I finished this one a while ago and gave a poster of it to my brother for Christmas. I've just been so caught up in everything lately I haven't thought to post it here.
So, in all its belated glory, my very first full-detail card for my new fantasy card deck, The Queen of Diamonds: The Forest Keeper.
Enjoy!
References used:
Moon - a NASA photograph of the full moon.
Mushrooms - a googled photo of a clump of mushrooms. I've looked again for a link, but I can't find it... :( If anyone else does, please PM me so I can add it to this reference list?
Please login to post comments.
You're always difficult to crit cause you're higher than me at practise in art (whether you chose to accept it or not), but there is a few things...
For the theme of things, it would've been cool if you gave her a texture to make her look like a wood nymph (Unless she's meant to be and elf, in which I say make the ears obviously pointy). the face to me looks fine since she's in a fantasy picture where I don't think of her as human. Cause of that, she looks more alien like this which is beneficial cause its an aesthetic alien look- like DND elves (being NOT human looking) I think you coud highlihgt the tree more by making some of the higher clouds brighter/greener slightly- they don't have enough light to define with all the bright colours around it distracting you. Her face looks a bit flat too cause it's over exposed when the hair is not. Try warming her up a little. Um... Besides that, I love the theme of the picture, and the tree hair is great!! I donno where you come up with these ideas, but she has a very fey feel about her ^^ Awesome work hon ^^
I probably won't change her too much now, but I wanted to know so I could apply the tips to the one currently in progress.
Although the face overexposure bugs me, too, so I may have to go in and adjust it. While I'm there, I could play a bit with the tones, but I want her to be somewhat green in skin tone, too.
I think you're right about lightening the green of the clouds as well, to bring out the contrast. I will have to see if I can still do this.
As for the skin texture - she's not meant to be a nymph nor an elf. She's the essence of the forest itself. A spirit, as it were. I thought about giving her a bark texture when I started the painting, and I may still do so, but I have to make it one that will show up in the card printing size, too, which is something like 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches, so quite small.
So I will have to work on this one when I'm done the rest of the deck (in something like 5 years), since by then I should have a much better grasp of the media, too.
Again, thanks so much! I'm so grateful you took the time to do such an in-depth critique.
One - she's not separate from the background.
Two - she already has the Gaussian-Blur glow. It shows up pretty clear on my own monitor, but I think some monitors don't pick it up too easily so it gets lost.
and Three - I'd have to check, but I think I've already flattened the whole image (or almost the whole image) since when I was making it it just kept getting too big for my computer to handle without jerky movements.
I think I actually like the texture idea best, though. It will be really cool if I can get her skin to have the texture of bark without changing the colours too much.
Thanks, Susie, for taking the time to comment. (and for everything else too, but hey, you already knew that.)
I still think it could use a lot of improvement, but I'm glad the surreal effect I was going for comes across to you.
Thanks again for the comment!