpturally, then think about where the light is coming from and treat the hair like it is made of something solid, which it is. (Of course, Elvgren used models, which I would also highly recommend. But it is the combination of understanding how to make form work, plus having the reference to look at, that makes it all come together. Unless you learn to draw really good hair out of your imagination, which very few people learn how to do.) An Elvgren piece is attached.

(You might also benefit from Bridgman's anatomy books, which you might want to copy into your notebooks (like many artist have done before, like Frazetta, for instance) Bridgman's ideas of form will help you think of everything as being solid, even hair.)

Best
kev

[Runya Jade]

I'm only going to give a small squeak of a suggestion, if you do decided to put clothes on her i wouldn't go Victorian but rather the 17th century pirate style clothing which you can cut and tatter up a bit. *end of squeak*

[VulgarDragon]

Well, it looks pretty good to me, but the eyepatch's glare is really distracting me. I think you need to soften up or break up the reflection some, so it doesn't look like a big white wedge on her eye. Also, work on her hair some more...the color and shading need more refining. Her hair looks like it's made of red tentacles, so need to make some thinner strands here and there.

[walnut]

It's pretty well done, which is a shame since it looks like the cover from "Poontang Pirates III". Then then again, maybe it is?

[Theking78]

Wow, what a great response with this one! Thank you very much to evereybody for your help.
Now I would like to reply to some of you who had given me some advices:

kev ferrara: thank you very much for sharing your opinion about my paintings, I read carefully what you suggest and try to figure out how can I follow your suggestion but sometimes I'm not able to do that. For example I have problem in detaching the wheel from the girl without blurring it... I can have turned down the saturation of the bg a bit but I like it so saturated and I decided to blur it a little (following the advices from Marta Dahlig on her tutorials). If you have a technical suggestion on how to achive this result without blurring it please let me know.
About the hair you'r right, they need more work... it's the more difficult part of the image..
I really like Gil Elvgren and I know well his pinup but what I wanted to achive with this piece it's definitely not this kind of style (i would like to mix Simon Bisley style with Greg Horn style) so I can use his images to understand perspective and composition rules but not to understand how to paint hairs or skin.
Again the mood on this one shouldn't be innocent or humourous... this should be the moment before the beginning of a battle and the girl is going to extract her sword to kill people.
Despite the fact that the model (Bianca Beauchamp) isn't a pornstar I understand what you said and I agree with you.

Blue: she's naked because I did this painting for the Bianca Beauchamp website and since she has a beautiful body I wanted to show it... but I agree that with a dress it would be better so I'll paint a dress on her.

JamesOmori: do you know a way to do what you suggest without blurring the bg?

newman: i reworked the thin bright highlight on the right side of her face and the boob.

Stoat: thank you and sorry for the pirate in front of the wheel!!! So you preferred the wheel unblurred?

Runya Jade: I agree with you, the dress would absolutely be a 17th century pirate clothing

MCross: I'll look at the eyepatch's glare and at the hair again.

walnut: thank you but what's "Poontang Pirates III"? I searche on goole but I found only the Johnny Deep movie...

shiNIN, Kaffinated, elwell, omarx646, Madfishmonger: Thank you!

[Molly]

The face, hair and hands are fantastic, lovely rendering....
....but those breasts??? C'mon man, why paint a fake pair?!? It puts me right off the whole painting. Everything else, the wheel, the background- is great and works well. But it looks like you've lacked in concentration and attention, when it came to the breasts. I know its a 'pin-up' painting but IMO it would have been better if she had some kind of attire on her bosom.

Honetly, I have nothing against fantasy women, hell I draw them too; but fake breasts in an erotic painting, is not pretty...

Soz to be harsh...

Mx

[Brashen]

Unblurr the whell matey!!

[Theking78]

Molly: thank you for sharing your opinion about this one. I painted those kind of boobs because I did this painting for the Bianca Beauchamp website so I had to depict her and she has this kind of boobs (which I understand someone may not like). Anyway I think I'll paint a dress on her soon so I'll cover them

[Stoat]

Okay, that makes more sense. If this was a painting of a specific person for a specific purpose, it's more understandable.

[J Wilson]

The bare breasts are very distracting- and not in a pleasant way. Even thorwing a tattered bikini like top would help, although a partial "pirate" type shirt would be better. It can be off the shoulder, it can still show her stomach and torso, and it will have 90$ of whatever appeal you are going for, but without taking the viewer so forcefully out of the painting.

this should be the moment before the beginning of a battle and the girl is going to extract her sword to kill people.

Yeeeaaaah... that's not what I get when I see this image. I get "I love cock" when I see this. You say she isn't a porn star, but she's definitely got a porn star look and expression. Partially covering her may help, but it won't fix that. You'd have better luck shooting for cheesecake/pinup. but even then it seems over sexualized to get that either.

[kev ferrara]

Here's a little demo overtop your picture on which lines are bad flattening tangents and which are good depth-producing perpindicular lines.

Also, when creating artwork proceed from your imagination first, then find reference to fit your idea. When you are a slave to your reference, all heart goes out of the work. Your imagination is the key. Pre-visualize your pictures in your mind's eye and try to really hold onto that image as you set about bringing it into reality.

kev

[Arshes Nei]

I don't mind a pirate about the "Treasure and the booty" I just wish the breasts looked a bit more natural however, they look to be implants and that's what's bothering me a lot. For one, I think in that position her nipples would actually pushing more inward because the feel is that her arms and shoulders are pushing them that way. There would be a little more sag in them too.

[Molly]

Molly: thank you for sharing your opinion about this one. I painted those kind of boobs because I did this painting for the Bianca Beauchamp website so I had to depict her and she has this kind of boobs (which I understand someone may not like). Anyway I think I'll paint a dress on her soon so I'll cover them

Oh, I see Well that makes sense then
mmm, a dress would be cool, or a more 'pirate-y' ensamble of clothing? How about a nice, tiny leather skirt, with a split up one side and wide angled belt; a white, off-the-shoulder-see-through top, which barely covers her breasts, a frontal lace detail, sleeves pulled up to her elbows; add a li'l grub and some sweat - and maybe one fingerless, leather glove with trinket detail and a white lace underglove? Just a thought...

Mx

[QT Melon]

Hello.

Reading the replies you mentioned this is a Playboy Model Bianca Beauchamp. I decided to research the model a bit to see what could be improved besides what is already said. Bianca is known for her big fake breasts, large pouty lips and latex fetish. I don't see any of the three mentioned. Her breasts appear fake in your illustration, but I wouldn't call them big, and looking at photos of her, compared to your illustration. These are a bit average compared to photos I've seen. So against some CA forum goers for wishes for no breasts, I think they need to be a tad bigger. She also has rather large aerolas

http://www.albertastars.com/posts.ph...ic=1220&page=1

http://dablouseben.tripod.com/ladies...eauchamp01.jpg

Her lips don't look very pouty in your rendering of them. I think you should cut back on the volume of her hair a bit, and give her ears. She also has a latex fetish and I think if you put in some elements of latex on her body mixed with a pirate theme it would look a lot better. If she must remain topless try being a bit more creative with lace, latex and frills. She looks rather plain here.

The wheel is one of the best parts of this picture, The sunset is nice but I think a cooler red sunset would bring out Miss Bianca, the competing red is washing her out, especially with that firey red hair she has. Bring a bit more color to her red hair and outfit.

I like the eyepatch too, nice work!