CGTalk - Maiden Hell Cover, Henning Ludvigsen (2D)

FabioMSilva

03-07-2005, 10:00 PM

the jeans look great. but i believe the sword looks a little too simplistic. it could have some more detail.

one more thing, is the sword touching the body? If so you could've painted some interaction between the blade and the sword. unless the sword isnt touching the body and she is holding the sword just with the tips of the fingers, what means she's really damn strong.

henningsen

03-07-2005, 10:10 PM

Aly:
Thanks alot :-)

Dutchman:
Thanks man... I know that step-by-step is just a simple thingie, nothing explained or anything, but I still think it is important for artists to share their workflow. It might get some ideas for others to supplement to their way of working...

Opus13 and The solid snake:
She sword are supposed to be leaning against her shoulder, but I guess I should have added some more shadows or the like to make this more visible. But on the other hand, she is the daughter of both god and the devil so I guess she actually IS pretty strong? Tehehe...

Thanks for all the comments. I wasn´t expecting this much attention at all with this chick with a sword. Much appreciated!

Ameer Magdy

03-07-2005, 10:37 PM

lovely work .... it's perfect

yonna

03-07-2005, 10:57 PM

Wow, another masterpiece featuring your girlfriend. She is almost becoming a trademark of you. When to think of it, it must be quite painful in case she would break up.

-Zen-

03-07-2005, 11:18 PM

Cool :thumbsup:

#Norge eier :applause: #

GOTgraphic

03-07-2005, 11:20 PM

Awesome work man!

... When to think of it, it must be quite painful in case she would break up. Yeah you better marry her Henning! :D ;) ;) ;)

BlackLight

03-07-2005, 11:21 PM

Really nice image! :thumbsup:

I agree with what's already been said about the jeans and belt being very well rendered and the sword looking plasticy. The blade and gold parts of the hilt should have harsher shading.

KotsVlok

03-07-2005, 11:25 PM

Is it me, or is she wearing 2 different types of shoes? ;)

My compliments though!..

FabioMSilva

03-08-2005, 12:23 AM

Aly:
But on the other hand, she is the daughter of both god and the devil so I guess she actually IS pretty strong? Tehehe...

so let me guess...the upper part is from the devil...and in Heaven u wear jeans? hahahaha:applause:

kotsvlok: i dont think so. the shoes look pretty the same to me.

and i agree with the rest of the guys. Better get married, cuz your girlfriend really is a great poser, and most likely, source of inspiration to ya:)

kattkieru

03-08-2005, 01:06 AM

I really like the face, and the jeans are great!

Two things:
- Even magical swords show battle damage. That sword looks like a ceremonial piece, not the weapon of a warrior. Also, the edges would be a little brighter where the blade becomes sharp.
- It might be better to have her looking directly at the "camera." Right now she seems ... I dunno, without intent.

Good lighting, though, and overall a nice image.

JesseDavis

03-08-2005, 01:17 AM

If I was a chick about to go fight some demon monsters, that's what I'd wear too.

Great image :)

alex.h.

03-08-2005, 01:19 AM

great work. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
ha en bra dag.

onlooker

03-08-2005, 01:36 AM

- Even magical swords show battle damage. .

I agree that the sword needs detail, but what's with this comment. Even magic swords show battle damage. How the heck would you know merlin, Livin' in salem perhaps? :argh:

Great pic BTW. Thanks for the tutorials too Henning. I've learned quite a bit from them. :thumbsup:

Jolene

03-08-2005, 02:21 AM

Looks great :thumbsup: About the sword, i agree with everyone else. more details maybe engravings or battle damage, a bit of blood? A few suggestions. Other than that, it is s great painting.

Kyena

03-08-2005, 06:53 AM

and i agree with the rest of the guys. Better get married

tehehhe - now now guys - go easy on us ;)

I agree about the sword - I don't know why it didn't occure to me earlier. Compared to everything else it DOES look a bit flat - but damn - you sure pulled off the denims..

overcontrast

03-08-2005, 07:12 AM

looks really, but as some folks here said, the sword looks a bit washed out. and the fact that its not resting on the shoulder of the girl is bugging me a bit. But thats just me.. the rendering for this image is aweosme and thenx for letting us see the work progress.... keep up the good works mate... :thumbsup:

theHen

03-08-2005, 07:26 AM

I like your picture, especially the way you've painted the girl. I have some thoughts about the background though. The colors on the clouds are nice but the whole background is built up by circles. I would like it even better if it was more varied in shape, and why not let the lava flow give it some light from below as you have done on the mask and girl.

By the way I've heared that all digital gaming was prohibited i Greece but that's obviously not the case.

slom

03-08-2005, 10:00 AM

Congratulations on the front page Henning love the image the jeans are sweet:thumbsup:

Para

03-08-2005, 11:15 AM

Nice picture but that's not why I'm commenting this. The reason I'm commenting this is because in a certain cg community here in Finland we had a running joke for a very long time about what makes any picture popular: a (naked) woman, a sword and a dragon. Seeing this kinda made my day :)

MoonVisionStudio

03-08-2005, 12:43 PM

- but damn - you sure pulled off the denims..

