Egypt priestess

[CybrGfx]

It's nice enough, I guess, but it really looks so overdone and unrealistic, that is too unbelievable to visually enjoy.

The lighting is inconsistent and over-exaggerated. It gives this piece too "plastic" a look, with no real consideration of how the light would reflect/refract from the different surfaces it is striking ~ Stone, fur, metal, skin, hair, pottery, fabric. They are all lit the same way...

Your other image also shows lighting problems. Effective lighting can cover a multitude of other visual sins, but bad lighting can detract from the most perfect of images...If you work on improving nothing else, I suggest you put some effort into more consistent lighting.

The wings look SO contrived and fake on her. They also look like they are behind the weird looking cat (that looks NOTHING like a cat, or a leopard, or a panther ~ it has a face like a cartoon or a "furry" anthro...). Since the "wings" are metal (they didn't have lightweight plastics back then), those suckers must weigh a TON...My only curiousity is how the heck they are mounted onto her back without pulling her shoulders down and WAAAY back...lol!

The flame looks totally fake, too, like some sort of glowing worms doing a dance on the dish, and the "smoke" appears to be more weird fire, making the eye wonder what it is looking at.

I don't know how many hairstyles you referenced, but those braided plaits were never a half-inch thick in size, even as wigs. She sure as hell doesn't have THAT much hair on her head...

It's nice, but just too overworked, with not enough "practical" thought given to what you are illustrating, with the result being that it just looks extremely unbelievable on any level, fantasy or reality.

~C

[voltageme5]

i agree with a lot of what cyber says but most of it doesn't bother me and for me it doesn't distract or damage the image at all. i do like the style but i also agree that there is something about the wings that make them look too far set back behind the woman. and she is missing some sort of chest brace that would be attaching the wings to her.

but given the style and that I assume its not meant to be a realistic representation but rather an "illustration", i can suspend my disbelief about any of the inaccuracies there may be.

[CybrGfx]

The best illustrations look believable, and need NO suspension of disbelief. THAT is what being a good artist is all about, and that is why critiques point out those visual discrepancies....

If you have to suspend your disbelief, then you are only admiring the pretty colors and shapes, you are not able to appreciate the artwork as anything more than just a picture...There IS a difference...

~C

[wo0lF]

CybrGfx (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=89862): i can't believe that you take so much time for comments. I'm glad that there are users like you on this forum.

Exyder (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=349019): Sorry for offtopic. Read CybrGfx's comments twice and fix it. It will look good.

[Evicted]

You should definitely consider the points above.
I think if you tone down the lighting a bit too it will add to the piece. Right now it looks like she's in fluorescent lighting, when really I think that the fire should be the major lighting, which means you'll have to rethink the hue of the highlights. I don't think the light source from the right is necessary either; I think the flame alone would be very stark. (I myself have trouble with the lighting issue)
Also..AHHH, it looks like you used white for the highlights. My teacher killed me for this one. Avoid whites! It's what is really giving this a barbie-doll look. Here's an EXCELLENT tutorial on skin tones:
http://www.elfwood.com/farp/theart/slshimskin/slshimskin1.html (there's a couple pages)

I really think her highlights should be warmer, like a light yellow or red. I played with it for you (since i'm at school bored out of my mind waiting for my english lecture...)
I also tinkered with her face since it seemed a little forced and less natural. (sorry for the terrible paint over...it should give you the idea though)
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/763/fix2pc8.jpg

Oh, and I rotated it. The dominant lighting on the left was bugging me quite a bit; I think it's more natural if it's on the left (since we naturally see left to right).
I apologize for butchering your beautiful rendering...I have no tablet with me at school and i'm on one of those tiny eee PC's :D

I hope this helps a bit! Good luck. :) Can't wait to see some progress.

edit: wooow i just got home from school and this is a LOT more orange and saturated than on my laptop. I hope you still get what I mean, haha.

[Helenlyn]

The pose looks uncomfortable (to me)... The cat looks like it's about to say something... which isn't helped by the fact that its paw is on her arm as though it's trying to get her attention. The blue lighting bothers me. I thought the wings were a random hieroglyph on the wall at first... (I'm view things rather selectively) The hilights make her look like a barbie rather than sweaty... try a textured brush when hilighting, as sweat comes out in beads in humans... especially if she's not exerting herself... which people generally don't exert themselves while sitting down. and the hair looks like the little ties on expensive curtains. Right now they're about the size of dread locks... they'd look better thinner.

I like the floor though.

Edit: nevermind. saw the picture and hit edit without reading at all. (scolds self)

[Evicted]

Sorry, it wasn't the actual artist that posted, it was a paintover to help the person, haha. I should re-word it so it doesn't seem like it...

