[alustrial]

I have been lurking for quite a while and finally decided to post.

This is my first digital painting done in Painter 6 with the shading/highlighting finished off in Photoshop. Some of you might have seen her from another forum.

Whilst I am not completely happy with this, I spent much to long on it and felt that I had to finish her up and move on.

Please feel free to crit away - In fact - I want you to rip it apart. It is the only way I am going to learn



Close up of the textures



[ November 30, 2001: Message edited by: alustrial ]

[Jezebel]

NAOMI!

Umm.. hi

Glad to see you finally posted on Sijun. I just thought of a crit that I hadn't mentioned to you before. I don't think the comb looks like its actually in her hair, it appears more like it's sitting on top. Not sure if any reference was used, but generally when I see decorative combs in a woman's hair, it pushed almost all the way in so you wouldn't be able to see the teeth. Don't know if that makes sense.

Anywho. Welcome and stuff

[Tarandon]

I agree with Jezebel, for two reasons. one the comb is standing out of the hair, and two, there is a ribbon underneath the teeth of the comb, which is anomolous, I would change it's angle and push it in all the way. The face looks kind of flat to me as well.

Good work on the whole, keep it up!

[tdl]

Hello,

This is a very beautiful piece. I think the shallower modeling of the forms goes perfectly with the subject-matter; so I would not try to add depth to it.

The textures are wonderful, and again, goes well with the style. I agree with the comments about the comb though.

My one crit would be the hair. Make it darker. It seems like some of her face powder rubbed off on her hair I'm not sure If she's supposed to be an older woman and those are gray hairs, but if not, then there's too many highlights. Also, by making the hair darker, her face will pop up more.

If you want to take it further, I'd add a simple geometrical background, maybe some loose ink drawings to further remind us of the style. This would add to the feel of the overall piece.

Good work, glad to see you get out of lurk mode. I recently did the same

[Blitz]

HEHE
So strange to see your name here HAHA.
You already know what I think of this...=D

take care Naomi

[Gothic Gerbil]

I love all the detail work you did on the clothing here, it is very impressive. Now I will first off have to agree with everyone that the comb/barette thingy looks like it is just pasted on. It is a lot easier to get away with the bead flower piece, though with the way she has her head canted it makes it seem pretty heavy. I agree with tdl's comment on the lighting on the hair making it read more as grey, and I also think it is too uniform for the direction the light is coming from. Like, her roll of hair on her right would fall off faster I believe, but I may also be misreading the depth for the hair in this picture. I also think that you might get some shadows from the hanging beads on her face. Now as to her clothing, this is what flattens out the most. The cut of the lines going from her shoulders down across her chest look really severe and flat, more like she is in an inflexible suit of armour than cloth. The straps of cloth across her chest also have that same inflexible look like she is in a barrel. They don't look like they are flat up against her either, more like they are just hovering there. I really like your work with the background, it is simple yet subtly enhances the lighting without screaming, very cool I like a lot. Hmm, now that I look at the flowers in her hair, they look more like she ripped off a piece of wallpaper (pretty wallpaper at that!) and stuck it in her hair. There is no real seperation of the flowers from one to the other and they all seem like they are facing the same direction instead of tilting at different odd angles but I don't know maybe it is supposed to be that way. Anyhow, great work can't wait to see more!

[RiLe$]

heh way to start off.
Good detail in the clothers, lips, flower, the hair looks a little sketch but over all i really like it.

[Duncan]

thats not a comb. its like a chopstick with dangly things stuck in the hair. i think. but you can still see the ribbon through it.
the kimono and hair look good, but the face seams to be a different picture or something. maybe if there was more contrast in the face. I like it though.

[Radiater]

Yes, very nice indeed to see you here Alustrial. All I have to offer on this piece is compliments on your textures. They're fantastic!