Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Zak vs Adrian Smith, Round Two

click to enlarge
A few months ago, I posted about doing an homage to an Adrian Smith illustration from one of the old Realms of Chaos books--and about how I fucked it up. 

This is my second attempt--I won't write anything about it today, you can decide for yourself what's working and what isn't.

Here's the (still completely superior) original:
Here's my first attempt:

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5 comments:

  1. Arnold KJanuary 24, 2017 at 7:38 PM

    I really like the first attempt. Dense but not garbled.

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  2. Jean-François LebretonJanuary 24, 2017 at 11:45 PM

    The Snow Amazon looks much more static to me in the second attempt but Mandy's PC has a better dynamic

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  3. UnknownJanuary 25, 2017 at 8:06 AM

    I think they are great save the ball and chain. I do not get motion from it, and I think the hand is tight rigid when it should be revolving in a circular motion - some wrist action. How you capture that movement in a snapshot, I do not know. Regardless of my concern your art is evocative and impressive.

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  4. IsaacJanuary 25, 2017 at 8:37 AM

    The only thing I don't like about this is the positioning of the mountainside vs the two figures. In Adrian's original, the stairs are almost just a suggestion of stairs, but they are there, and they give this dynamic effect of the two figures leaping off of the stairs, caught in midflight.

    In yours, it's hard for me to figure out what exactly is going on, and my mind gets caught on it. Are they sliding down the mountain? If so, there doesn't seem to be enough of a crumbling outcropping for the morningstar woman to have caught her fall on. Are they falling? If so, why is the shadow so connected to the mountain? A really small change that clarifies what exactly is going on there so my mind can move on to the much more exciting detailing of the figures in battle would help me out.

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  5. Spitting TrashcanJanuary 28, 2017 at 7:45 PM

    With the caveat that I don't know anything about anything:

    The thing that I notice as different between the model and the two derivations is the degree to which the two actors are physically interacting. The demon's hand on the angel's throat and the angel's foot on the demon's thigh clarify their respective positions in space, which in turn helps with interpreting their relative scales and dimensions. The first iteration retains only the foot-thigh point of contact, and the second iteration has no contact at all.

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