[Radthorne]

If she attempts to stash that blade in the cute little gadget on the belt on her hips, she's gonna make a lot of noise as she walks across the floor. If that isn't what it's for, the gadget on the belt, then what is it for and why the belt at all? IMO, a blade like that for a lady like her must be carried in a shoulder harness, like Arnie did for Conan.
That's got be some light weight metal, doesn't it. Those wrists whipping that much steel back and forth, thrust and counter, dodge and slash. A lot more muscle in that arm than appearances hint.
Was that tiger grown in a Bonsai garden? They do nice miniatures in those places.
Titanium blades. Very light. Very sharp. Give a whole new meaning to sword play.

And yes, the tiger is actually a puma with a snow leapoard texture applied to it. A full size tiger was way too big, but the puma texture looked dull. So I thought I'd be creative. This is a fantasy picture, after all. This is just her little pet, not yet fully grown. But still nothing you'd want to grapple with, I suspect.

[Radthorne]

Just another clothing exercise...


http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/Graphics/Dagonessa.jpg

[KatG]

Ug, no. Don't like that one at all.

[Hereford Eye]

Trying to write a rationale for that outfit: Skin tight vest/blouse held togethr by almost popping buttons that must certainly explode should she bend to pick something up or turn too quickly to right or left. Maximum air passages for torso and legs but elbow length gloves? At least her ears are warm. Where would she wear it? on a shopping excursion to the open air marketl? the annual hunt for the windsprites? I know, I know - to her coming out party.

Yeah, I should know better. Sorry.

[KatG]

Kevin asked me to put what I didin't like about the picture above.

The smile is strange and unattractive, the eyes are like a doll's, and the nose is too dark, for starters.

On the clothes, the pants are okay, the gloves are take it or leave it, but the top looks weird. There is only a hint of a curve of the breasts exposed and it's really hard to see, so that it looks almost as if she has no cleavage at all, increasing the doll-like aspect of the figure (which doesn't go with the realistic hair texture and fantasy colored but photographic background.) Because the breasts aren't small, high or round, but instead large and pear-shaped, and because the top is clearly on tight, she should have considerable cleavage from it, and because instead she has nearly none, it looks off.

Also, the stretched central ties of the top just look ill-fitting, rather than sexy. A straight V neck halter approach, exposing a fair amount of skin, would probably work better. The boots don't really go with the outfit. Her stance is very stiff and seems off-balanced. The wand with its aquamarine crystal doesn't contrast well with the lilac background and red wine outfit.

Well, you did ask. :)

In terms of exposing skin, I thought Ms. Floppy Hat was a better composition, though I've no clue how she could actually walk in that outfit.

[Radthorne]

Trying to write a rationale for that outfit: Skin tight vest/blouse held togethr by almost popping buttons that must certainly explode should she bend to pick something up or turn too quickly to right or left. Maximum air passages for torso and legs but elbow length gloves? At least her ears are warm. Where would she wear it? on a shopping excursion to the open air marketl? the annual hunt for the windsprites? I know, I know - to her coming out party.

Yeah, I should know better. Sorry.
Very, very left brain, HE! I think you're trying to find rationality in all the wrong places. Yes, I can make pictures with very practical clothes, but it would look like something like this :D :D

http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/Graphics/Dagonessa 2.jpg

Now this lady would not have any issue with popping buttons, or concerns with using her weapon. But practicality is not what this is all about... When you look at those book covers with the huge dragon, and a guy with bulging muscles in a loincloth wielding a big axe at the dragon's feet, we all know intuitively that the dragon could swat the guy like a fly into the next kingdom, physics and mass being what they are. But that's not the point - it's the drama of the imagery in that case, or in the case of some of my pictures just an emotional impression (in some cases a negative one, as in KatG's response to that last picture, LOL!). But practicality and realistic accuracy, particularly in the pictures where the figures themselves are not humanly realistic, is certainly not one of my goals here. If you recall, many of the female guest costumes on the original Star Trek were quite spectacular, mostly because they were held on with bits of string and glue and would fall off if the actress moved to quickly. And sometimes they did.

Now KatG has raised some valid points in her analysis about the earlier image, and hopefully I can address them with this next picture...

[Radthorne]

Kevin asked me to put what I didin't like about the picture above.

The smile is strange and unattractive, the eyes are like a doll's, and the nose is too dark, for starters.

On the clothes, the pants are okay, the gloves are take it or leave it, but the top looks weird. There is only a hint of a curve of the breasts exposed and it's really hard to see, so that it looks almost as if she has no cleavage at all, increasing the doll-like aspect of the figure (which doesn't go with the realistic hair texture and fantasy colored but photographic background.) Because the breasts aren't small, high or round, but instead large and pear-shaped, and because the top is clearly on tight, she should have considerable cleavage from it, and because instead she has nearly none, it looks off.

Also, the stretched central ties of the top just look ill-fitting, rather than sexy. A straight V neck halter approach, exposing a fair amount of skin, would probably work better. The boots don't really go with the outfit. Her stance is very stiff and seems off-balanced. The wand with its aquamarine crystal doesn't contrast well with the lilac background and red wine outfit.

