[ceruleanvii]

Hi all, posting my first WIP here

I originally planned to have this one take place in a more elaborate environment. But the more I worked on the character, the more he developed a kind of... quiet malevolence, which kept getting lost when he was a small part of a bigger picture. I'm getting annoyed with myself, I want to be able to combine an epic environment with a beautiful expressive character and have them both look great, but I haven't figured out how to do it yet.

So - I've ended up keeping him the focus, with a simple background, but hopefully with enough details to make it interesting and tell a bit of a story... we study the demon and feel safe because he is imprisoned within his circle. But the demon is also studying us, and upon closer observation we see there are breaks in the circle, little bits of the demon are escaping...

Looking for critique both in general and specific, particularly dealing with how light and color are working, and any other advice. Thanks!

[NorthernChild]

really nice but check please horns symmetry
something really wrong with his right horn

[ceruleanvii]

thanks - I've been seeing that there's something wrong with it, and now finally I think I know how to fix it -

and that's it?

[Dahlias]

I feel that the right horn should be a little lower and more to the right of his head.

Lighting wise since you have all those orange glows going on, some of that light should spill from above onto his skins for the rest of his body, however the body's colour's unaffected at all. It's probably due to painting a normal-skin-in-normal-light reference directly. Giving some orange hues on the top areas of the skin will probably also make the image more interesting and give more depth. Pretty cool thou.

[ceruleanvii]

I've got a little bit of orange spill on his upper back from the sparks - guess it's not noticeable enough. I'll put some more in and maybe go stronger with the shadows on him. Thanks!

[ceruleanvii]

ok, have adjusted rt horn, and added more orange to skin along back and upper surfaces. Also fixed up some perspective issues on symbols in circle.

[RJHarte]

Fantastic piece, and I love your update, the glow is stunning.

I'll be looking for more from you.

[EccoXile]

Mmm I really like this! I think going simple was a good idea, the nice formal balance and the quietness work together.
I think that the back of his head/hair is too sharp/contrasted with the light behind him- I would expect to see more lost edges and light.
On that note, this is more something to think about than actually do. His entire silhouette is rather sharp, blending some edges into the background would make the focus stronger. Easier said than done when you have all those nice details!

[TwoListen]

Are you still working on this? There's a few things I think you could do to really make this into one of those "Wow" types of pieces, though it'd require a bit more work you might not want to put in at this point.

I think you are right to want more of a background. Presently we have a naked demon guy - who happens to be very well done. However, with that as the main point of focus, there are aspects to him leading us off the canvas. His eyes - they're looking off to the side - at what? Who?

The sparkly trail of glowing bits is a real eye catcher but it leads into the nothingness behind him and then right off the side of the page with nothing really to it - which then makes me notice how the circle encompassing him is cut off on the right side.

Right now there are very few things to the image, but they're really cool looking. As a result of there being very few things in the image, we can't help but study them in detail (unless you're just here for staring at the mostly naked guy) - which then causes me to notice the things mentioned above. There are things in the painting leading my eye right off the page, and it doesn't feel complete as a result.

My suggestions: If you're not going to expand the environment at all, even if it's just to include a silhouette of another person studying the demon from outside the circle - expand the canvas to the right so that you can include the rest of the circle on the ground. In addition, use the glowing sparkly dust trail to lead the viewers eye somewhere other than off the page, perhaps in a manner emphasizing what's already on it (the guy).

Why not try expanding the canvas on the right to get in the rest of that circle, and instead of having the sparkle trail just in the background going off the page - bend it around into the foreground and wrap around him? Almost as if it's testing the boundaries of the circle, but in a manner that will make us focus more on what's in the painting as opposed to causing us to want to see things that are not present.

My $0.02

[ceruleanvii]

thanks for the added feedback, guys. I am pretty much done with it at this point, but I think I will go back in and do what you suggest with the hair and some of the edges, EccoXile - should be easy enough. Ah, twolisten, some good ideas, but I'm thinking I've had enough of this guy . Though I may play around with a silhouette or shadow... One other person elsewhere had mentioned not liking the circle cut, which I find curious, as to have the whole circle in seemed, to me, to make too static and centered a composition. Interesting!