Another character portrait, this time the ruthless queen of a medieval kingdom. I think it’s pretty much done, but I’d rather submit it to an outside observer. Once again I tried to maintain roughness in the background, but I’m not sure how well it blends together with the character.
Well, you’re doing a great job in this scene, full of interesting details. However what worries me is the lighting. The window behind the queen would generate a lot of light in the scene, causing a large contrast in all elements, including making the environment around Queen’s stay more shaded, suddenly adding a few rays of light entering the scene. This would make the scene more dramatic and also the queen would stand out much more in the scene.
I hope you do not mind the comment and forgive my English, I’m still learning the language. 
Nice work Squids. I think the level of detail for the background is working just fine with the foreground character.
The only thing I question is a revealing top on an elderly woman. It just doesn’t fit, and it’s the chest of a young woman.
No doubt women of all eras have had plenty of tricks to delude men into thinking their attributes are more than what logic dictates 
But in all seriousness, I have to agree that it is kind of a breach to the “stern old woman” character.
In reply to deBage: the picture you propose conveys your meaning very well (and no worries about english, I’m definitely not in a position to throw the stone myself ).
However, I’m not sure it would work as well as in the above. While the kid is in the darkness of an attic with a single, actually rather low lightsource, I imagine the queen to stand in a well-lit hall with possibly several large windows and lots of ambiant light. So, there would be lots of reflected light from secondary sources (here, the wall opposite the window) and the shadows definitely wouldn’t be as dark as the litte boy’s surroundings.
Another difference is that here, the viewer is staring into the lightsource. Think of shooting a backlit scene: either your camera adjusts to the lightsource and all shadows are darkened, or it adjusts to the shadows and the sky goes white (which is what I’ve done here). I’m afraid doing a mix of both would feel wrong; if I darken the shadows too much but leave the queen unchanged, she will indeed stand out but at the cost of consistency
Either way, this is just me overthinking: the effect could work wonders and it is easy to do, so I’d be dumb not to give it a try.
This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.
