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Thesis-D โ Sunset of Tears
Published: 2012-12-09 07:35:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 1415; Favourites: 42; Downloads: 0
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Description
(Here is a song I listened to continually as I painted this; it helped give me that feeling of despair, isolation, lament, and inevitable loss or defeat; hopefully it helps you enjoy the picture also. [link] )It has been three days since the barbarians of the north invaded the outskirts of elven territory...
The Priestesses of the Great Forest, whom had accompanied the royal elven Vanguard, to intercept and halt the advance of the Great Horde, positioned themselves at key locations atop the ridges, cliffs, and corridors; prepared to lend their magical support wherever possible; erecting force fields, barriers, and casting powerful healing spells to protect both themselves and their comrades.
Despite the great power and might of the elven hosts, the sheer numbers of the Great Horde, which seemed as limitless as the sea, became too overwhelming and the war had become a battle of attrition; a battle the elves were now losing.
At sunset, the battle took a turn for the worse. The Horde, broke through the elven center and into the final defense line. The Priestesses, already wounded and fatigued from earlier battles poured out all their remaining power to deflect the incoming bolts as the elven vanguard sounded the retreat; their plan to trap and halt the advance of the barbarians in the corridor a complete failure.
As the sun was continuing to set, so too were the the numbers of the elven host dwindling. The Priestesses held their ground in prayer; their faith and courage serving them while their bodies no longer could...
Tears were streaming down and glistening off their beautiful faces; they did not want to have to end so much life or any life at all; and the sunset only served to remind them of all the precious lives already lost to this point, elves and barbarians alike; and they lamented and mourned the dead even as they were attacked, butchered, and shot down.
Would this sacrifice buy enough time for the Royal Army to arrive, and turn the tide of battle?
Would the remaining army and priestesses themselves survive the onslaught?
Only the setting sun knew for sure...
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Comments: 104
beautiful! The story and picture both~! There a lot of feeling, and the concept is wonderful.
The sunset and clouds are amazing, and her scar are very well done *u*
Love the green-blue glow~!
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This fantastic! This whole picture is truly amazing!
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good job on the colors and lighting. I like the sky too.
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I love this! Your character is amazing! The colors really maker her stand out. I want to get better at digital art, it seems like it takes awhile to get the hang of.
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Thanks. How much experience do you have with digital media and what programs do you use?
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Beautiful colors and beautiful linework. I love the depth of the background, and the fluidity of the characters lines. It's just beautiful.
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I love the energy you captured in her hair. Her dress is very nice too! Great work and lovely color!
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Thank you. I'm glad you like it.
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Beautiful drawing, I love the background. And boy, I want that dress. And those shoes. 
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LOL, maybe she can have a dress and shoes custom made for you...if she survives that is.
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In that case, she HAS to survive
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Really cool picture! I love the colors you used - especially for the background - they are really pretty. The way you painted it is stunning! Also I love the effect and the feels that this picture gives.
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I really like this picture 
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I think the background is amazing. Reminds me of some photographs Iยดve seen, but I know it is digitally painted by yourself.
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very nice colors, i like her dress and shoes too !
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Oeee dark setting but the whole idea and description fits the art. Very nicely done , the bg with the sun going down and the dark sky falling over it all is super for it. The teardrops flying away might be a bit to big here and there. The magig looks good, somewhat of a bow and arrow or shield with a lazer. Good robe aswel as some tearing from the on going battle. Realy good piece of work that.
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The colours are really expressive and unique. I love it!
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I really like the story a lot! ^^ I love stories of hopeless situations, and I love elves. I like the design of her dress and her sandles are very pretty. The background is amazing. It makes me think that it was once beautiful forest, but is now decimated by war the way the elven armies are. Personally I wish she fit into the background a bit more, in this she seems to not be a part of it...but maybe this is intentional? As though the pain and desperation can't touch her?
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She's in the foreground, as most portraits tend to place characters. I understand what you're trying to say though. The pain very much affects her.
You keep commenting to my work, and that's fine, but if this is for the purposes of the thumbshare thread, and you are wanting some replies back, please post some thumbs in the thread so I can reply to them.
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It is a nice image with pleasing colors. The background is good and her placement in the scene fits well. Since it is intended to be an emotional story, that she's losing a battle- it might be something to consider to have her less well-posed. She is standing quite rigidly and in a beautiful pose with her legs as they are, but doesn't appear to be losing from this position, despite wounds. Think how this would make an impact if she was down on the ground, looking up at her attacker while struggling to repel him. It would have the audience on the edge, thinking this is the end- and what happens in the next instant left to imagination. Mentioning a 'horde' of attackers in the story, it is good and very intriguing however I have no sense from the image that they are anywhere- she is alone in the picture, and I could assume she is carrying out some magical ritual in solitude. The serenity of the background in this sense almost works against it, it does not look like a battle is raging it looks more like a nice evening with a pretty magical lady. This comment is not meant to say the work is insufficient because it's not- these are only suggestions to you about the story and how it is portrayed.
