I spent about 35-40 minutes just being super loose, super fun with this piece. I also used got to use a few new brushes I hadn't previously used. So overall im happy. I think its a bit fun, but doesn't completely make sense... meh it was for fun haha!!
Woah that was quick!
ReplyDeleteI reallly dig the text-- but a couple things. I wouldn't shelve this piece just yet. I think you can finesse it some more and make it really shine.
The warping on "blown" feels a bit strange-- like sand more than wind. Not sure how you'd go about fixing it.
As for the rest of the image, I love the background color, and teh text and the majority of the snowman works wih it-- but the blue and the green-gray next to each other don't work for me. The tones of the colors are too similar, and when I gray out this image, its actually really hard to distinguish between shapes because of that.
Personally, I don't think you need any blue in the image-- you can make the snowman still feel like a snowman using greens etc, especially if you air on the lighter side of colors. It may take some finagle-ing.
On the Whole, you made a lot of strong decisions and created a piece in 30-ish minutes. I think if you spend more time on it, you can get it looking really slick, even using "rough brush" style.
Keep going! Plenty of time left in the month. =D THANKS FOR SHARING!!!! =D
Oh sweet, I didn't know y'all were part of a pimp crit blog. This is a fantastic idea! Annnnnyway.... I do have some crits.
ReplyDeleteTo me, this feels like a great thumbnail sketch-like you're still in the planning phase of this piece, rather than at the 'completely done' phase.
I'd say the best part of this is definitely the background! I LOVE the way you handled the texture on the borders, and I'm a super fan of anything kind of squiggly so the wind lines really get my heart pumpin'.
I am a fan of that font, but I don't much care for the way you handled it. To me, the font taking up almost exactly the same amount of space as the other main element-the snowman-is unbalanced. Or rather, I guess it's TOO balanced. I also don't particularly care for the way it overlaps the snowman, or the way you handled the word blown. I think I would have preferred to see the text wrap around the snowman in the negative space he creates, rather than encroaching on his area.
I disagree with Vee about the blue, as well as the lack of differential tones. I like this sort of faded, non-popping imagery. During the winter, everything's crazy hard to differentiate anyway so it's not really a big deal. If you feel you MUST change some coloration to make it a bit more separate, I would suggest just deepening the background color a smidge, allowing the snowman to really pop out more.
As for the snowman himself though, he still needs a little work. I love the way you handled the body, only mostly coloring it and loosely outlining him, but the way his middle ball doesn't quite logically connect irks me a bit. I also strongly believe that the arm needs more definition. I'm not talking make him Arnold Snowsenegger, I'm talking don't let his arm look like it was made with light dabs of a sponge. Take out some of the texture in the arm, but don't make it like... super sharp lineart. Definitely the elbow needs more right where that chunk to the right is missing from it. I also do not care for the way you left space between the fingers and the hat. It reminds me of when I first started painting, and how I was terrified of messing something up so very carefully left just a tiny big of space between each color on the piece to make sure they didn't touch and go outside of where I wanted them to be. It looked pretty ridiculous, to be honest, and I regret having done it since there's one piece that I would actually be proud of if I went back in and fixed those gaps. If you're afraid of the color of the arm getting lost in the basically same-toned hat, just change the hat arrangement. I think you could get away with swapping the yellow and the red, or possibly deciding on a multiple-greens sort of scheme to echo the background. Although I am not certain either of these is the appropriate choice as I rather like the color scheme of the hat itself, just not the way it interacts with the hand.
Overall though, I am glad you did this. You experimented with something and CLEARLY had a good time doing it, which is something I think we should all do, lest we get stuck in our ways. I think if you experiment with this style more you'll eventually wind up with a really cool way of making really cool art, so please don't be discouraged by this critique. I'd really love to see more like this, but with more control and purposefulness.