Russian Landscape + Fantasy/Sci-Fi Critique

[Emanuel Burke]

[Emanuel Burke]

Hope to get a critique of this digital painting I made last year, greatly inspired by Russian artist Stepan Kolesnikoff. My primary work is in Byzantine(ish) iconography, which you can see here: http://www.emanuelburke.com
I don’t do much illustration like this, though I hope to do much more and get better at it. Feedback is more than welcome.

[haggiben]

Hi!

I think that there is definitely an interesting story here and the rendering is done quite nicely. I really enjoy the light that the luminous plant is casting on the surrounding elements, particularly the grass.

I think that the composition is a bit off, forcing all of the elements into one place,

which also happens to be very close to the middle, I think perhaps moving the tree a bit left and the character a bit to the right could balance out the make the composition a bit more interesting.

I think that placing elements in the middle is a very bold statement, like saying that this is so important and definite like something devine,

and the story that you are telling seems to be more calm and exploratory than that.

 

I think that there is to much detail in some of the shadow areas and

that they should be simplified like what you did in the bottom right of the tree.

I find that defining simplifying the shadow areas from the get go is very helpful when creating big pictures like these

because it allows us to be “lazy” in a lot of places in the drawing while still maintaining the detailed look.

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