How to improve my GD entry

[Fontane]

Hello, this year I entered the Chicago golden demon and won silver in youngbloods once again, after the ever-out-of-my-reach, very talented Collin Engelhardt. I think the details, composition, and blending on my piece this year far surpassed my entry last year, but I was wondering how I could have improved my piece. First off, I know the blending isn't as smooth as it could be, as I left much less time for myself than I anticipated I would need (the silver nmm was done the night before I left for Chicago, where I spent another night in the hotel finishing up the piece). The cloak and places like that do however show my top ability in blending.

So, please give me you critiques and comments. Thanks!

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[Beamo]

You youngbloods have come a long way from where most were when I was one. I saw this in the case and thought "man, to have been able to paint that well 10 years ago."

My personal thoughts, so take them for what they are;

A Death Jester is typically a darker, more sadistic harlequin. I don't really see the yellow being a good fit for him in that respect, other than the fact that teal and orange just look good together in general. Furthermore, I don't think the orange as a shade is working; I would have taken it darker in the folds, and pulled the orange out for the higher points, rather than carrying the blend all the way up to near-white.

Your NMM on the base looks great. However, on the gun, you didn't take your shades deep enough, and your proportion of highlights is much higher, which took away the believablitlity of the metal.

Next time you're out somewhere, take a look at the chrome on a car and watch how the reflection shifts as light hits it. The more you do that, you can start to get a visualization of how that plays out in life in your head, and you can start to imagine the piece you want to paint being made of a reflective metal in your minds eye. Then you just have to paint what you see.

I don't think any of the things that detract from the figure are due to anything fundamentally wrong, though. I think over time, as you paint more and more, your instincts on color palette will see you through very well. You produced a really good piece, far better than a lot of things I see adults paint, and I look forward to seeing more from you in the future.

Keep up the practice, and I foresee you being someone that racks up a lot of daemons over the years.

 

[war0827]

First off, let me start this by saying congratulations. You young bloods are some stiff competition for even us non-young bloods. I really do love the piece you did, but like Beamo was saying....the NMM on the gun looks a bit rushed and not as smooth as the base. I'm assuming that you were working on that last minute as you mentioned, which tends to have us rush more to finish on time.

The other thing is the orange cloak. I really don't mind the model having orange or yellow in it, but the shading could have used more darker colors blended with the orange....maybe like scorched brown or something. The blending into the highlight could be a little bit tighter and used a couple more layers.

Honestly though, if you were 2nd, then you were pretty darn close to capturing the gold. Either you were blown out of contention or it was a hard choice for the judges. In this case, I thought it was a hard choice they had to make.

Great job again and keep it up!

 

[MrH]

I'm just a n00b to this hobby but I actually preferred your entry, and the bronze entry to the winning one.

 

[skeeve]

Now, whatever you will read beyond this point is just an opinion ans as such should be taken with a grain of salt. First of all, let me just say that this was my favorite piece in the category, it is technically complex and rarely (if ever) people in Youngblood are bold and skillful enough to paint this particular mini. That being said...

1) As Youngblood is essentially a technical category there is this temptation to "dazzle" judges with complex techniques, multiple wide range blendings and complicated free hand. I understand this but keep in mind that judges have seen it all and are not easy to dazzle. So, think of a coherent and limited color pallet and work it well. You have way to many colors some of which clashes. For me all yellow elements here are unnecessary and somewhat out of place. In the end each and every element is painted well but the mini lacks focal point.
2)Silver NMM really didn't work and actually I never thought that this was your plan - in the amazing light of Chicago the gun looked almost like bone and would be more convincing as such if you shifted your colors away from gray/white toward bleach bone/light brown. If you want it to be NMM steel you need to maintain much higher contrast between bright and dark elements. In adition bright reflection should be much more "concentrated". In your case for example the upper part of the gun and underbarrel are similar and are uniformly bright over large area. Take a look at ref pictures of real guns. Look at the distribution of reflections.
3) Tone down your gems - they are too bright and attract to much attention.
4) I would go for more contrast on the face mask and the ribcage. In this case you need deeper shadows

 

[10 ball]

This is brilliant work. I carn't really offer much advice on how to improve seeing its well out of my painting quality but I think the base is a bit fussy. I would be over the moon with silver. I think the improvement you are after will come with time. You should be really pleased with your standard of work.

 

[Fontane]

So I'm getting two reactions that I thought myself in fact. First, If I took my time, looking at reference photos, shading down further and using more layers like I've done on other paintjobs I've done, the nmm would have made a much better impression. I regret not doing this. Second, the yellow. I know it was very bold and risky, but I thought at the time it would make a stronger impression. As it were, I think blending the freehand gems on the back into a vibrant yet darker purple (liche?) rather than yellow, it would have kept the palette cooler and more controlled, perhaps even sending me into that gold spot.

So that's what I think I could have improved. Now, I know the death jester was the main focus of the piece, but the plaguebearer was almost as large a part of the composition as the jester, and tried to use to make several effects. It was darker, more subdued, and more subtle in order to hopefully make the jester seem all the more pristine and sharp. I also tried to connect the two very different sections by using many spot colors from the plaguebearer on the jester as well, like the kneepad, which mirrored the colors of it's face, and the main bone sections, which mirrored the plagie's raw flesh. What are your thoughts on this, did I succeed?

 

[Matt Cexwish]

I personally liked your Work better then the Gold, so keep on the Great Work and be more brave with your Topic (more Conversion, more idea and atmosphere...)... Will be Good in the End, you will see...

 

[kathrynloch]

In the end each and every element is painted well but the mini lacks focal point.

Skeeve, this is a fantastic point that applies to any mini and every painter no matter if they are youngblood or gray beard...er...blood...yeah. It's the synergy of the piece - when the sum of the whole is greater than the value of it's parts.