wonderful work! i like the face and light! +10

i was craving for some kick ass digital painting and this did gooood ;D pouring one's dream and being able to reflect the story behind is something not many people are capable of doing nowadays, now that's what I call inspiration (let alone the perfect artistic skill)

kudos +9 of 9 for you =D

great work on the hair and the expression. I can see the sadness & absentness......

i thought this was a woman... i find very odd guys with female face. i like the color.

nice technique, I like the rim light and the placement of the lightsource. Also the background pattern is very cool, as is the cloth in the bottom.

However this image has the same problem with most images of this genre - the massive backstory is told at the description section instead of telling it in the image. Cut in the chest, cliche. Fairy faced characters with luminous qualities, cliche. Holding a piece of jewelry/knife/amulet/etc, cliche. None of those really cut it in the storytelling.. they are so used and they're too vague hints to tell the story well enough.

Only after reading the description could I understand the story, and only after that the cut in the chest and the locket started to really make sense. I guess the problem is partially in the attitude that "yes I can just make a character posing and pretend it tells a story", instead of drawing the beat of the story where, say, the witch steals his heart or something. It's all fine to write long descriptions as it's possible here, but at some point of your career you won't have that oppoturnity..


But that's just my personal opinion, and like I said, nice technique. I'm not saying I could get even to this stage with characters, so maybe I'm not the right guy to judge, but personally I can't understand why people wouldn't bother telling the story properly, seeing that their technique would be good enough to do it. (And this doesn't apply to just this piece, I could say the same to most of the artists doing this genre)

Great moody painting. The details are a treat!

Wonderful work¡¡¡¡¡¡+10

Excellent!!! +9/9

thanks everyone for the comments!

Crow, i kind of know what you mean, though as i said in the description, i don't remember much about the dream, all i really remember visually is him, and i don't want to make something up because i wanted to just paint him the way i saw him.
if you think it's cliche that may just be a difference in opinion, personally i wouldn't want a book cover to give away the entire book for me, i'd rather read it. i think trying to explain too much in an image would make it too cluttered.

thanks for your comment though

Hello yume, how are you?
However, I think this is a quite lovely painting - there are some anatomy erros, but those can also be seen as stylized which means it doesn't harm the painting as a whole and so I am giving you 10/10

I think his arms could be a bit more polished...it's kinda blurry now. But it's completely lovely and I love it! Great work as always. I see nothing wrong with telling a story that goes with the portrait of the character. You had a pretty interesting dream

that's another amazing one of you! love also the sad story behind... my max

yume:

was this a book cover? if it was, you forgot to mention it. I thought this was a gallery piece. A book cover exists to arouse the interest of a potential reader - the cover exists for the book. In a gallery piece like this, it's quite the opposite, it should be the image that tells the story.


I agree that you shouldn't try to include everything in one image. However, I would think it smarter to try to depict an event that tells the story instead of just painting a character posing like here. Actually, so many pieces of this genre contain a character posing and the only thing that varies is whether the person is holding a knife or jewel or whatever, get my point? The storytelling relies heavily on small clues like a cut on chest that could be read in thousand ways - not so good if you are trying to tell a specific story.


I was tempted to post comments like this some time ago but managed to shut up back then. Now I couldn't, and this is in no way anything personal, this applies to a lot of stuff. Just saying my opinion.

As for the cliches... observe this genre. All that stuff has been done to death. Personally I would at least try to be more original.. it's hard because artists like Linda Bergkvist set the bar quite high, but you gotta try.

I love the colour scheme, and the fact that it looks painted

Crow, thank you for your opinion, it's very interesting.
This wasn't a book cover, I was just using that as an analogy. The story was actually a dream, the only part I could accurately recall was the boy himself, I really didn't want to paint an event because I can't remember anything that really happened. (I'm sure anyone can understand this, I can usually never remember anything about my dreams after I wake up!) All I remember clearly is the boy, he's all I wanted to recreate. In light of that, a simple portrait worked fine. I also like when people can come to their own conclusions of what my image is about before reading my descriptions.

I'm not trying to completely disagree with you or tell you you're wrong, I just have a different taste. I like simple portraits, to me just facial expressions are enough to draw me in. Though if I was doing this for a client and they wished for me to tell the story in the image, I may have gone about it differently, but this one was for me, and I wanted a portrait

Thank you very much for your comment, I'm grateful you did share your opinion with me. In the future I'd like to try a "scene" type image, since it's true that I don't do that often enough :3

Very beautiful work...

about Crow's comments, he is right, it is cliché... but the biggest part of the illustration stuff we can see on gfx and other web sites like this one are cliché... its the Genre itself wich is cliché , its possible to do something original but really hard, and we dont see that much in this kind of images.
thats not saying you did a great work... i got painting like these on my walls, these are cliché too , but beautiful nonetheless.

thats my personnal opinion but i think one day, when you will be more experienced, you will be able to create painting like this one, but with the touch of originality making it stands apart.
its not really a critic for me... its more like... one way to get from good work to trully unique et personnal style standing out of the rest...
keep it up, you are so young and yet able to paint so well, its amazing

+9 (because its awesome, and +10 reserved for the mastery i was explaining )

great work, good details and colours.

lovely painting ^_^

cliche imo is generally inevitable in some types of paintings...yours comes out mainly because its very well made
i'm liking the technique, i'm liking the textures. composition, the slight backlight and esp the face
i'd work a bit more on the shoulders and upper parts of the arms, they're looking a bit too round and sulky

''Mysterious affaire''

superb... i am the boy whose heart was stolen ... +10+

Nicely painted, I particularly like the glow of blue from behind him.

Regarding the story, I would recommend you get a hold of Hans Christiaan Anderson's "The Snow Queen", as I think you would find that an interesting read if you have not.

thanks puimun! i'll have to look for that story, i've like all the stories by HCA that i've read so far!

thanks everyone ^^

very well balanced and well painted, I really don't have a lot to say, your works speak for themselves..

you paint very beautiful people ^_^ +9/9

OMG , your pictures are so beautiful ! , I adore you 7/7

I don't understand what people mean by cliche? I guess if you're the kind of person who's seen so much artwork that almost everything has been done to you so everything becomes cliche because it's dark art....I guess you'd say that. Seriously though, if you like it you like it. Regardless I still find it to be very unique and well done.