[Art] Upcoming cover

[s/LaSH]

Hey, all. I've spent a lot of time recently on a cover for a soon-to-be-released ebook, and I'd like to get some feedback before it goes to 'press'. You'll have to view the piece here (http://dungeondamage.keenspace.com/uh_cover.html) (no hotlinking from my website).

I had some very specific goals with this, but I'll leave them unmentioned for now to see what people think without words interrupting the experience. What do you think is going on - story, mood, etc? (Perhaps not reading further posts until you've commented would help my unbiased-opinion-gather.)

If there are good suggestions, I may implement them - but the book's release is pretty soon and I'm a little busy, so even if Leonardo da Vinci stops by and says "by the way, you should fix the such-and-such", I may have to say, "great idea, I'll use it in my next piece".

Advance thanks for your time!

[keithcurtis]

It looks to me like a dragon (demon) is burning a town; the soldiers have fallen, and only a townsperson with some cobbled armor stands to defend or avenge.
The flames are nice and the composition is pretty good, but I do see some areas I question.

The armor the fallen man is wearing is very confusing. I have trouble picking out where his arms and legs are. Also, the yellow parts remind me too quickly of corn on the cob.

The man with the sword, who is he? He's wearing studded leather armor and a cloth apron. He looks old and pot-bellied enough to be perhas a retired adventurer, coming out of retirement for a final stand, but why is the apron on <i>under</i> the armor (collar)? If he was wearing the armor already, why put an apron on over the tunic? If he was using the apron as part of his occupation (butcher? innkeeper?) why put armor on underneath? Also, his anatomy is a little odd; he seems to lack shoulders. Good expression on his face. He doesn't want to be there, but seems to have no options..

Finally, the moon is a little troublesome. While it is true you can sometimes see the dark side of the moon by reflected earth light (earthshine), this seems a little intense. Is the moon backlit by another celestial body?

Other than those points, there is definitely a sense of story going on here. Tilting the scene gives a good feeling of unbalanced chaos.

Keith

[Noel Murphy]

Yeah there's some big lighting issues here. With all the flames around there isn't any harsh shadows on the dead guy, but the standing fellow has lots on his body but his face is fully lit from the front and back. The highlights on the beast arm denote a light source behind/left of the viewer but there's nothing on the torso or on the dead guy. Moon is backlit and has a black line around it making it flat and looking like it's floating over his head. Also the dead guy's face is....silly. A square mouth and those eyes??? Corncobs indeed.
The burning village is nicely done though.
Sorry to rip the hell out of it.

[Storn]

The hand of the clutched gaurd on teh hand of the demon is too small. Especially considering that it is gauntleted.

I think the guard's blue eyes are too ice blue for the scene. Too anime looking when the flames, the demon's arm aren't really in that vein. It is a bit of a disconnect... some reflected red would be nice, good physics as in light bouncing off of objects, as well as good storytelling.

I like the angle. I like the storytelling.

From a story POV, I would have liked the old man holding the sword shakely in front of him. Probably doesn't matter much against a demon of that size, but the sword behind you is doing you NO good. Also, this from a design POV, pushes the eye up to where the demon's head it to be (off camera) and then the demon's arm brings you to the guardsman's head...which brings you to the old man again... full circle. Right now, both extreme vertical design elements are pointing us towards the guardsman and that isn't the focal point... the old man is. there is a circle, sword, demon hand, guard, but it is a tight one at the bottom of the page.

[Torstein Nordstrand]

Hey Slash, biggest problem I can see is the contrast between the painterly rendered areas ("dragon" arm, fire, sky) and the places where you kept the linework. The faces appear especially formulaic and flat compared to these other, superior spaces.

Interpreting the scene - the illo has a lot of mood and captures the important, dramatic moment very well. Looks to me like the old non-heroic village smith is the only one left to stand up to the village-terrorizing dragon-like monster. The rescue squad is down, and it's up to him now. For some additional story points, I would suggest you put a few frightened villagers (female w/ kids?) in the far back, so the old guy has some clear motivation.

