Yay! I FINALLY FINISHED! Sorry folks, that took way too long. If memory serves we started this project back in november? Awful, simply terrible. But I have been doing a couple commissions and arranging my wedding preparations, which include a bit of design work. But I have finished. This is my depiction of a small event that happens during Ragnarok, the Norse Armageddon, where Fenrir, a giant wolf, swallows Odin, the Norse Zeus, whole. Don't worry, because later one of Odin's sons,
Víðarr, cuts Fenrir's belly open, freeing Odin. I love Odin, he's got one eye, carries a spear, has wolves and ravens at his bidding, and has a great big bushy beard! I painted a portrait of my professor, Dennis Nolan, as Odin back in college. I am Danish, so I have Viking blood in me, or at least I tell myself that every night before I sleep, so I loved doing this piece. I had been a little while since I had done something so big, 18" x 24", which I thought this painting deserved. Hope you all like it!
I absolutely love the colors that you ended up going with. Really bright and unusual (in a good way). I like the foreground branches that you included. My only complaint is the burning village/castle in the background gets kind of lost in the sky... I think it needs to be darker, or the sky lighter around it, because I can barely see it and it's such a nice detail.
ReplyDeleteReally great warm color scheme Owen! Everything is affected by firelight but there's still a lot of color, very cool. The details and textures of fur, trees, smoke and snow are all well done. And you really pulled off your idea! Odin is going down hard and Fenrir looks vicious!
ReplyDeleteBefore I read Lis' review I thought the background got kind of jumbled up too. It doesn't sit back in the distance because it's both light and dark. The details on it are fantastic but it might read as one level better if the mountain had the some of the colors of the castle or the other way around. Also there's a shadow coming off the right side of the frame that's distracting, maybe too dark?
The main distraction from all the great details in this piece are the high contrast spots. Instead of having the main contrast on Odin and Fenrir's head and jaws I'm looking at Fenrir's back leg and the side of the hill. I feel I made a similar mistake on my Viking with very bright spots in the background sky popping out much more than my main subject.
In a drawover I murdered a lot of your detail but just tried to indicate where the higher contrast might shift to.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1192024/ragnarok_fenrirswallowsodinwhole72redraw.jpg
Ooh I sooo wanna see this in person! Sorry for the delay in commenting on everyone's stuff!
ReplyDeleteThose colors are crazyyy (in a good way)! Looks like you fixed some of the stuff mentioned earlier - I like the way it's all come together. I do agree with Craig about the background contrast - when I squint, my eye wants to go off to the right side of the page, and then to the sky behind Fenrir's butt (hehe, wolf butt). I think even just toning down that really bright spot on the right side of the page would balance things more (covering it with my hand makes everything feel better).
Beyond that, it's looking good! Even if Odin survives, I would not want to be in his shoes right now!!!!