[Lunatique]

Finished entry for cgtalk's CG Challenge entry.



Closeups:

[ChiaNi]

lovely woman. good expression. Is the guy died for love?

Zoology reserch that mantis praying mantis courtiship. After they have maid. Female eat the male.
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Holly sprite

[Lunatique]

Here's the story for the Blood Siren:

Race: Blood Sirens. They are beautiful, alluring, deadly, and tragic changling creatures that roam the Middle Earth. They fall deeply and madly in love with every man they see, yet to consummate their love is to lead to tragedy.

Origin: According to ancient legend, a powerful witch who was in love with a man, tried everything to bewitch him and have him. She used all the spells she knew, and tried every trick in the book, but could not get him to love her back. Eventually she found out the reason he paid no attention to her was because he was already in love with another girl.

The girl he loved was heart-achingly beautiful, kind, gentle, and had a singing voice that can move grown men to tears.

The witch was driven to insanity by jealousy, as her own beauty paled next to the girl the man loved. Her rage, bitterness, and jealousy twisted her into a disfigured monster. The witch blamed the girl for her misfortunes, and exacted revenge.

A curse was put on the girl, and every beautiful girl with a lovely singing voice that crossed the path of the witch. As the result of the curse, the race of Blood Sirens was born.

The Curse: Blood Sirens are cursed to be forever falling in love with and longing for men they can't have and can't get close to. During the day, the Blood Sirens takes on the form of wolves, making them seemingly dangerous creatures to be around--despite the fact they do not have the mind and heart of a real wolf. This torturous form makes it impossible for the Blood Sirens to be near the men they love, as humans generally run away at the first sight of wolves. The Blood Sirens can only secretly watch the men they love from afar, while trying to survive against hunters. After sunset, they return to human form, but the curse doesn't end there. The cursed girls cannot speak, but can only express their emotions by singing. Men are drawn to these soulful, sad, and beautiful singing voices at night. If the Blood Sirens allowed themselves to consummate their love for a man during the night, their deadly instinct will take over, causing them to slaughter and feed on the one they love. Afterwards, their consciousness will return, and they will be horrified and tortured by the memory of what they had done to the man they love.

As if that wasn't enough of a revenge, the witch made sure that the horrible memory of the slaughter and feeding will fade soon, only to come back full force when the same tragedy happens. Each time, the forgotten memory will come back, one stacked on top of another, making the torture of guilt unbearable.

The worst part of this curse is, the Blood Sirens are immortal. They cannot commit suicide, so they are doomed to live an eternity in tragedy and pain--killing the ones they love over and over and over. The witch that cursed these beautiful girls had long been dead, and no one knows how many of these creatures she had created, or how to break the curse. All they know is that when you hear the beautifully haunting singing of one of them at night, you better run the other way. No matter how heartbreaking, lonely, and lovely the singing is, just run.

And what happened to the man that the witch loved? Why, he became the first victim of the woman he loved, of course.

How I came up with the idea: Tolkien's world is sorely short on female characters. It was the logical choice for me.

[Matthew]

Hey

This one is excellent, it looks like she regret what she did. Just super.

Have a nice weekend
Matthew

[Mb]

Great work!

The woman's pose bothers me a little, though. The upper half of her body makes it seem as if she is turned away from the viewer (toward the tree), but the lower section, the pelvis and legs, seem more to point right at us. I'm fully aware that the human body is capable of this position, but there is nothing to suggest she is twisting her body. Looking at the image in the "Topic review" field is actually helpful; starting at the top, as I scroll down, it seems obvious that we are seeing her back in profile. Then I hit the legs and I find myself saying: "--oh--front view.....?"

Just my two cents.....does anyone else notice this?

[shawnhud]

Really good. The only thing that jumps out at me is the legs of the dead guy. They look a little flat with the tree's surface. Maybe a little shadow to give them some depth? Just my observation, but this really is a great piece. Job well done, chief.
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Put a muzzle on her Turkish, before she gets bit. You don't wanna get bit, do you boy?

[Simoom]

Why do I read this forum while eatting? Great picture, even if the intestines aren't ideal for whetting my appetite my only complaint is that the blood on her lips looks a bit too thick.

[Andromeda]

Luna : the picture is great ... but after reading the story ........... omg ..... did you make that up ? or are blood sirens really a part of middle earth ..
*goes speechless*
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�This be my website�

[Lunatique]

Thanks for the crits. I'll fix some stuff when I have energy again...