LOL! couldnt resist. ; )

henningsen

03-08-2005, 12:56 PM

Thanks for all the comments. I am totally overwhelmed! :-)

* Yes, I should have worked more on the metallic look of the blade and hilt. I see that now.
* TheHen: Yes, gaming was forbidden for a short while 2 years ago here in Greece because of some mistake with a law that was only ment for gamling and such. But they "fixed it", hehe...
* m0og0o: The outfit was already decided before I started, but yeah, hehe... Kinda wierd!
* Para: Hahaha... Yes, strangely it seems so :-D
*Jose Pardo: How did you know that ;-)

Kyena

03-08-2005, 01:26 PM

*Jose Pardo: How did you know that ;-)

Because he quoted me and obviously got the joke ;)

Melfice

03-08-2005, 01:47 PM

It's not bad! the whole look of hers is very nice! it's just photoshop work? it looks really nice! Good job!

Kid-Mesh

03-08-2005, 02:30 PM

Impressive! The jeans are awesome :)

raine

03-08-2005, 03:21 PM

Wow that’s very nice. The colors are great and the girl is very realistic in every detail! ><

GUYJIN

03-08-2005, 03:45 PM

Even though the pic is nice, I don't get what everybody is drooling about, I mean its a traced or retouched fotograph. There is soo much of that kind of stuff all over the Net its not even funny.
The background is cool though.
My 2 cents.

henningsen

03-08-2005, 03:57 PM

GUYJIN: This is not a traced or retouched photograph. It has been painted from scratch in Photoshop!

Kyena

03-08-2005, 04:02 PM

hmm GUYJIN if you would take the time to look at this link (http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/15858783/)then you would probably see that you are wrong about your tracing/retouched photo comment.

swampthing

03-08-2005, 04:13 PM

I guess i'll have to stray here and say that I don't particularly like the whole image, it doesn't work at all in my opinion. You've got a stereotypical half naked chick wearing stuff that just flat out doesn't make sense holding what appears to be a toy plastic sword that she bought from a dollar store standing in what appears to be hell? The background has no theme or cohesion to it, it's just a bunch of seemingly random stuff thrown in to have something behind her. Her right foot, for some strange reason is under a root? (Dunno what that brown stuff is supposed to be) Looks like she is about to trip and fall flat on her face. She doesn't even remotely give the impression that she's any kind of warrior or even has any type of skill fighting, she looks like some model someone paid to stand there and hold a toy sword. I understand this was probably for a client and that this might be what they requested, I just don't particularly think the composition is very good.

Your painting looks VERY much like a photo touch up as someone else mentioned so i guess you can take that as a compliment, as i'd flat out swear this was done with a digital photo trace in photoshop so if it wasn't, and the reference photo wasn't loaded into photoshop at all then i'd say you're a very good painter.

I think the reason it appears to be a traceover is that the female is done VERY well and the sword.....well it looks pretty bad to be blunt. Her top also isn't up to the standards of the model or the jeans/belt.

sorry this isn't as glowing praise as everyone else, but there's things about the image that i think just flat out don't work.

Kyena

03-08-2005, 04:28 PM

That's the joy (insert sarcasm here) of doing commissions or/and cover art. You actually got told what you need to paint (not sure if you guys take the time and actually read the description of this painting but please do).
The pose the outfit the sword that rootwhateveritis, the setting everything was defined by the customer and the already existing comic.

I do agree that this is not my taste either, though.
Besides - how can you guys still think it's a phototouchup/manip when he provides a link to the actual process?

I am a bit lost here and sorry for jumping in again but I don't like false accusations.

konst

03-08-2005, 05:07 PM

I must say that the pants is just great:thumbsup:...but in my opinion there is not anything else that is special with it...

...I don´t meen to be cruel and I do not want to offend you, henningsen...you did a goog job

...but I have to agree about that the "girl with a sword" thing is soooo damn boring. It is sad that there is still people that whant it to be a cover for their book.

GUYJIN

03-08-2005, 05:08 PM

GUYJIN: This is not a traced or retouched photograph. It has been painted from scratch in Photoshop!

Than I guess I was wrong. The comment was not ment as an isult or anything of the kind. I am just saying that thats how it looks to me.

P.S. Actually, after visiting your web page (nice design btw.) I am even more convinced that thats a traced foto. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Kyena

03-08-2005, 05:43 PM

I wonder why Henning is even bothering posting tutorials ;)

About his workflow (http://www.henningludvigsen.com/tutorial_workflow.html)

onlooker

03-08-2005, 08:42 PM

Than I guess I was wrong. The comment was not ment as an isult or anything of the kind. I am just saying that thats how it looks to me.

