[Malachi Maloney]

"ASIAN ELEGANCE"


Ok, I've been working on this piece for the past two weeks to the tune of about 5-9 hours a day. (You do the math.)
This is the first painting I've done of my new model Nandi. Later in this post you'll see the reference photo I took of Nandi. While I know nothing of photography, she is an experienced model and helped me out along the way with suggestions on posing and such. As a result I think I got some descent photos in spite of my non existent photography skills.
The photo looks like crap because I don't have a flat bed scanner. All I have is a crappy roll-through scanner, so you'll have to trust me that they look better in person. :/
Anyway, on to the painting..........
I really tried to use my imagination as much as possible in this piece. The only thing directly referenced was the photo. The back wall, the vase, the calla lily, tiles, etc., were all mostly strait from my mind. I say mostly because I "eyeballed" things like this t-shirt I have with all these Japanese water color paintings on it as inspiration for the painting on the back wall and I used a real flower as visual reference for the lily. Things like that. Everything was done 100% free hand in PhotoShop 6. Even those dragons on the fan were painted by hand. No patterns were used, or anything directly referenced besides the photo of Nandi. (Which I took myself. )
Well, I'm very happy with the way this piece turned out. I think it just might be the best thing I've ever painted.

So, take a look and let me know what you think.

On with the show...............
"Asian Elegance"


Reference Photo

Detail 1

Detail 2

Detail 3

Detail 4

Detail 5

Take it easy,
MDM

[jcFIG]

Very nice loco. I now see your using your own models, great work. Later.

[zeno80]

Nice work! The fan and the background painting are great. Did you do the chinese characters yourself too? do you know what they mean?

[DiXter]

wow!! absolutley gorgeous...
The best I've seen from you so far.
Nothing to crit..

The details.. wow
I love the wall behind her.
And the fan looks really photorealistic.

[Ulic Qel-Droma]

its really good
but she doesnt look very asian heh

[Fallen]

Nice work man, I dig the fan and the wall painting. Nice touches. The only I'm not crazy about is the tile floor. I think it would be better with a traditional asian mat floor IMHO.

[roundeye]

yeah, great job man! i LOVE the gold print on the fan. something looks odd about the reflection in some places though, but im not sure what.

[Son of Cos]

Looks good!!

[FluffydUCK]

like everyone said, its awesome.
i love the detail especially on the fan.
to me it looks like your looking at her from almost above (as the perspective of the tiles sugest) but the wall and the flower pot dont fit with that..

[Malachi Maloney]

Thanks for all the replies people.

Fig~ Thanks dog.

zeno80~ Thanks man. Actually those characters are Vietnamese. It's a modified font called "Vietnamese Ornaments".

Dixter~ Thank you bro.

Ulic Qel-Droma. (Say that name ten times fast. ) No she's not asian at all. I meant the style and surroundings were asian. Sorry for any confusion.

Fallen~ Hey thanks man. Good idea for the mat floor, would have probably been easier to render too. =/

roundeye~ Thanks man. Yea I had a hard time with the whole floor issue. (Reflections, shadows and such.) Well, I'm still learning. Thanks again.

Son of Cos~ Thanks.!

SeanW~ Thanks. I'm glad you like the fan. It's one of my favorite parts of this piece too.

Beth~ Thanks. I'll tell you what I said in my reply in the other forum......I respect your opinion as an artist. But, I think the only similarities between this piece and one of Fallen's is the fact that it's a photo-realistic painting of a nude woman. As far as I see it the similarities end there. I think this piece totally reflects my own individual style. Anyway....Thanks again for the comments. [EDIT: Although I would have to say that some of Fallen's work is very inspirational.]

Corn Pops~ Thanks man. I think I see what you mean.

Take it easy all,
Malachi

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Malachi Maloney ]

[Highfive]

This post has finished already? It wasn't up yesterday.
Very cool and very elegant, Malachi. Her skin and the background is painted so well.
I'd really hate to pick a flaw in this image, but judging from the stereo in the reference picture, I think the pot and the wall needs to be tilted forwards more in perspective.
But I haven't seen any of your previous works, so painting in that type of projection might be part of your style.

[Malachi Maloney]

Thanks Highfive. Yea, there are a couple slight perspective problems in this image. But as I said, I'm still learning and I think it turned out well on the whole.

Take it easy,
Malachi

[ChanXiaoHing]

Very nicely done. I especially like the fan; the detailwork there is awesome. Honestly, though, the first thing I noticed was that the floor is drastically out of perspective in comparison to the figure. Her body gets a lot smaller as you follow it from head to toe(compare the feet and the hands), but the tiles on the floor only get slightly smaller as you follow them back.

[SeanW]

I think I'm going to have to agree with everyone, you did a great job. That fan just rulez. I also agree with roundeye on the reflection, maybe its too blury or too reflective. It seems very hazy on her hip area. I dont know its been awhile since ive seen nice clean reflective tiles.