Andromeda- I wrote the story. The CG challenge was to create a new race for LOTR's universe. I like tragedies....

[Andromeda]

your wrote that ?? ... My god man ! youre twisted !! . I LOVE IT !

Yups .. blood sirens are definitely going into my NWN modules and ad&d games soon ... credits to you of course =]
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�This be my website�

[paranoid?]

I'm speechless....this is simply beautiful, and the fact you created that story around it makes it even greater.

Simoon is right about the blood on the lips its looks a bit thick because of the big highlight.
And just a personal opinion, the fog bothers me...it fades the colors away...it messes the mood...lol I know thats the purpose of a fog, to fade, ...but it takes away a bit of the quality in this case.
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I touch myself only where it counts

[bM]

Exellent painting.
But i LOVE THE story.. Damn, i thought it was some kind of urband, historic legend.. mythical, ancient thingie.. excellent.
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Sincerely
- Nicklas Forsberg a.k.a bM
- http://www.nalf.se

[Bg]

Hey Rob, it's been a while!

I really like the story and idea behind this pic and there's only few minor things I would change in the concept. Ok, let's start.. What if she went to the forest with her loved one, even though she cannot speak they had fallen in love in past.. as many times before they're enjoying each other's company, but they're having so great fun that they forget the time is passing.. then slowly day starts turning into a night.. finally the couple realizes it and the siren tells the man to escape, but too late, the darkness has almost laid itself upon the lands.. she tries to buy time by running on the opposite direction, but manages to take only few steps until the beast inside her takes over and two legs are won by four.. at the darkest moment of the night the wolf reaches it's victim (and what you see in the pic is the next morning).
She turns back to human form when the first rays of the rising sun touch her skin, morning mist of the sea is still in the air and the weather is cool. She turns around and sees the clothes, then the sword and the blood on it, she already knows what has happened. Tears are rolling down her cheeks as she leans over to the tree.

I thought the dead body wasn't needed because there's already the bloody clothes, sword and shield.. and I lessened the amount of blood on her so the viewer can spend more time looking at the image and figuring out the situation, also I think the long highlight on the lip was too strong.. the longer you can keep the audience intrested longer your image will be remembered. Of course there's no need to go overboard and add tons of details and clues because that's the other way to get the viewer bored. Also I made the sky element bigger (Ron Lemen's amazing new tutorial has great deal of good info about composition) so there's no big blocks that are even sized. The heavily rotated fallen tree broke the calmness and tragedy a little so I straightened it. The shield is the next brightest part (the woman's back is the brightest) in the whole painting so it gets the attention quite early on and you notice there's blood and you begin to follow the trail and it leads you to the woman's face and in this phase you realise what's happened.

I changed the curse time from day to night because imo disappearing in darkness/coming back from darkness works better visually.. when she comes back to human form the sunlight reveals the horrors of the night. And the trick is they fall in love so deeply that in the end only death can separate them.. and the curse causes the death. Anyway, really good work, very inspiring and original!




You never guess how long writing this took... ...2xlongerthantheoverpaintwouldbequiteclose... but on the other hand overpaints aren't too helpful if you don't explain in detail why you did the specific changes.

btw. how's the short film advancing?
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www.TimoVihola.com
www.MountainSheep.net

[Lunatique]

Timo! I love what you did with the overpaint! Very nice! It almost looks like she's a lonely survivor in a wasteland.

I had the vibrant colors because I wanted that kind of a surreal mood. I know those colors aren't realistic according to night light situations(blood wouldn't be that red..etc), but that's the striking effect I wanted.

I see what you're saying, but I think unless someone cared to read the background story, he/she might have a hard time getting the entire story visually if I took out the guy. The kids at eatpoo immediately got the story even before reading the text, so I think having the guy in there really helped. Besides, I wanted to do something not just tragic and melancholic, but also morbid and macabre as well. I will make some fixes to the piece sometime in the near future, so expect a new version.

The short film is coming along. I haven't seen you online, and I'd like to run what I've done by you and get some feedback. So get online you foo!

[silber]

you know what, I like the closeups more than the painting,
cause when you are looking at them as a sequel, the story is told a bit more subtile....but than again, maybe its just me.
Nice pic:)
Edit: oh and sorry I'm in hurry so I didn't read the story you wrote
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marek

[Lunatique]

Updated the piece. Saved over the old files.