Monday, October 12, 2009

Zombie Anthology: Ophelia Hathaway


6 comments:

  1. There is something fun and surreal about your colors and the way you are painting in a realistic but stylized manner. The dark floor is adding a nice value to really frame the baby and dog. Definitely reads as a family portrait!

    I question whether our zombie people have the right faces. There is something sunken and gaunt about them of course, but it feels like you are in the middle of painting them. For instance, if their eyes are gone, I want to see a dark space where there eyes were, meaning the socket. A slight value shift reads almost like they have painted doll faces- something still on a sphere of cloth and cotton. I think you could get away with the light values on the face if the eye sockets were more resolved. On another note, I do like the aesthetic- I think it may just need to be pushed in this case. A technique to try later in a non-zombie piece, perhaps??

    On another note, do you guys think she needs to add something to the room (floor molding, picture frames, etc) or does our bleak surroundings fit the the illustration?? Discuss!

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  2. The poses and textures work awesomely for it, but I'm getting behind the "do more with the faces bandwagon". I kind of want to see some less-alive fleshtones in there: mix in a tiny bit of purply bruising or a more rotted look to the exposed muscles.

    The bare-bones setting works in a "This Is A Sears Portrait" kind of way, but I kinda wish there was something else in there to break it up. Dustboards, wallpaper pattern, anything.

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  3. i also think that the colors are nice, as is the handling of the paint, but i think to a degree it still looks a bit unfinished because of the lack of evidence of any eyes, residing in the skull or otherwise. your concept still holds up, its funny but i think the eeriness doesnt suffer for this. as far as putting anything else in the room, i dont think adding anything to the atmosphere of the room would hurt. floor molding seems like a good idea, not to embellish the bleak room, but the transition from floor to wall is just too non-descript for me to buy. and maybe a picture frame in back just to break up the space, maybe a picture of them when tey were alive? (also, maybe go back to the father's collar.)

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  4. I second the comment about purplish or greenish tones in the skin. That's something you could even just play with in photoshop and send Adam the digital file- that's all he needs in the end. It would be fun to experiment with and see what happens. ~Lauren

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  5. you were really successful with the family portraitness of it, i feel that vibe very strongly. and i enjoy the sears portrait studio ness of it. im assuming this is acrylic coz of the sheen, but that makes it look like a glossy print.

    i agree with the face comment, they look more like the aliens in They Live than zombies. and i feel as tho there should be more reaction from the baby/dog entanglement. it seems more like theyre posing and less like a moment of action captured. also proportionately i feel like the woman would tower over the man when she stood up. not that thats a problem, just an oddity that struck me as.... odd. i think the problem with the emptiness of the composition is that when you normally see those portraits they're more closely cropped to the family with much less negative space around them. but to fill the space as it is, you could place one of those fabric covered pedestals in there? maybe the mother's leg can be set atop it?

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  6. Good call on the figure proportions, Kevin. maybe she played in the WNBA?? You could scale the guy up in photoshop but it would be a pain if you don't know the program.

    I think it's one of those "oh yeah" moments where you have to either redo it or just say that it's off and next time you'll pay more attention in the drafting stages. I mean, everyone is going to have one or two things that are off when they send it to Adam- it's just a matter of what things really need to be fixed and what's possible in that amount of time. For all of these posts remember that it's a regular critique giving you a chance to fix things that are serious turn offs, and it's up to the artist what things to edit if any.


    Good observations, guys.

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