[Torstein Nordstrand]

Finally took time off the speed painting, and sat down finishing this monster. Learned alot, and hopefully you harsh critics out there will open my eyes even further...



If you feel a strange need to see what I went through, here's the wip-thread.

[Steven Stahlberg]

This is an exciting image with good composition, vibrant colors that go well together, and the kind of story-telling I personally love...
(Also you've worked extremely hard on this and I really respect that.)

As for crits, it's hard - there are a few changes I'd like to make, but subtle, hard to describe. But I'll try. First, the skyline has a color that I associate to underwater images, I'd like to make it a cooler blue, maybe even some purple in there.
Are those heavy leather wrappings on his arms, kinda worn smooth by age? If so the highlight would be different, slightly cooler for one thing. But if they're a kind of dark copper-like metal it's ok. The baby's skin I'd reduce the saturation a tiny bit. The material around the warrior's head is wonderful, but the part that is flowing in the wind seems a bit off - check out flags for reference maybe.
His right leg is great, but the left knee is slightly wrong anatomically speaking, and maybe you should show a little bit of the foot, sometimes when a body part is completely hidden like that it looks funny, even in photographs.
And maybe the edge between the closer grass and the distant grass could be sharper and more detailed? But as I said, minor things, a great job overall. The head and especially the face is very well done.

[DeathJester]

Steven, I hope one day when I develope a peice you critique mine just like that.. That was the best feed back I ever saw written on a peice in this forum. And, Im not being sarcastic.. That was really well done.

And Torstein, keep up the great work.. Your stuff is very incouraging.. I love a compositions with a story..Nice Job man...keep it up.

[antx]

I have to say that I only noticed the baby at the second time I looked at the picture. What I really, really like are those sharp details here and there, especially at the head. For me this really makes the picture. How did you do that? Just with a very small brush or special brushes or how? I also like the sharp drawn blades and their color.
Considering the title(s) of the pic I think the baby could use some more sharpness as well since it is a major part of the pic. And if you are still wondering which title to choose, then I would go for the rescue since he looks concerned about the baby. ;-)
All in all, a really great picture.

[ken]

awesome work. i really love how you have areas of sharp detail amongst the softer edges.

...and what steven said

-Ken

[Tarandon]

*bump*

[napalm]

yeah I dig the colors detail areas, but building on what some people have said: the sharp areas of detail focus your attention on the top half of the picture, specifically the main characters eyes and his(her?) hand blade. Its almost as if the rest of the picture might as well not be there, the eye is not encouraged to move down below the waist because of the strong details in the top half, it even seems as if you didn't care about that area either with the strange cropping and pose below the waist.

You may want to just step back and think about your purpose here. The narrative, as far as I can tell from this particular incarnation of the painting, involves this child and this person who is focusing directly on the child. The fact that the person appears to be sprinting over very sharp pointy things is in direct contrast to whats going on in the top half of the painting and I'm not sure if it really works as a whole.

Your original paintings, of just the figher in some sort of stance, worked better for me in some sense. The addition of the baby, the awkward running pose, the background elements, etc take away from what was the original essense of the piece, in a sense I feel that you've over-developed it and lost the original feeling of movement and action that something like http://home.online.no/~tnordst/temp/fightercolor5b.jpg had.

Is it about the baby, is it about the fighter, is it about movement? Sure you can have more than one focus, but they should be complimentary and not compete visually or thematically... jeez sorry for blabbing, it sounds like i dont like it :P seriously though I love the brush work and colors (especially the bright red against that top half of the background). Cheers.

[edraket]

I love the colors and the detail in the headwrappythingy. It's all very brilliant.

The pose bothers me though. I mean..what is he doing? He's in some sort of mid jump/run? Then why is he looking at the baby instead of where he is jumping?
Maybe thats just me though.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Thanks everybody, I'm extremely pleased with the commentaries! Well analyzed, I was really stripped to my artistic bones here

There is a recurring theme in your posts here I think, and I might know the answer to: 'Why the pose? What's happening? Why is all the action in the top? What IS this?'

My number one lesson from this production is: 'Plan ahead, or at least try planning at all'. If you've seen my thread, it started with a doodle and evolved into a calm fighter in battle. Then I thought "Hey, I need to learn more about colour and composition and dare make something complicated", so I scrapped the calm and decided to go nuts with the saturation. Suddenly I had a picture on my hands that I didn't have an emotional connection to. Oops.

Like that foot looking out of whack - I saw it too. Whatever I tried it looked misplaced or broken, and I couldn't bring it through the right side either, because it stopped what little movement there was. All this would be solved and clear if I just sketched it out beforehand. Silly me, but now I hopefully know better.

Besides the technical exercise and experimentation, this has been more like a rescue operation to save the piece; to crystallize all my work into something complete. I think this explains why you the viewers don't receive a clear message from it. Shame on me, I promise to do it properly the next time.

And Stahlberg, about the bronze vs leather issue - they're supposed to be leather, and I've already applied your correction to another piece I'm working on. Again, thanks all for your insight. If anybody has a clue on how to make this composition / communication work better, feel free to elaborate!

[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: Torstein Nordstrand ]