[Jezebel]

[removed so you don't feel insulted again... lol :P]

[ November 11, 2001: Message edited by: Jezebel ]

[Gandalf-]

Incredibly skilful, man.

At first though, it didn't read properly to me. I thought that the model was lying on the floor, but just past the red baseboard I thought that the floor ended, and that she was kinda lying near the edge. And underneath her was some landscape..

I think maybe a bit more of a pronounced shadow on the top of that red baseboard might fix that up. Or, I might just be on crack. :P

[Malachi Maloney]

I'm thinking I might turn the floor into a mat floor like Fallen suggested, or perhaps a wood floor. I think that would probably help the perspective issue a lot.

Fallen~ Do you have a photo or could you find one to show me an example of what you mean? I'm not exactly sure I know what a "mat floor" looks like.

Take it easy,
Malachi

[worthless_meat_sack]

Hi M,

You are really improving by the hour!

One point, though. The color of her skin as it goes back is out of key with the background. Skin is really influenced by the surrounding color, and is only warm in a pretty neutral environment. In a very cool environment, the skin is pulled in that color direction. It is still relatively warm, but in an absolute sense, the skin should be really green.

Don't know if I explained myself, I will try again if not.

[Malachi Maloney]

Thanks for the critique W.M.S. Should I make her entirely green or should I just make her have a greenish hue on the edges of her skin?
Any other advice or suggestions?

Thanks in advance,
Malachi

[Malachi Maloney]

Thanks again for the replies everyone.

I received an e-mail from Craig with a paint-over of the my painting and some text explaining what he meant to get across in the paint-over.
First off, just let me say thanks again to Craig for taking the time out of his busy schedule to help me out with this painting.

Here's the paint-over~


And here is the e-mail from Craig.~
(Hope you don't mind me posting this e-mail Craig. I just thought it would be helpful for people to read what you meant to get across in the paint over. If you want me to take it down, just say the word and I'll remove it immediately.)

"Hi Malachi,

I attached a jpeg of what I meant. The colors bleed into one another
because they reflect light into one another. So her warm skin would
influence the tile, both in reflection and diffuse as well as the other way
around.

I pushed this idea in this comp to be clear.


Also look in her hair. Do you see areas where the edges are little harder
and a little softer? Play those up. And the form of the breast, if you
look really, really hard, you can see that the form of her left breast is
not a constant radius as you have painted it. The bottom (top in picture) is
are harder radius, then it softens as it goes toward the arm, and then
hardens up again. Stuff like that can make all the difference in tight
rendering. It would be so much easier to see in real life.


I am not saying paint this way, (please don't!) but being aware of these
things helps in whatever direction you go. Also I painted this at the rez
of your jpg. Not a good idea

I did not post it out of respect for your thread, some people don't like
their work being messed up, and that's understandable. But if you want to
post it, feel free.

C

PS I wrote you in your thread about your frustrations in marketing your
work. I had several paragraphs when my crappy mac froze. I see you are
really serious about doing this art stuff, I respect that. I can't remember
what I wrote, probably some stuff about life drawing."- Craig Mullins

What immediately struck me about Craig's paint-over was the vase. His quick rendering of the vase is so beautiful and quite frankly makes my vase that I spent hours on look flat and totally out of perspective.
I'm going to work on Craig's suggestions as soon as I get a chance.

Thanks again Craig.

Take it easy all,
Malachi

[ November 12, 2001: Message edited by: Malachi Maloney ]

[FireFry]

Very beautiful. Love the fan, I'm unworthy to give crits after seeing this.

I also think that this is your best yet

[Malachi Maloney]

Thank you very much FireFry.

MDM

[Fallen]

Ya, lemme look....brb

Hmmm...this was the best I could find. Not really surprising, I mean I don't even think Ive ever looked at my floor let alone taken a picture of it.



Anyways, its basically slats of flattened bamboo. The dark lines are the frame, and the lighter ones are the sections. They usually go in twos, meaning that 2 sections would be horizontal and the next 2 would be vertical. know what I mean?

[ November 13, 2001: Message edited by: Fallen ]

[Son of Cos]

Hey malachi if craig wanted his e-mail posted he probebly would have just posted in the forum dont ya think...use your head

Never stopped craig vefore high five.. the guy knows it's an honor for him to do a repaint ..lol

[ November 13, 2001: Message edited by: Son of Cos ]

[Highfive]

Good point, Son of Cos, but it also could have been because Craig didn't want to, for lack of a better term, steal Malachi's thunder. This is Malachi's post so I suppose it's polite to get his permission before posting modifications to his work.

It's not always necessary to do this since these works are usually up to be criticised anyway, but it's a good habit to get into.

[Malachi Maloney]

Fallen~ Thanks man. I'll see what I can come up with.

Son of Cos~ As HighFive said, I think he was trying to be polite. And as I wrote in the post, I'll take it down if he wants.

HighFive~ That's pretty much the way I saw it. It's quite an honor to get advice and critiques from someone of Craig's stature in the first place. But that he was so polite about it makes him even cooler.


Malachi

[[666]Flat]

I like the reference photo.