Well, you did ask. :)

In terms of exposing skin, I thought Ms. Floppy Hat was a better composition, though I've no clue how she could actually walk in that outfit.
Ok, same outfit, same model; different character morph to make her more realistic, and more subdued textures on the clothes. A more relaxed pose, and perhaps a better "stretch" on the top's opening to properly accentuate the cleavage (by the way, you can't see it in these views but the top's back matches the front, with strings holding it together, which actually looks kinda cool. A useless affectation, to be sure, but interesting looking precisely because it looks different...)

What else? Oh, the colors. Well, can't say much there. Did I mention I'm actually color blind? Given that, I think if I hit at least a majority of the pictures with halfway decent colors, I feel ok... :D

http://www.sff.net/people/radthorne/Graphics/Dagonessa 2a.jpg

[Radthorne]

Note to HE - a good case in point about what I'm talking about in terms of simply "experiencing" an image rather than having what's in it have to make sense is conveyed by the "The Green Pearl and Madouc" cover discussed over in the Fantasy forum, in the "Fantasy Covers You Like" thread. Just as the writer of that post found, I liked those cover images quite a bit - the colors are quite lovely, and the semi-Asian impression of misty hills is very alluring. But in the first cover, if one looks at it critically, that arched stone bridge makes absolutely no sense. It's completely out of scale and leads to nowhere. Yet for me, even knowing that, it doesn't take away one bit from the beauty of the scene. I still like that image a lot. I don't know that it's "left brain versus right brain" or anything like that; but it is perhaps a point of view on how one chooses to looks at things.

KatG is quite right that the floppy-hat girl is not wearing something that would be easy to walk around in. Nevertheless, that is my current favorite of my recent pictures. The outfit looks different, the colors are nice, and it conveys to me a really nice sense of magic and gentleness, which was my goal with it. That she's going to trip and fall as soon as she steps sideways might be a given, but that'll be a picture for the blooper reel. :D

[Hereford Eye]

Point well taken, Kevin. Never tried to analyze the covers for your books, just enjoyed the sense conveyed.
In the immortal words of Yul Brynner in The King and I, when it comes to book covers: t'is a puzzlement. On the one hand, I cannot deny that my eye is attracted to some art and repelled by others and that, more often than I like admitting, that has something to do with whether I pick the book up or not. But, then the same thing applies to the author's name. Some authors I will not pick up unless forced to do so; others I immediately pick up their latest to at least scan the contents.
For your latest submissions above, I think it's because you were discussing doing a graphic novel that I paid more attention to character, setting, and what they would be doing. Almost everything you post suits my color sensibilities. There are no harsh contrasts that jar the eye, attention can be unfocused on the total impression or directed to a focal point and then distracted by competing highllights. Reminds me of a line by Robert Hass: "The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea." When I view art, the particulars should not erase the general idea. This is why Bosch drives me crazy. I want to take a whole mural in at once and can't; I always find myself wondering at the specifics. Oppositionally, I never rememebr the details of Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" and I know that painting on the cover caused me to pick up Tracy Chevalier's book.

OTOH, needling you is always a pleasure.

[Radthorne]

Point well taken, Kevin. Never tried to analyze the covers for your books, just enjoyed the sense conveyed.
In the immortal words of Yul Brynner in The King and I, when it comes to book covers: t'is a puzzlement. On the one hand, I cannot deny that my eye is attracted to some art and repelled by others and that, more often than I like admitting, that has something to do with whether I pick the book up or not. But, then the same thing applies to the author's name. Some authors I will not pick up unless forced to do so; others I immediately pick up their latest to at least scan the contents.
For your latest submissions above, I think it's because you were discussing doing a graphic novel that I paid more attention to character, setting, and what they would be doing. Almost everything you post suits my color sensibilities. There are no harsh contrasts that jar the eye, attention can be unfocused on the total impression or directed to a focal point and then distracted by competing highllights. Reminds me of a line by Robert Hass: "The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea." When I view art, the particulars should not erase the general idea. This is why Bosch drives me crazy. I want to take a whole mural in at once and can't; I always find myself wondering at the specifics. Oppositionally, I never rememebr the details of Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" and I know that painting on the cover caused me to pick up Tracy Chevalier's book.

OTOH, needling you is always a pleasure.
Ah, but I don't really think of it as needling, merely "critique." :) I'm certainly not so full of myself as an "artist" to believe that a year's worth of creating images qualifies me to really know what I'm doing. It's learn-as-you-go, and feedback, just as with writing, only helps practitioners improve (and keeps them honest!)

I like your Bosch/Vermeer comparison. I feel the same - while one needs to pay attention to the details (I make a lot of finger joint adjustments, and minute changes of head position), the overall composition is the goal, and no one thing in particular (or worse, many disparate things) should be trying to snatch away the viewer's attention.

And you are quite correct about the graphic novel - that will require an entirely different approach than the single scenes that I've been doing. What's daunting about that project is the sheer volume of "panels" that will be required to tell the story, and maintaining consistency of lighting, settings, etc. while also offering enough variation in the characters, their expressions, and their actions. I'm working on another graphic book project at the moment that is helping me to hone those particular skills on a somewhat smaller scale. Hopefully the results will be worthwhile! :)