Hey all! Here's my unicorn! I had a great time working on this one. It was a challenge, but I got it to a place where I'm happy with it. I looked a lot at Charles Vess and James Jean's work (esp his Fables cover art) for color palette ideas and general inspiration on this piece.
Question - the colors look a bit dull on my monitor - how do they look to you?
yeah the colors look a bit dull to me too, maybe up the saturation level in photoshop.
ReplyDeleteargh damn this blogger. I always write a long response and then click to see the image larger to make sure i've said all i wanted only to lose what i wrote. Curses! Anyway, I more or less said, GET A NEW SCANNER! haha. I think that it would be a good idea, since you're sacrificing your image quality big-time. The colors are dull, and the whole thing is rather fuzzy. I know it looked waaay better when i saw it in person the other day. It's a shame to work on something for so long and then not be able to show it in it's true beauty. Especially since 98% of people will only ever see the digital version or a printed version in your portfolio. So yea, just do it. It doesn't even have to cost tons. Lis got a new one not too long ago and I don't think it cost all that much.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, As far as the painting itself goes, I think it looks great. I love all the animal details. I think the only thing that stands out to me is that in the smaller version the rear end of the unicorn is blending too much with the background and those waterfalls. I think if you just make the area behind her behind a bit darker it will pop more.
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I have been hating this scanner recently - it used to do a better job, but in the last year it's been going downhill. A good scanner is going at the top of my bday wishlist (if I can stand waiting two more months). Time to start researching scanners. I'll have to find out what type of scanner Lis got.
ReplyDeleteI agree, you should bring it over to our place and scan it!!! The scanner we got is the cheapest Epson one I could find at Staples. I think it was only like $99 or something, and it works wonderfully!!!! It's a fantastic piece, one of my favorites of yours!! I want it to look good!!!
ReplyDeleteThis looks great Becca! I agree with Scott that the area behind the Unicorn could have another layer or two of darkening. It wouldn't change the detail but the Unicorn would really come forward. Then those foreground critters and branch could be a little darker too, more of a foreground silhouette.
ReplyDeleteThe Unicorn is more line work where other areas of the piece are very modeled and rounded. I think you did this on purpose to make the unicorn very light and elegant and it works. Possibly the Unicorn could have some more shading and more definition and your pencil drawing line work could recede more but, again, in this piece it's working.
The bull's expression is great. In coloring you might have considered how the flames and glowing eyes would affect the shading. It works now though, just looking like the light from the sky is the strongest.