[voltageme5]

The best illustrations look believable, and need NO suspension of disbelief. THAT is what being a good artist is all about, and that is why critiques point out those visual discrepancies....

I don't necessarily agree with that. There are some pretty fantastic illustrations that don't represent realism in the least. If his visual discrepencies were put there on purpose as part of the piece then you can't say they are wrong. Most of Picasso's pieces are not realistic renderings and you could rip them apart based on your arguments but since we understand his style and process, we don't.

I love Mannerism but it isn't the most realistic style in art. But since we understand that it isn't supposed to be and that the artist wasn't attempting to represent realism to your level but rather the style itself, we can appreciate it.

If you have to suspend your disbelief, then you are only admiring the pretty colors and shapes, you are not able to appreciate the artwork as anything more than just a picture...There IS a difference...

Again, if his intentions are not to recreate photographic representations then as a viewer I can't call him out on it. You could argue about the lighting and other inaccuracies and I wouldn't disagree, I'm simply referring to the style he chose to use. Which is why things like the skin looking like plastic or whatever don't bother me. If those were his intentions then I can appreciate it and like how he did it because I understand the style he is using. Does the image look like a photograph and even remotely realistic? No not at all. But I don't think he wants it to.

Overall there are more things that I like about it then there are things that I don't.

In general I don't think we have enough info from the artist in regards to the concept and what he was trying to achieve to be able to come up with a helpful critique outside of talking about the "pretty colors and shapes."

Jesse

[EndoTouch]

Exyder,
I'm not sure what you want to do in terms of the debate going on; however, one thing about style is that what you include should be done right, so in this sense you should listen to cybergfx. I see that evicted did a great job showing what direction to go. Its not just the white in the lighting though, the lighting does not emanate from the flame.

All of the shadows and highlights point to a light from the right. I thought she must be sitting at the entrance to the tomb she is in because of the lighting but if this is the case why is her lamp lit. You could keep the image bright but remove the lamp or remove the outside light and reshade the scene ( the anubis on the wall really stands out in the paint over as not being touched by the light of the lamp, but overall nothing seems to be touched by the lamp ).

An even simpler way to fix things would be to include a secondary light to the right of the picture to acount for your current highlights and rebalance the lighting to make the lamp the primary, which seems to be the effect of evicted's paintover; however, I'd like to see either a second light or indication thorugh gradients in the abient lighting.
The wings need subtule texture and to be shadowed by the girls body. They could make sense if the bones were hollow and the feathers were made of gold leaf, maybe remove the vertical line through the feather and make them look either flat or curved, depth is not your friend here.

The girls pose is very sugestive, I'd like it better if her facial expression followed what her body is saying.

Edited for formatting

[Exyder]

Thanks all for your responses and helps!
Yes, the initial variant was an portrait of real girl in illustration style. Here you can see detailed sequence of my work:
http://darkline.at.ua/photo/14
But now I see two different ways of improvement of this picture realistic and stylized.
First I planned to make the basic light source on the right and to draw beams of volumetric light.
But now I see, that the variant which suggests Evicted in a combination with abient also is interesting. Before the beginning of this work I considered this variant of illumination in different photos (I made the photos of model with a candle also) and it has seemed to me too dark and red. A problem that it is difficult to draw a portrait of the real girl when the light source is located below. Because it imposes specific shadows on the face and it is difficult for making it looks like original.
I think, that wings it is magic object. It should not be adhered to priestess, because it not an ornament and not real wings. It only blessing of goddess Isidy caused by a flame. I shall try to make wings transparent for the better understanding.

http://greekroman.ru/img/isis.jpg

Once again thanks all for your help! I shall try to make changes as soon as possible.

[Evicted]

AH! Oh my gosh, okay, your picture had reminded me of this for the longest time: (I know it's not accurate in pose, I think it's rather the mood: mysterious, sexy, the unknown...)
http://img80.imageshack.us/my.php?image=flamesbylithiumpicniccn5.jpghttp://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7136/flamesbylithiumpicniccn5.jpg

That's what I meant by the lighting. See, I think that would work better instead of a secondary light source. If you're going to do the "tomb entrance" sort of thing, I don't know if the flame is suitable, maybe a bowl of something-rather instead. My brain associates fire and darkness together, and to add, tombs are generally dark places.

I hope that picture can give you some ideas. :D

[Exyder]

Thank you, Evicted! I think, that your example is the best variant of illumination and color. :)

[flawedprefect]

I love the style and where it's going... only her face bugs me. It's set at an angle which doesn't look right... perhaps if you shift her eyes to focus on something in a different direction to where her face is pointing? Staring straight ahead makes her look like a manequin. I love the abs, the reflection, and the palette.

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