Goblin critique

[JohnnyMccoullough]

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Johnny!

So I think this is rather interesting because it reminds of 17,18, and 19th century illustrations of Mephistopheles from Goethe’s (or Christopher Marlowe’s or just the fairy tale of) Faust, about the doctor who sold his souls to the devil for wishes, riches, and the woman of his dreams. I would definitely take a look at the famous Mephisto sculpture by 19th century Russian sculptor Mark Antokolsky (link below)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Antokolsky#/media/File:Mephisto_by_Mark_Antokolski,_marble_(GTG,_after_1883)_by_shakko_09.jpg

What I recommend is that you focus on the forms of the head, the skull, and of course, major plane breaks. The thing is, that even if you exaggerate the character and features, they still need to correspond to a structured head (and that’s even if it’s more graphic and flat in execution.) So here, for instance, I would make sure the nose is attaching like a pyramidal form to the face, the jaw by the ear is pushed further back from the face, and the ear (even if kept that big) moved down.

[Iliya Mirochnik]

As for the color and medium application, I would try to apply it a little more smoothly. This is not because I don’t like texture. I actually do. I just thing that learning to apply texture more smoothly allows for a development of more variation and gradation in that texture. Variation of texture is the key, not texture itself.

Good luck with this piece and others, I think there are some very tasteful things here, but they have to be made to shine, and not be lost amongst too many other qualities that obscure them.

[Author]

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