Latest works

I seldom come here now, but I just don't want to completely leave, spent such a good time on this site. So I thought I might post my latest stuff:
- the first two ones were done for my mother, who is the sunday school teacher in our parish. The first one is the prophet Elias in the desert, being fed by birds. The other one is Jesus accomplishing a miracle.
- 3rd one: an elven general (Tolien), before Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
- 4th one: this one has a quite complicated story: recently, I started a discussion on DeviantArt with a girl. The subject was one Tolkien "nerds" like me are quite familiar with: Tolkien's elven characters' hair color. She pretended that there was no statement anywhere that Legolas was blonde, and she said she had always imagined him dark haired. I was convinced that I had read somewhere in the Silmarillion that all Teleri were blonde. Since Legolas' ancestry is mostly Telerin, we can assume that he would have the hair color most Teleri have. But I searched the whole Silmarillion and I couldn't find a single reference to Teleri being mostly blonde. The problem is that, before that, I had sworn I would draw a dark haired Legolas if I didn't manage to prove that he just had to be blonde. So, please Legolas fangirls, forgive me, here's my dark haired Legolas.
Now, I still believe there should be a statement somewhere in Tolkien's works at least indirectly implying that most Teleri had light hair. So people, if you find it, please tell me.
- 5th: my next to come Bible inspired painting: Jesus and his disciples on the Sea of Galilea.
- 6th: another project, started two years ago and never finished, I've started to work on it again. This painting will be based on the Fall of Gondolin in the Silmarillion. There's still a lot of work to do with the lineart though, I'm currently correcting the mistakes on the two characters at the foreground (the elven princess Idril Celebrindal and her human husband Tuor, both are the grand parents of Elrond and his brother Elros, who choose to remain human and is a far ancester of Aragorn).

I like the Third one, I would like the last one the best if it hadn't had the Fold in it. (I know it has nothing to do with the art itself, it just takes away from the look enough to where it's unnatractive.)

it's jesus! :P

what would jesus play sunday on the radio.......

Actually, it's not a fold, just that the picture is too big for the scanner so I scanned it in three times (two would probably have been enough). It was a quick scan because I just wanted to show the WIP lineart to a friend.

"Bullet with Butterfly Wings", by the Smashing Pumpkins?

lol, will there ever be a post by Worm that I understand the first time I read it?
Does "draw more" mean I've got to train more or does it mean you want more drawings from me? As for the "cdb;bkbbxnw:c;,n:nrfvlsknlqndslnln" stuff, I haven't got a single clue as to what it may mean...

Colored version of Legolas:

Please, no Worm vs Storm flame war here, I beg you...

Actually, I have several version of this pic: http://www.deviantart.com/view/19643814/
As you'll see, the lineart was no longer visible on the colored picture, so I copied it from the original picture and pasted it over the colored version. I then experimented with luminosity and contrast and choose to set contrast to max to get a really dark lineart. But should you prefer other versions, I can provide them to you. As for the colors, well, I like watercolors ^_^

no, seriously, was my comment that harsh? Calm down, my friend...

Watercolor-like ps colorings don't look so well, since the charm of watercolor is its... well, let's say its authenticity, even it's not really the right word. Ps colorings never really succeed in perfectly imitating it, and it looks, in my eyes at least, wrong, like a coloring WIP, something unfinished...

You should just try to color it like it should look like in real life, the result will probably be unrealistic, but cool looking.

Oh, it's just my opinion, and I'm pretty sure I'm wrong, anyway.

Your legolas is still very good. Far better than the ancient drawings of your gallery, though it has the same characteristics, and the same global feeling.

Don't worry, I was not criticizing you, this was just a short "mise en garde", because you two always jump at each other so fast that I'm now being frightened by the smallest spark... anyway, thanks for the comments :)

You're definately improving. However, I believe it's more so in the body structures, I think your faces aren't up to par with the bodys. The faces look very simplified, try going out on a limb and putting more detail in there. I suggest trying an old guy with this first, they have lots of wrinkles and their body facial structure also adds to detail. I like Jesus, Jesus kicks ass. http://www.thefunny.org/easter.php <--- proves how cool Jesus really is.

Lol, that site was funny. Blasphematory, but funny.

I'm aware that my heads tend to be too simple. I couldn't add more detail to the Jesus watercolors because the paper's grain doesn't allow to small details. But it's true than in general I tend to make quite simple faces (some small manga influence?) In fact, the problem is that my aesthetic ideal is actually this kind of simple faces. Well, not in reality, but I have always been fascinated by the fact that only a few lines are enough to create a nice looking face, so often once I'm content with the few lines that have roughly shaped the face, I stop adding detail. The other thing is I mostly draw elves, and I think their faces are supposed to look different from human faces and especially to have almost no irregularities, wrinkles or stuff like that (ideal beauty = no irregularities... there are other forms of beauty, but that form is IMO the most accurate for elves). One final thing is I rarelly shade pictures (although I've done it quite often of late). Adding detail to a face in a picture with almost no shading will almost always make them look like wrinkles, so I try to avoid that by putting little detail.
EDIT: one last parameter is that my drawings have always tending to be miniatures, it's difficult to add detail at small scales.

Well, then my advice would be to do some seperate face studies (googled or from loomis etc) to get a better understanding of how you can simplify the facial structure to create a very unique form. Simplifying is definately not something I'm against because I have such a hard time with it myself, so I'd encourage this actually. It's just that studies never hurt eh? :)

Well, most of my doodles are actually facial studies. And although they tend to be more realistic than my other drawings, to have more detail, they often lack something (I'm trying to find out what it is). What's loomis?