Geesh dude, where were you with this bit of information when I was fighting for my cajones in the 3D human realism thread? Regardless, you are a one man churn factory of great work. I do find it kind of funny that you used yourself as reference though. 
Abduction, Steven Hägg-Ståhlberg (2D)
MrPositive
#61
HoangQuan
#62
Great job as usual, I really love the way you create water around her, fantastic^^
Five stars from me!
Lunatique
#63
I don’t think you understand the difference between using reference and merely copying the reference. Do you understand that they are two very different things? Why do you think that painting over a photo, copying a photo by tracing/color-picking, and using photos are references are the same thing? Can you explain that?
graphiouz
#65
Reference or not reference!
Look at all the fancy illustrator vector based art that is in the hype right now, all being Live Traced with modifications. I think it looks great! One of my favorite artist Anders Zorn used photos as reference.
Its not the matter of tracing its a matter of creating a unique style of painting with reference.
Strokes and colour!
You need to be a great artist and have a sense of seeing the shapes even though you are using a reference or tracing a photo.
Very nice work, I have always loved your work Steven.
Raul-Reznek
#66
she’s awfully dry after all that jacuzzy time :), hmmmm makes you wonder j\k
great work, no doubt
edit* only now did i start to read the thread, alos i had the same sensation as maidith at first glance. good thing, bad thing? i dont know,
Lman
#67
Bravo bravo. thanks for the simle! lovely light. Amazing work as per usual !
Many Many Many stars well 5 to be exact.
regards
Liam
Squibbit
#68
hey dude nice to see u finish this, good piece!
yea maybe they’re just putting her there, with a wobbly tractor beam that tends to
toss things around a bit, sayin like “Hey buddy, here’s one for you too, Merry Christmas!”
ps. why does the dude in the pool look more like snowkiwi than the dude in your ref?
.
frameboX
#69
absolutely amazing! Such a combination of visual power, humor, erotic and storytelling is just perfect…
Squibbit
#71
o yea… well then it’s prolly just one of those older beams with the side effect of
blowing hot air downwards
.
Katachi
#72
You have something to crit on the severity of this piece, that´s your absolute right, but I don´t believe it´s “nothing special”, so, your time to prove what you say wholeheartedly.
I want YOU to do it. Take references, trace the photo mostly with a color picker and show it to us. Let´s then compare your image to this. And don´t tell me “I never said I could do it…”. When it´s nothing special everyone should be able to do it.
Otherwise, see the CGTalk advice: Think before you post. 
Now, back on topic: Hell of a piece! Great style (I instantly knew it was a Stahlberg), great detail and perfect composition. I was also first wondering what the exact situation is, within water or what´s the deal?
Anyway, my crit would definetly be the anatomy of the woman. The back is simply too long. That caught my eye in the very first look and it distracts me from the rest of the piece.
Best
Samir
Squibbit
#73
you did check the ref pic?
if u overlay em two pics the backs are prettymuch same length
culd be my eyez tho :surprised
.
urgaffel
#74
I remember seeing this in your JB thread and I liked it then and I like it even more as a finished piece Great work Steven. I really appreciate that you posted the reference too, it shows people how it should be done. I wish more artists would do that… Anyway, awesome work as always!
Btw (and this totally OT), is it just me or have you changed your name under your avatar? I don’t remember the good old swedish characters being there before 
mv1
#75
Great pic again, Steven I really like the idea and composition. Great colors too, this blue highlight on skin tones is becoming your signature it seems
About the ref “debate” … woaw… people here give too much importance to “brushing technique” or “hand-eye coordination”, feels like they don’t give any credit to idea, composition and the overall illustrative construction - which is 95% of the piece in my opinion.
A lot of people can mindlessly copy almost perfectly a photo - but very very few can make interesting images beyond the technical aspect, using refs or not (or hell even tracing if it goes faster and makes you get to your goal).
(actually I think that at a certain level of quality that you want to achieve, NOT shooting/finding refs is more lazyness than anything else…personally, I wish I used more refs, but I just prefer to draw from my mind because it’s quicker…but the quality is not on par with what I could do with carefully chosen refs )
Self-Designer
#76
It took me a lot of time to understand the’s taken off from him and not falling from skies. Though, taking the time to understand it, shows that the picture is really good and interesting.
1st I didn’t understand how’s there are bubbles in the air. And I started to think that you made an unexplainable picture, where water and air are flipped, and I don’t need to find the logic behind it (some kind of David Linch attitude :p).
Also, she has an angry expression, and I thought she’s his ex-girlfriend he killed that now comes back to take revenge, buaa :twisted:
So, only when dragging the picture to photoshop, and brightenning it a bit, I found out the UFOs in the background pulling other people and understood what’s going on in the picture.
And all that because her position and hair isn’t going to the right way. Now I can see that she’s like being pulled through her legs, but then I’d expect her hair to leave behind (infront of her face).
Another way, is to pull her from the middle of her body, and both her legs, hands and hair will toward him…
And I won’t take a “reverse gravity on her only” as an excuse because she doesn’t feel like falling backward… but being pulled from her legs, because they’re the 1st to that direction.
Also I’d change her expression to something more suprised, like he has.
I wonder if you’d take such changes in consideration. I know that when I decide I finished something, it’s hard to make me fix anything, even if it’s really important for the perfection of the image. Being lazy? Understanding that what I learned is what important to me and not the image itself? I don’t know 
Katachi
#77
Hi,
yep, I´ve seen the ref pic. But overlaying them wouldn´t help as it´s a different pose, the ref pic has a way more straight back than the actual image. Her back is way more bended.
Anyway, to me the back is too long (it´s minimal but it´s imo definetly noticable). Also if I check the proportional length of the legs to the back of the ref pic, the proportions of the image are off.
Is it me or does anybody else see this? :argh:
Stahlberg
#79
Thanks guys! Yes you may be right, the back could be an inch too long now… I’m probably subconsciously elongating figures that are supposed to be attractive, as many others do. I know I purposely made the legs a touch longer, the butt bigger and the head smaller than the reference. I’ll look into it.
As for how the tractor beam works, well I was kind of thinking there’s two layers to it, one wider area where everything small and light starts to float a bit, and another narrower area in the center which seems more purposeful, pulling on her legs. I wanted her reaching out to him for help, and not getting it. That’s why she’s angry. Just a few seconds ago he was like: “Hey baby, you know I’d do anything for you…” now she’s yelling to him:
“Frank! FRANK! YOU BAST-”
edit:
Yes, I added those dots etc on my name, just recently, as I was working on my cgjobs profile