P.S. Actually, after visiting your web page (nice design btw.) I am even more convinced that thats a traced foto. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

I've learned great things from Hennings tutorials. I have no clue what your problem is, but if you can't paint, don't chase away those who can from those of us willing to learn from them. If it wasn't for guy's like Henning posting free helpful tutorials, those who would learn art would be in a lesser place, and all art would be less attractive. I studied that site for two days (helped my penciling (shading) a bit too btw), and my friends noticed a major difference in my stuff.

It's these old bastards that charge you $200.00 for a DVD that you should be trashing.

henningsen

03-08-2005, 08:58 PM

I studied that site for two days (helped my penciling (shading) a bit too btw), and my friends noticed a major difference in my stuff.

Wow, thanks for visiting my site, Onlooker! Please don´t hesitate to tell me how you found the tutorials so that I can improve them. I need some feedback as I just started making them...
And thanks for your comment :-)

hesido

03-08-2005, 09:25 PM

The sword seems to have perspective problems, that or it is asymmetrical in a confusing way. It also looks a bit bent backwards to me.

Really nice work, nonetheless.

onlooker

03-08-2005, 09:36 PM

Wow, thanks for visiting my site, Onlooker! Please don´t hesitate to tell me how you found the tutorials so that I can improve them. I need some feedback as I just started making them...
And thanks for your comment :-)

Your welcome, and I thank you.

Everybody seems to have a different way of doing a tutorial, and I thought yours worked out just as good as any. The only thing I thought that I might have liked would have been clicking on the pictures, so they opened in a new window with a closer shot. Your layout is narrow, which is fine, and uncluttered for reading (quite pleasant really) but to study the pics I would have liked to click on them to make them a about 2x bigger opening in a new window.
That was all that came to mind while i was using them. I was actually going to email that to you then, but I thought it was nice enough that you created it in the first place. I didn't want to throw any criticism at you after the help. The phrase Don't look a gift horse in the mouth comes to mind. :)

Naseem

03-08-2005, 10:04 PM

wow that looks gr8 :bounce:

loocas

03-08-2005, 10:08 PM

Very nice!! The trosers, thou, look a bit like silk than jeans... Prolly because of the specular reflections and the colorization... But, nevertheless, it's a nice paintinghttp://www.cgtalk.com/images/rating/rating_4.gif from me :thumbsup:

GUYJIN

03-09-2005, 05:08 AM

I've learned great things from Hennings tutorials. I have no clue what your problem is, but if you can't paint, don't chase away those who can from those of us willing to learn from them. If it wasn't for guy's like Henning posting free helpful tutorials, those who would learn art would be in a lesser place, and all art would be less attractive. I studied that site for two days (helped my penciling (shading) a bit too btw), and my friends noticed a major difference in my stuff.

It's these old bastards that charge you $200.00 for a DVD that you should be trashing.

I have no problem whatsoever. And I am not trying to chase away anyone or diminish anybody’s work or artistic achievements or such. For that matter I suggest that before accusing anybody of anything (like not knowing how to paint) you give yourself the benefit of a doubt and consider that may be, just may be, the person stating his or her's opinion knows a thing or two about the subject matter.

If you really whant to learn how "to paint" as you so elequently put, I suggest you take actual drawing and painting lessons from some of those "old bastards" in art schools and colleges. Learning how to trace a photo will take you nowhere. IMHO

onlooker

03-09-2005, 05:26 AM

I have no problem whatsoever. And I am not trying to chase away anyone or diminish anybody’s work or artistic achievements or such. For that matter I suggest that before accusing anybody of anything (like not knowing how to paint) you give yourself the benefit of a doubt and consider that may be, just may be, the person stating his or her's opinion knows a thing or two about the subject matter.

If you really whant to learn how "to paint" as you so elequently put, I suggest you take actual drawing and painting lessons from some of those "old bastards" in art schools and colleges. Learning how to trace a photo will take you nowhere. IMHO

Harsh words. Lets kiss, and make up before this gets out of control :p The grid technique is IMO, (and was before I ever saw the tutorial) the best/fastest, and most accurate way to achieve an exact likeness from a photograph with a pencil. That's just my opinion, but many painters use it for photo's over freehand. Not everybody is going to be able to freehand an exact likeness from a photo in the necessary time frame. Some may never get an exact likeness from freehand, but that does not mean you can't draw just because you cant duplicate a photograph without using grid lines for your guide.

Using a grid, and tracing isn't the same thing either.

henningsen

03-09-2005, 07:26 AM

Okie, I would like to see an end to this discussion.

I do use a grid when making a painting, as I show in my tutorial. This to get as accurate proportions as possible. However, this is not the same as tracing on top of a picture as Onlooker explains in his post. If someone doesn´t appove of the technique of using the old trick of using a grid as a tool, that is perfectly fine, but please don´t mix these two techniques.

As simple as that!

Thanks for your enthusiasm everybody...