Tower Theme Critique - John Rhys Garcia

Student: John Rhys Garcia - Original Piece

Hello and welcome to the first Art Jam portfolio critique! First I would like to start out with saying that here at Art Jam we're all about constructive criticism. While we may be critiquing your illustration everything will be constructive optimistic feedback and how to make it portfolio ready. Please refrain from making any negative comments that are more to just deter instead of grow. With that being said, let's “dive” into our selection this month which is an image by John-Rhys Garcia.

Composition

Here we have the submitted piece. I would like to take just a second to talk about the overall composition. The first thing that I noticed is that the piece does not delineate its focal point. I believe John was trying to make the main character doing a leap of faith to be said focal point, however because of how things are arranged it can be difficult to spot.  Too many objects deter such as the cloud formation and the very busy tower.  The second thing I'm noticing is that perspective is a little wonky in terms of him leaping towards us.

The actual tower and the two pursuing crusaders look truthful besides little nitpicking things; Our main character is not so lucky, almost appearing to be on a different perspective plane. I think the misperception occurred with the plank from which he soared. 

Based on the trajectory, the position of our camera and the perspective the character appears to be in two point perspective, while the rest of the image is in the three-point perspective. At this point it appears almost as if he's on a completely separate perspective plane.  

Secondly I think if the character was tucked in a little bit more closer to the tower as well as may be cropping the image, removing some unneeded negative space, it can give a more dynamic feel.

So I've shown you where to crop the image itself while maintaining the same ratio and help follow the rules of divine proportion.  

Cropped Image

Our character is pushed out of the clouds and there's not as much empty space, we get a quicker impression of what is our pivotal theme. While our character is clearer, this creates some other problems such as the bow ready crusader no longer aiming at our hero. This can be adjusted or redrawn later. For this critique I want to focus on our focal point and composition. If we inspect the image from our present state, quite a few things still need attention. The Value Range is fairly shallow and certain perspective elements of the foreshortened arms are awkward.

Value Range 

Original Values

One thing that will help push the illustration is a stout light source constructing a wide range of tones; unfortunately it appears our original piece is at about 40 to 50% gray. Your image does not have to be half black and half pure white, but a balance will help the viewer’s eye read your image quicker.

While it is not essential to have your light source directly in the image, an understanding of forms and of how light functions with them is key to success. With that understanding we can push our values for a more effective and convincing illustration.  After observing your picture, it appears that the light source is the sun and everything is side or back lite. I added some pure black just to give an idea of how to drive your tones. 

Cropped Image with Solid Blacks

One thing that I cannot stress enough is do not be afraid to push your darks in lieu of details. If something's completely in shadow or backlit the details will be washed out in tones and form. At that point the particulars will not be distinguishable and it's more about nailing the shadows to build your form.

Arm Perspective 

Now the perspective on the hand and arm seems to be a combination of the skewed perspective and shoulder misplacement. The upper arm (Bicep/Triceps) is too short, not accounting for the armpit and the shoulder. This, by extension, is making the forearm appear too long. By trying to make the arm follow the traditional straight line approach to perspective, it appears to be dislocated and bending the wrong direction at the elbow. Below you will see a breakdown of the arm in the perspective provided. Note the bend at the elbow. Even in a dramatic pose with extended limbs, or hyper extended,  it’s important to remember a key point for arms and legs, your upper arm and lower arm are generally the same length. The same goes for your shin and upper leg. With the perspective provided, the arm would not go back into space; instead it would be "back" from the character, but coming towards the camera. This would allow us to see the armpit, the upper arm and the forearm in all equal parts. 

Adjusted Arm Perspective

That will conclude the large sections of the critique and there are many other things you can do to always make any illustration better. For example you could always push your form with the guards or cut back on some of the lines of a tower. Instead of drawing every brick you can give an idea of the wall but again these are all stylistic choices. If you want to show every single brick, go for it. Just be sure to always think about your focal points, form and what it’s your end goal on the piece.

Please feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything I was saying or if you would like me to go more in-depth. I hope you've enjoyed this quick critique and hopefully this is the first of many monthly portfolio themes.