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She's not standing at all; she levitating, which is the only real reason her right leg is bent that way.
I'm sorry, but what you're proposing would completely change my entire picture; what you're suggesting isn't in line with my concept, theme, or art. I realize you're trying to be helpful, but I think you're suggesting more what you would have wanted to see over commenting on what you ARE seeing and working with what it presented to you.
This isn't a rough draft where your idea would be more helpful; its a completed work, and you're not really commenting on it; you're telling me what you wish you saw instead. I apologize if my response offends you, but yours was not very helpful. And just in case you do take offense, no, I am not too sensitive and I do take critiques well; its just that you didn't give a critique at all; you gave me an idea for a completely different picture that doesn't exist.
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This is a beautiful drawing. There is so much emotion going on in here that you did an excellent job capturing. You did a really good job with the lighting that was emanating from the Magic. The wounds on her are also excellently portrayed.
I feel as if the eyes look a little too flat on her face the shading in this area could be fixed a little to address the problem. Or maybe it is that the bottom eyelid lays rather flat across the one eye? I also think that the shadow on her legs right under the dress could be darker.
Other than those two things you did an amazing job!
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After looking at the image for a while and reading the short story to accompany it, you do get a feeling of desperation in the piece, but some of that feeling is lost when you don't actually see the rest of the battle being waged as your description refers to. If it were possible, it would nice to see this as part of a larger image where the Great Horde is attacking and literally plowing through what remained of the troops that priestesses were a part of and her behind them giving support. Dead bodies should be littered around her, horde and soldier alike, to further reinforce the idea of her previously being attacked and people trying to defend her.
Other than that, I do like the way the priestess is rendered as she gives off a vibe of being fairly powerful and yet still very vulnerable. And I like the way her hair and legs came out, plus the additions of textured on the clothes were a nice touch.
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Thank you.
Aside from having no plan to draw the actual battle for this picture, I feel it also works to use your imagination, where your imagination does the job of creating what is going on off-camera. An example of what I mean would be something like that battle scene in War of the Worlds (the one with Tom Cruise) where there's lots of effects and a fierce battle going on, with emotional music, tanks, fighters, soldiers, choppers, missles flying everywhere, etc, but the hill itself blocks the view of the carnage, and by doing so, makes the scene more startling and moving actually, since you can only IMAGINE what is going on on the other side; and they play on the emotion the scene had to build up a battle you're not even seeing. Some people complained about this part of the movie, but I see it as a director knowing what he's doing.
Now, I'm not using this example to justify what I've done, only explained how it is and how it could be. If I have more time in the future to produce a bigger picture, I definitely will have more in-frame stuff going on, as is only natural. In the first stage sketches for this there were bodies at her feet, but at the time, the foreground didn't really exist, and she looked to be more on a mount or hill than on the top of a ridge or cliff, hovering and looking down.
So even from an angle perspective, I had limited myself by doing this route without a panned out view.
. Her positioning on the ridge would not allow for dead bodies to be littered everywhere, they'd mostly be in the chasm at this point.
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Ah, okay, now it makes sense. I have seen imagery developed along the idea you presented since the dread and fear of what's happening to the character also helps to build upon the suspense of that sort of scene. Though, I guess the first thing that popped into my mind after reading the description was to have more of the scene surrounding her, but I guess I also pulled back the camera to get a better view too.
On a related note, do you also happen to do thumbnails when you craft your images?
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I'm not sure I understand your question; are you asking if I draw thumb-sized pictures; if so, no, there's no point to drawing something so small. All of my work is hi-res, which I then resize for upload when its finished. I used to upload the hi-res files so people could see all that up-close detail, but I've shied away from doing that; and more recently, DA came out with that system where you can charge people points to download the full-size files of your work, and these points then become actual money you can transfer to a bank. Since there is now an option to make money on premium downloads, I'm thinking of reserving the hi-res files for that.
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No, no. Thumbnails are not tiny detail images, they are used solely for figuring out design and layout before you go to through the rest of the creation process. Another way to look at it is small scale sketches you can pump out quickly to see how the image would look before painting it entirely.
As for the hi-res file downloads, it's not really a bad idea to have a file or a image pack that people could pay for if it's priced appropriately. Though, it's often frowned upon since it can also be seen as someone trying to make a quick buck.
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