extremely cool i would favorite it if not for the exposed nipples

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amour pour vous.

Curious. I like the contrast. and I just finished a Neptune poem too, so I just had to comment. I like the highly stylized female figure in the mask. She looks very alien.

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Dead Account. Go Away/.

Very nice, I like the idea of the planet series. Out of the two, the blue one is my favorite, but as to why I will get to a little later.

To crit, there are two things that stand out to me here.

1) The face is skewed. It's apparent that you're going for a certain level of stylisation here, and I don't know much about etching but I presume that there's only so much detail you can squish into it, but using a stylisation is in fact a good reason to be even more careful about the general shapes you depict. If you flip the image horizontally in some CG program, you'll most likely notice that the face is looking strange. In general, it is easier to draw faces if you start with construction lines. Andrew Loomis has a book on that over here. A few lines such as the central axis with some perpendiculars can go a long way towards drawing a nice face.

2) I believe that more could be done to create a feeling of environment. This is also why I prefer the blue version - the color along with the bubble-like background elements creates a feeling of the enire scene taking place either underwater or in a similar place. However, the sepia version lacks this feeling. It isn't easy to create a sensation of environment for a very stylised and somewhat abstract drawing, but it can really go a very long way in telling a story. What are the background elements meant to be? (I'm assuming that they have a special meaning here.)

Well and then there are some minor nitpicks that may or may not be taken into account, but I understand that you can't really alter this particular picture in a significant way. One thing is that line above her mouth - it looks oddly out of place. Or is it the mouth and the thicker line below - a shadow? Either way, they're looking a bit odd together.
Then, the shoulder of the bent arm is a bit lower than the other one, so the breast should actually be lower on that side, but considering the stylisation, I guess that can be ignored in favor of the composition.

Well that's about it. Keep up the good work!

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I bite! o,,o

hi thanks for the indepth crit, its rare to get them on DA.

I just wanted to address two points you made.

Firstly regarding the use of construction lines for drawing faces, I dont agree with them. I've been thaught them and have used them in my drawings but have a had a number of different drawing teachers over the years kick them out of me. I'm not saying they are a bad thing, i think it's good for people to learn them but you should be able to move past using them. One method of drawing that showes you why the use of construction lines is more of a hindrance then a help is Jim Mcmullan's[link] high focus drawing method.

I see this piece as more of a blind drawing as i was looking in a mirror and not the plate when i etched. Blind drawings tend to come out looking a little weird depending on how ofton you practise doing them [picasso's blind drawing look amazing]

Also on a seperate note the downside to etching is you can't really remove a line once it's down so even if one was to use construction line you couldn't on an etching plate. Sorry didn't mean to start rambling there.


"What are the background elements meant to be? (I'm assuming that they have a special meaning here.)"
hmmmmmm nope, there just shapes. lol would love to say they mean something really deep or that i put alot of thought into them but i really was just drawing free hand onto the plate with the etching needle and thats what they ended up looking like. I prefer the blue print as well but as i want to bind all 9 plates together into a little book I will have to use the same colour ink on all 9 plates. Hand wiping each plate with different colours takes a good 30+mins, then setting them on the press in the right order, actually printing and then cleaning the plates and starting all over. So that would give me about one book per hour, i would be printing all year just to get a decent number of books. i thought about silkscreening them instead but the actually images are tiny and wouldnt transfer well to silkscreen.

I agree with alot of your points regarding the figure. I don't think it looks particularly good but i enjoyed the spontaneity of creating it and at the end of the day if you dont enjoy what you do for a living whats the point?

Thanks again for a decent crit

Well yeah the main point for bringing up the lines was the shiftyness of that face. I mean they're there to keep symmetrical things symmetrical. Of course, how precisely you do that is entirely up to you, that was just a suggestion.

Anyhow, about that high focus drawing method, could you please direct me at a link where it's described? I'm curious, and I can't seem to find it on his site.

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I bite! o,,o

Oh i understand why you brought it up. I agree that the face is dodge, i hope you didnt think i was being rude or dismissing your comment.

I don't know if you'll find a discription of Jim's method online, if you search for his name or "high focus drawing" on amazon you should find his book, i thought he might have something about it on his site but i guess not. Jim teaches [or thaught i think this year is his last] at the school of visual arts in new york and that's were i learned it.

Another good book to check out is Karl Gnass's spirit of the pose [link] he does use limited [very limited] construction lines but his work is much more about the movment and gesture of the pose which is what i aim for with my work.

I think this one's my favorite of the series. Very pretty, especially the blue one. Nice job!

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