Nuke (100k) WIP

[panzermensch]

"Hail the Mini-Nuke"

ABC:
"A new generation of nuclear weapons – mini nukes is being planned by America. According to the US military, they need miniature nukes in the war against terrorism So they’re designing bunker busting weapons that can burrow down into the earth carrying a mini- nuke which would wipe out some rogue dictator’s control centre or destroy stores of chemical and biological weapons. And the military says, because these mini-nuke bunker busters will go off underground, the nuclear fall out from them will never escape. But the mini nukes have a lot of critics amongst them physicist Richard Slakey who says they won’t be able to burrow deep enough and more worryingly that the radiation fallout cannot be contained."

I read a bit about this subject and found out that a 1kT Nuke needs to penetrate 300m of hard rock to produce no fallout, an Nuke that is detonatet at less depth will blow the nuclear polluted dirt into the air and produces a much heaviere fallout than any in the air detonatet nuke...
todays "bunkerbusters" are able to penetrate max. 15m of rock
the depth of 300m can physikaly not be reached with any balistic system...

I think US Gov. is playing with the Devil again... hope they wont ever use one of them

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now I dont whant to start an thread full of flaming and political discussions, this is the wrong forum for that kind of conversation, I let everyone have his own opinion on this subject but also want my opinion be acceptet.

But i would really enjoy some technical C&C on this Pic

[looky]

why is his arm stretch like a nazi? some deep hiden meaning

[panzermensch]

Well the main reason for this Nazi salute was to create a scary atmosphere, then you can argue about if two different but agressive regimes can be compared at all.

Besides this "Nazi salute" or "Hitlergruß" was copyed from Mussolini.
Mussolini used this salute to crate an conection to the Roman Empire. In the time of the Roman Empire this salute was wide spread and known as "saluto romano"
Not only the fascists used this salute It was also the historical civilian salute of the United States, from 1787-1934, known since 1892 as the Bellamy salute. It was also the historical salute among armies of the Middle East and South America.
The association with the Nazis has been so strong that it is rarely used by non-Nazi organizations since the end of World War II. One exception to this is the Republic of China (on Taiwan), where the salute is still used when an office holder is swearing an oath.

[looky]

your not an artist your a history book

[marilyn]

I hope I can help you a little with my crits... I don't like the distinction between back and foreground. I don't know why the back should be blurred so much. It looks kind of wrong to me.

Then something regarding the brush strokes. if you want them to be visible in the picture later on, use them to create a 3d effect. All your brushstrokes are going in one direction. Brush the way the surface of the object is going.

About the light. Remember where you want the light to be in the scene and then draw shadows and highlights. The explosion itself is lit strangely. At the bottom from the right, at the middle from the left, and the top is lit from the front. And the soldier should be lit by the explosion. So he would probably have a strong rim light. You hinted that with his shadow but nowhere on his clothes.
You can add more shadow to the flag as well.

The composition itself could work...

ok, I hope you see where I am going...

Greetz, marilyn

[cucaracha]

and do you want to put that explanation under the image so no one would get it wrong?

hm, the reason I don't like the message -
You are trying "to create a scary atmosphere" by using the hitlergruß, which is a bit plain or trivial. I'm not touching this with a ninety feet pole, but using images from WW2 to emphasize the bad and evil is a bit rubbed off and undervalues WW2's perversion (if used over and over on plain illus)

[scarletnocturne]

Subtlety and metaphor are key with Illustration. You should try to give your audience more to look at than just the literal message behind an American saluting a nuke. You might be surprised to know how well your audience can put the smallest 'two and two' together, so to speak. If i want to illustrate death and i paint a graveyard, my audience will give me the "yea we get it" effect. think about how you can get your audience to dig deaper into connections and medaphor's, in ways they and your peers had not thought of before; where someone can look at your painting for 10 min., searching for the meaning and then suddenly it pops out at them like a jack in the box.

[klinesmoker]

Let's hit the first little problem the picture has. The brush strokes on the arm are the same throughout, making it seems that he has a tiny arm, NOT that it is stretched in front of him. Work on the perspective of the arm. Also, creating the feel of realistic clothing requires more than just some simple light and dark area. WHY is an area going to create a fold? HOW will that fold look? These are questions that add credibility to the piece. Finally, there is an extreme light source in front of the soldier, so make it appear that way on his body.
Who cares about how his arm is stretched? This is concept art, after all.

[panzermensch]

first, thanks for all replys

@scarletnocturne:
well, you´r completely right, but exactly this image came to my mind´s eye and i wanted to draw it in the same way... its right that an subtle image could carry the message much better, and i hope i´ll keep that im mind for my next projects...

@cucaracha:
if this image will ever be finished as a poster, which was my first intend, i´ll put the explanation on it.

@klinesmoker:
yeah the right arm looks to me strange too, i think its not only the brush strokes but the size of the hand as well... maybe too large ?!
i hope i will find the time to redo the clothes since they bug be too.

@marilyn:
yes i had my problems with the light, even though im quiet happy with the light on the explosion because when looking at some nuke-explosion images you´ll find there no definite lightsource too, instead the whole scene seems to glow itselve somehow. But it was really hard to render the shadows on the soldier in the right way... because such an immense light should render the soldier competely black but i didn´t whant to draw just the outlines ... so i had to decrease the realism and somehow light the soldier too...

then i had the idea to put some kind of x-ray effect into the image so the soldiers bones could be seen through the clothes on his right side...
what do you think about ??
... ehh like this