After Jules eating a tasty burger I was feeling confident enough to take on The Stare. It’s my best painting yet but the expression isn’t quite right, it’s lacking intensity of the original and I’m not sure what I’m missing. Feedback?
I’m doing one more SLJ in this series, it’s time for Mace Windu. That’ll make 16 and then I’m in to paint some family members. Not sure I’ll share them here, privacy and all. But this series has me confident enough to try, I’ve learned so so much! Thank you for all the feedback, critiques, and advice!
Your forms, lighting, colours, and values are all technically quite strong, but I see what you mean about not conveying as much emotional intensity.
It might be a limitation of the style itself? The way colour and light are used here make the eye want to appreciate the play of sunlight across foliage rather than connect with Sam’s baleful gaze.
It’d be interesting to see if you could achieve the emotionality of the original with either increased realism or perhaps less, to emphasize the feelings on display. Or you might try a more surreal composition to give it some Edvard Munch energy. That’d be a fun angle.
I want to emphasize that you really have a great piece of work here, and it’s hard to be very critical when the technical achievements of the work are so strong. Thanks for sharing.
Edit to add: or you could just try emphasizing the tension in the eyes and mouth, just pushing them a little bit past what is shown in the reference photo to make them more legible in this style.
Yep I’d go with the mouth tension, it’s too relaxed
I recommend watching Clint Eastwood movie, there’s one with a scene with a close up that feels like it’s a whole minute of just his intense stare and some subtle mouth movements. Obviously he kills half the bar in 10 seconds after the scene.
Can’t remember the name of the movie, it’s where he’s avenging Morgan Freeman (?) getting killed.
By the way, great job mutha fucka Ball Man
Oh wow, all great ideas. I do feel like to push myself as an artist I will need to go beyond what is right in front of me. Thinking about it is intimidating and I’m not really sure where to start. But I will absolutely save your comments and reference them when I’m ready to give it a go!
In terms of digital painting, you’ve already far surpassed what I can do and I would love to see how much further you can take it. It can be intimidating to push yourself, but I for one would be delighted to see that happen.
Me too! It’s nice having adult kids and discretionary time to get back into things I gave up when I started having kids.