CHOW 121 Process and final

[Thujon]

Hey there

I participated in this weeks CHOW. The subject was "Icarus".

Unfortunately due to travel and lacking time I had to finish it today..so its already in the final burning...

I thought that it might be valueble to get some opinions in this section of CA.
So please rock on and tell me what you think...

[Jasonwclark]

Release you from hell eh? Ok I'll see what I can do.

In the myth, when Icarus falls from heaven, he lands in the sea. Traditionally the waters between the island of Samos and Crete, called the Icarian. You have him landing on the earth though. It would make more sense with water. I understand that the assignment is to do any Icarus, except the guy from the myth, but if you don't touch on the core elements of the myth, then its really just a name without any clear associations.

Frazer and Robert Graves make the case that Icarus represents the mythical Inter-Rex, or sacrificial priest king who is ritually slain each year, or great cycle of years, in the ruling king's stead. The most famous interex is probably Remus (of Romulus and Remus) or Castor (of Castor and Pollux). Evenutally the role is taken over by an animal, or so the story goes. The view is no longer supported by most classicists, but the idea had a profound influence on subsequent treatments in literature and art.

When Daedalus warns him not to fly too low or too high, its a moral lesson about hubris and human frailty. You get the same thing in the Myth of Phaethon, if searching for parallels elsewhere. I'm not sure how you could play this up exactly, but probably you could go a little tighter on his face, so we can get a better sense of his expression.

Also, I dislike the action lines. I get the sense of the explosion, but I don't think you need to take it so far with the horizontal trajectory. Right now, the direction of his motion doesn't sync up with the direction of the blast. Either the explosion would need to be much closer and to the left of its current position, or else he should be flying towards us rather than sidewise and away like he his right now.

[Lotet]

i dont the "icarus" part of it, what makes this icaurus-ish to you? cause I cant see it.
I see a chineese guy trown away by the shockwave of an exploding building.

[Thujon]

I absolutely see both your points!
I know the Icarus storyline as well, but I obviously wanted to do something modern...you hint with the wather is good...

About the question, what makes him icarus...mm well I didnt focus on that one... hehe... my lessen that I learned from this exercise..that one should never forget what one wants to show.... ( bad english? ) ;-)
I was probably too absorbed by the explision....

Thank you both....

[Thujon]

Release you from hell eh? Ok I'll see what I can do.

Hehe its a line from the movie: "Event Horizon", which is quiet disturbing, but I actually liked it..even when its pretty dumb.. ;-)

Sounds scary eh??

[daveneale]

from a purely artistic standpoint I think there are some compositional things you could look at.....cropping the right hand side building so close to the edge of the canvas is quite distracting, the linear explosion heading out of the top right hand side of the canvas is also dragging the eye out of the image. I also think that the explosion in the final looses a lot of it's intensity that you had in the 1st few steps of the process....at the start you had a really nice intensity to the fire, and by the end you've muddied it and darkened it quite a lot so that it looks more like a solid object rather than a super hot ball of flame/explosion, hope that helps

[Thujon]

at the start you had a really nice intensity to the fire, and by the end you've muddied it and darkened it quite a lot so that it looks more like a solid object rather than a super hot ball of flame/explosion, hope that helps

Which one of the process pics do you think is the best? thx