alexander982

Hello, i have seen that you request critique on this work. What i find problematic on this picture is his face, the area around his nose is much to dark, it should be lighter, as well his temples which are way too dark. The facial expression is also problematic with his left corner of the mouth grinning, i am guessing that you have worked from pictures, perhaps you should have picked some nicer pictures with nicer facial expressions, especially if it was made for headstone engraving. You could also combine two pictures or more if one is unsatisfactory, one for his pose, one for his head, third for the background etc., just keep in mind that the shadows and light sources should follow the same direction.

Materialization is rather good, but in struggling to make all the folds on his clothes he kind of lost the anatomy- the right arm looks rather flat with conflicting shadows from several light sources, not one, which you should expect from outdoor pictures.

The dark on his white shirt is, at some areas close to the jacket, much to dark, they should be lighter, because they are next to really dark object such as the jacket, and they blend in a bit more than they should to. It is one optical rule which should be kept in mind, and very rarely broken.

His hands are also problematic, his left thumb looks broken and much to long, the shadows on it much darker than they should be. His right arm looks flat, and his hand looks weird, with cropped-off fingers. You should never crop out the anatomical parts in that way, you should have drawn the whole hand, fingers included, with at least some 15cm of space below included, this way it looks just like a strange undefined flat surface.

The background on the left looks way to sharp and strong, with heavy dark areas. The landscape on the right looks better, especially the sfumato surfaces which i guess should represent trees (they should be a little more defined though). My advice is to lighten the left part of the landscape, and if possible blur it a bit so that you can make that aerial perspective much more convincing. The tree behind him should be also a bit lighter so that him and his dark jacket "pop out" in the foreground a bit more.

Overall i don't want you to be offended, i myself find portraits as artistic theme mostly typical and boring, (not this one in particular, but the portraits as a theme in general), but they are the most classical theme and will never disappear from art, and they are especially great learning tool, like landscapes, flowers and fruits are.

Overall, i appreciate the effort you have put into it, and i think that with those areas mentioned above improved it would be better work, which i would myself rate then four stars, because the overall pose is rather uniform and traditional, which is understandable considering this should be used as a template for headstone engraving. With better compositions, and those problems solved, the next pieces would be much better (artistically speaking) and could be rated much higher.

Best regards, i hope you will find this critique and tips helpful and fair <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s…" width="15" height="15" alt="" title=" (Smile)"/>

thanks for the watch

thanks for the watch (y)

thanks for the watch

Thanks for the comment