Artorder - the assassin devil

[Steel General]

There were 4 that really jumped out at me (didn't jot the names down).

[jfrazierjr]

I had a lot of fun with the armour. First time I've drawn metal and I'm really pleased with how it came out.

I'll say! Rock on, that armor looks freaking GREAT!

[Ascension]

Molnar and Stitz look pretty good to me. Maybe PhillipStephen and I should jump in on one of these.

[the-golem]

Lets see. I like her color overall, althought I might give her a bluer tinge. The descriptor says "indigo" which (imho) is more of a midnight blue, while your's is clearly a violet-ish color. Secondly, I would make her eye 'pop' some more, maybe give it a glow of some sort (like the reference image). Also, her feet has fourtoes, while the reference image has three. And, yes, the arm is way off. The way it's bent suggest that the fore-arm is bent towards the user, meaning it should be getting larger as it gets closer. IMHO, again, its too short, and the fist is too small. Also, the chest angle doesnt line up with the shoulder angle. Given the amount you can see of her left (rear) cleavage, you should be able to see her left shoulder as well, and probably some of her arm. Another thing, the neck might be too long. Maybe. If you add in that left shoulder it might work out a bit better.

It'd be nice to see some tail, maybe coming from behind her and sweeping left, out of the cloak.

I suppose thats all. Overall though, I like the composition. The shadowy cloak is really keen, and I like the shoulder piece also. Although, maybe the cloak could use a bit of blending. In some places you can still see the brush blots.

[torstan]

Thanks a lot for those crits. That's a great run down. Let me go through them. The indigo was lifted directly from the definition and flood filled. I did add some red into the highlights so I think that pulled it away from the core colour, but I wanted to warm the piece up a little. In the case of the eyes yes she could go more demonic. In restrospect a nice gold would have stood out well and given her face more character. In the case of the feet - nope. I removed the fourth toe for the final image. I saw that I'd got the early design wrong and corrected it. That final image only has three. For the right arm , it certainly is coming towards the viewer and the hand is larger as a result. Taking standard measures, her fist is wider across the knuckles compared to the rest of her body than is normal (roughly 2 eye's width would be standard), but perhaps this could have been increased. The forarm was done without reference and I think it shows. I should have hunted down reference for that part. In the case of the chest - I did use ref for that but looking at it now the left hand side of her chest is indeed too far out. Good call. The neck on the other hand is accurate. I spent ages nailing the measurements on that. It's because she has no hair that it looks long, but it's anatomically bang on.

The tail was an error. I should have added one and didn't. I just didn't think of it.

In the case of the cloak - I wanted to leave it loose and splattery. I wanted the focus to be on the face so I made sure the smoothest redering and detail was there. I think a few more different brushes could have gone into the cloak and made that work a little better.

Thanks a lot for the crits. You nailed the two things there that could really do with more work - the arm and the chest.

My own thoughts (now that I've had a couple of weeks away from it):

The pose could be more dynamic. She should be crouched. The legs should be splayed further.
The lighting should be more dramatic. The armour on her lags should reflect brighter highlights. I choise to leave her bottom half dark but I think it just gets lost when viewd smaller.
Place her in an environment. I love what the other submissions did with the surroundings. I wasn't sure how to build an environment into the vignette but there were some excellent examples. Not only do they ground the piece, but they also add to the story telling.
More detail. She could do with a whole host of embellishment on her outfit. I specifically chose not to do this as I wanted to make sure I could draw plain armour before I went crazy with bells and whistles. Next time I'll add the extras.
Less human. She's a devil, not a slightly adjusted human woman. It could do with some skewed proportions, a very different face and some scales and ridges to give her a clear heritage.

Otherwise I'm pleased with it. I think I achieved the things I wanted to with this piece and I know what I want to focus on when I do my next one.

Thanks to everyone for the critiques.

[the-golem]

Hmmm. Silly me, I went to that contest, to read about it, and never thought to actually look at the submitted piece. The changes you made to the final piece really tie things together. Any nuance I noticed from your posting here is gone. Really sir, five gold stars! Since I don't have any stars to give, have some compasses instead. Job well done, I congratulate you.