And the in-depth critique here is really a great sign that this is a good job so far ;)

[chris field]

Excellent peice, with very clear story telling. I particuarly like the flames, as well as the emotion on the old man's face. The dragon's arm is excellent as well, very imtimidating. My only suggestions concern the fallen palladin. I'd add some shadows over his face to create a sense of depth and mute the intensity of his eyes- unless you wanted the palladin to have glowing, Dune esq eyes? I'd also suggest changing the knight's armor- at least the color scheme. The padding and arrangement of the bits of armor immediately brought to mind the badguys armor in Dragon Ball Z. The white, plastic textured armor with yellow padding has to go; add some rust, change the colors, or something and you'll be fine.

[s/LaSH]

Thanks for the feedback, all - keep it coming! It's good stuff. I'll probably implement most of it.

The scene reactions are very much what I wanted: some monster's attacking the town, the heroes have fallen, and now it's up to someone else to save the day.

The cover's for a book called Unlikely Heroes, and this seemed a good way to illustrate the fact that some people don't go looking for trouble and, in fact, probably shouldn't - but sometimes they find it anyway. The project is set midway between an atypical world with Lovecraftian themes and a more typical fantasy world; I wanted to hint at that with certain elements while still keeping it theoretically generic, so it can fit in either box. That's why the moon's backlit in green - to say 'hey, I'm not quite what you think' - and why the monster (whether dragon, demon or something else I'm not sure - but purposefully not sure) isn't depicted in full.

The fallen hero (of some description - guard, paladin, I'm glad I'm evoking those words) is something I'd picked out as a weak point myself. He'll be the first 'fix point' if I can make the time to retouch the piece. Noel and Storn are correct to call me on the anime look for his face; it's something I was experimenting with a while back, and I evidently kept more of it in my head than I thought. (On the other hand, the commoner was (very) loosely based on me in a mirror (with the hair and beard replaced with age and fat), so I shouldn't make that excuse - why didn't I model ground guy on reference too?) I'll also fix his hand. That hand's stupid. And plunge him into greater shadow - that was on the original plan, but after I applied the initial lighting I was scared of hurting the image further (a recurring tendency I'll have to unlearn).

Noel picks out the lighting. While I could definitely do more for the hero upon reflection, the commoner was actually lit (from above) very much on purpose; I was seeing if the effect would lift him out of the rest of the picture, as he's the objective. As most of the shadow work is on a separate layer, I could easily rework that; would that be a good idea? I've applied some subtle greens and blues to make him stand out from the flames, but I don't know if that'll be enough to really differentiate his orange-based colours from the orange-based flames and orange-based houses if I 'correct' the lighting.

I'll fix the moon, though.

I might be able to shift the sword as Storn suggests; we'll see if I've got enough time to redraw it. However, see below.

Torstein gives me hope by commenting on the linework. See, I've only recently started playing with full-scene painting, and I wasn't confident with my ability to make crisp edges and have decent contrast between elements in a page. So when I started this piece, I made a conscious decision to use ink lines to a minimum, because I needed them as a necessary evil. It would mean a lot more work, taking them out, but perhaps on a future piece... anyway, I should work on the faces more, as you say. And the bystanders are something I'd been considering myself, if only in silhouette. Upon consideration, the sword's position could have a very different meaning if there were people behind it.

Finally, Chris makes good suggestions and helps me 'click' on what the armour should be. I was using some very specific concepts, and screwed them up. Going over to a uniform, dark metal with highlights and stuff will help the piece very much.

For my own part, I was wondering whether the leather on the hero's legs clashed with his armour. I guess it doesn't clash too badly. I'll probably be putting a text box over his legs anyway.

Thanks again, and more comments are always valued!

[PlotDevice]

Thanks for the feedback, all - keep it coming! It's good stuff. I'll probably implement most of it.

Thanks again, and more comments are always valued!

Heh. I knew this would happen. See the bit in the first post where he says that even if the messiah of art came to him and said "fix this!" he would probably leave it?!? :p

But seriously, I am very pleased that the story of the piece is easy to get. I actually think I like the sword direction where it is from a story point of view, but I coould be convinced to compromise to the compositional element. See, the way i am reading it is that he has picked up the sword on instinct, but is too busy doing the "oh s^1t" to do more than hold it, with no strength in his hand, let alone hold it forward.

Now, s/LaSH, just don't get all obsessive on me. You know it is good already! ;)

Warm regards,
Evan

[s/LaSH]

^
| Commissioner wot wrote the book in question, should you wonder.