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War Paint
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This art has 8 comments.
Nice job with the eye's emotion! She truly looks like a warrior, and the eye just gives everything a fiery, yet cold feel!
First off, the composition is great! The hair frames the face and the blood nicely. The eye falls almost exactly on one of the intersections of the thirds, and is very detailed and well-done! The iris' orange color reminds me of a flame, which really enhances the emotion of this piece. Although the eye is beautifully painted, it makes the rest of the image look a little bland in contrast.
While the eye is highly detailed, the rest of the face seems a little two-dimensional. This might be due to a lack of cast shadows. The hair should cast a sharp shadow, which would help make the hair look like less of an afterthought and help it blend in more with the face. Plus, it makes everything a million times more dramatic, so it's two birds with one stone!
On the topic of shading and values, the brightness is a bit too much in some areas, such as in the brow and on the cheek. It gives way too much contrast from the light face to the black hair, and makes it seem like the hair is just pasted on. It’s generally not a good idea to use a bright, pure white. It just gives a feeling of an overexposed photograph. Instead, try darkening everything, then use white as an accent. Once again, it gives an awesome, dramatic feel to everything.
If you really want to focus on the eye, give it more contrast to anything else. The color in the eye already gives it some contrast, but tones and values are more effective than color, so play with lighting and contrast. Another way is to not make everything else as sharp. For example, the hair (and fur) shows separate strands very clearly, which draws too much attention to the hair.
As for the blood (I’m guessing it’s blood; if it’s actual war paint, correct me), it‘s like the hair – it looks pasted on. There’s an easy way to fix that, and it’s to paint the blood on a layer set to multiply. It’ll make the blood seem transparent and more realistic, especially in the areas where the blood is scattered and not as thick. If blood acts like water, I don’t think blood would actually scatter like that. I do, however, love the physics and nature of the thicker blood. I haven’t seen blood that’s shown as getting more opaque or more transparent. It really shows that the blood wasn’t a random splatter and adds so much more story to this piece! Great job!
Your greatest weakness here is the contrast and where the attention is drawn to. Remember that the eye is drawn to places that stick out (i.e. more detailed or more contrasting). Too much attention everywhere confuses the eye! Despite this, you pulled the piece off well. The anatomy, as far as I know, is spot-on, and there is a lovely use of a limited palette and repeated colors! The last thing I would recommend is to cycle throughout your image. Never put all of your focus on one area for a long period of time. Awesome painting and good luck in your future art!
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