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dierat — Dragoness
Published: 2011-04-05 18:43:14 +0000 UTC; Views: 9863; Favourites: 231; Downloads: 0
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Description
This piece is a metaphor for self-reflection and the relative nature of memory. In your world, you are the hero: your life is your own epic tale. But your memories are what you make of them, and sometimes - if you look longer and harder at the features of your past - you may catch a glimpse of a villain.In this painting, the dragon and the color red represent the ‘villain’ or wicked creature whereas the unicorn and the color green portray the ‘hero’ and a noble spirit. The headdress is based on the heart-shaped hennin en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hennin www.kats-hats.co.uk/heartshape… which was worn by upperclass ladies in Europe during the middle ages. In this image, the headpiece is worn to camouflage the horns and make them appear to be a decorative accessory.
Here's the brush I used to make the texture on the glass in the background:
Reference for the horse:
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Comments: 99
Thank you so much; I really enjoyed reading your comments! 
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You are most welcome. Have a nice time!
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The light is beautiful, her fabric is beautiful, the folds... oh lord, the folds... /insane.
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Thanks, I'm glad you like it!
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Wow, amazing details! Beautiful color palette, too. I love the lighting. Pieces like this, where there's artwork within the artwork, are so cool!
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Thank you, you're so sweet and your kind words really made my day!
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gorgeous! The light is so natural, and the colors!
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I love how natural the light looks in this work. You're very good at using light and shadows.
The various textures in the work are very interesting. There's the woman's skin, the different types of cloth, the wall, and it all looks very good, very natural.
What I like the most is the unicorn. You used the reference photo quite well.
Something you might want to reconsider, though, are the beams of light. I feel like they are a bit too harsh, a bit too bright. In this, I think I prefer how you did the light in the previous version of this work. There it is softer, with a bit of a glowing effect, and I think that would work better here.
All in all, though, I have to say you are very talented. I hope you'll keep up the great work
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Thank you so much for the detailed comment! Yeah I know the sunbeams are kind of the weak link of the piece - I went back and forth over whether to have them more subtle or more obvious. In the end I choose this version because I felt it had more atmosphere and was more visually striking because of the high contrast, but I understand that it's still the weakest element. (Honestly the piece just wasn't very well planned and I'm happy I got it this far 
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Wow, thanks! And thanks for the 
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wonderful work, stained glass if an effect you don't see being painted very often, but it looks so beautiful here!
the way you draw fabric is simply magical, it looks as if i could pick it up and let it run through my fingers.
Keep up the standard, i look forward to following your work
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I love the background. Cubism type art is really coming up in the world!
Nice job with the folds of the dress too, that's one of the worst things I can draw
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Thanks! I worked very hard on the fabric so I really appreciate that!
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Nice job on the lighting. I like her outfit and the stained glass window.
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Great work! The background is amazing. The source of light is just right. I don't have much to say about this. It's a great image with nice colors, effects and details. Very well done!
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This piece is beautiful. I love the composition and the lighting. The fabric here is very, very nice...I just love it flows.
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Wow! I like all the symbolism you put into this 
The newer version is much improved aswell: the lighting is better and the heightened contrast works really well to separate out the light b/g and dark f/g. I also like the stylised stained glass illustrations, a little detail that adds much to this lovely artwork
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Wow thanks, I'm glad you like it! Yeah the idea behind the dress is that she presents herself as a noblewoman (green dress) but underneath she can't change who she is (red dragon). And thanks for taking the time to read the description and understand the image; I don't think many people do that!
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no problem
ah no problem, if the artist has something to say to help your understand the artwork, then it's a bloody good idea to read it! XD
i don't think I would have ever got it otherwise ^.^'
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That's some pretty sweet work you've done. I love the detail that you've put into this one! I also love your Frosted Glass Texture.
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This. Is. Incredible!! Wow
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Great rework! The figure looked pretty darn good before, but now it's really quite excellent. I love your lighting and colors--the fabric is stunning. I think the expression changes you did on the face make a great difference too--much more appropriate for the mood you're setting. Lovely piece!
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Oh hey, it's you! I was actually going to note you and ask if you could crit it now that I'm done reworking the figure. I'm going to try to work on tying the scene together a little better by adding some sun rays or dust or smoke or something to push the window back and space and make it more obvious that there's light coming through the window, not just bouncing off it like it kinda looks right now. And thanks for the kind words, I'm glad it looks better now
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Oh, and if you're still tweaking, another thing about glass is that certain colors are more transparent than others, depending on their opacity. Sometimes blues are super transparent, whites tend to be really opaque, but they sort of catch and radiate light. Sometimes they're swirled, and transparent in some spots. Dark colors are kinda tricky, but usually they're pretty drastically different in levels, and fairly highly-saturated (which makes it a pain in the ass to work in with a composition like this XD But I think your colors are good.). The thickness of the glass is also going to change the color--handmade panels are kind of unreliable because glass is a finicky bitch that will totally go LOL SCREW YOU and go wonky-thickness if the material's heat and mixture is even a tiny bit uneven. Basically, even panels from the same batch will have variations, and the color doesn't always mix evenly. Just random glass things to think about. XD More irregularity and certain hints of transparency here and there might go a ways to suggest glass.
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Thanks, I really appreciate your thoughts on the subject. I noticed that while looking at religious stained glass windows that the figures tend to be really opaque and they'd have more of a glow rather than allow light to pass straight through. Do you think that's just because they tend to use white for the skin?
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Most likely. White's opaque, so that would definitely do it. They also tended to paint on the panels that made up a figure, so the paint may add to that.
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Oh that makes sense. I noticed the figures has a lot of tonal work, and I thought maybe those panels were made out of a different material that allowed them to add that kind of detail. It never occurred to me that the extra material was paint
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