All the King's Men

[irishbrush]

So, I'm working on this new project titled "All the King's Men". The sketch is an idea of what I'm gonna do. This is much updated since a few weeks ago. Almost there. Just need to do a color comp then go to paint. I did a maquette so I get accurate lighting when i go to paint. Any thoughts?

[ScottDotNet]

You made a maquette just to get correct lighting effects. You are obviosly extremely talented.

Well, It looks awesome to me.
Sorry I have nothing to add.

[Lhune]

That is really very clever. I can't really give much crits at this point either, I'm curious to see what you'll do with the sketch .

[N.W.S]

The light ref you are getting on the far side of the face is priceless, those subtle fades between his cheek and the edge of the armor. This can turn out very nicely, although I wonder; how long did you spend doing the model?

-NWS

[Giacomo]

The maquette looks awesome! Beautifully sculpted.

My initial thought looking at the drawing, however, is that everything that isn't in the maquette looks kind of sloppy and not well thought out. If it were me I'd take the time to model as many of the dead bodies as I had the patience for so they'd feel more resolved in the painting. Also, perspective-wise, the viewer is clearly looking down at Humpty Dumpty, but level at the horizon line. That feels a bit odd and if it were me I'd keep the perspective constant.

Just my two cents.

[Suira]

Hey there!First of all I gotta say i like a lot the sculpt and the idea of using it as a ref for values is cool.

For the drawing I agree with Giacomo about the perspective thing. For me the character is not enough a focal point. I mean it get's a bit lost in the mix of things. As it is a drawing and not a painting I would suggest to render out the character more than the rest of the stuff in the picture so the eye goes more to it .

I also think that if the character was truly sitting on the corpses he would be more unstable because corpses are not so much of a solid place to sit on. Your character seems like if he was sitting on some normal chair. Due to the fact that if the character looks unstable sitting on the corpses part of the personality you intend to transmit to the viewer gets lost so if you intend to make it look realistic change the pose or just sit him on the floor sorrounded of corpses.

Apart from that I don't like much the perspective you've picked, to me, it looks kinda static , and , having such an usefull reference you could just see a lot of different angles and pick one that suits best , but this is my opinion, like the rest of the crit. I would also suggest to use a ref for the horse's head cause it doesn't look too accurate.

On the other side I like a lot the character and the sculpt.

Hope to have helped, good luck mate

[irishbrush]

updated sketch above!!

[Truepinkas]

Kinda makes it less fun/more difficult to track your progress when you replace older versions with new ones. I remember that I saw the original, but I don't remember how it was different from this though, because all I really remembered was the general concept. Looks good overall though.

[Giacomo]

Wow. Quite an improvement! The sketch looks great, except that the perspective issues I mentioned last time are still a huge problem. The disparity between looking down on HD and out at the horizon is still, to me, incredibly jarring.

If showing the background is that important, you might want to shoot a new reference photo of the model from a lower angle and take it from there.

[irishbrush]

Thanks for the replys. I'm not sure what you mean Giacomo because you can still see down and out at something. Care to elaborate?