Amazing colouring, good job.

Beautiful vibrant colors and I love the pose. He has so much personality showing, a self confident and cocky nature that dares anyone to challenge his point of view. The background makes you think he is on a battle field defending his tattered colors. I also like the textures used in the material of his clothes and the flag to give them a feeling of fullness and movement. Nicely done, but I would like to see a bit more detail in his hair perhaps to equal the rest of the piece.

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Glendora Bowling
Member of The Critiquers Art Group

"Stress"
That confusion state created when one's mind overrides the body's basic desire to choke the living shit out of some asshole who desperately needs it.

Wow what wonderful colouring and detail. I just love how the flag wraps around him like that. And if I,m not mistaken, looks like it takes the shape of the wolfs leg and claw right at the end. What a clever idea. Top marks for you

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Life is more accurately measured by the lives you touch than by the things you acquire

Ooooo dirty whitetrash half shirts on men never looked so good! Well not since the 80's anyway. Heh Jesse is hot.

I know it's been a while since I commented on your work but I feel that this one deserves some critique and praise as well. First off, the flag is fucking amazing. It looks very realistic in places and etherial and ghostly in others. All in all, a very brilliant bit of work. Now for the dude. His face looks way less realistic than the rest of his body and it doesn't seem to quite mesh. Now this is not a major complaint but a few less hard lines around the mouth would do wonders for the piece. His jaw seems very weak and effeminate to mesh well with the very steroid pumped body below it. He can still be considered pretty by some standards even without the bishy face. If his muscles were long and whipcord lean, it would make more sense but this guy looks like a bruiser. Now, the one thing that REALLY stands out that takes away from the piece is his left arm. I can tell you had an assload of trouble with this. Did you use a photo reference for the pose? If so, I can understand where you might have had some problems because there are some things in photos that look really good and don't transfer very well onto art. If that makes any sense. The biggest problem lies in that you made his upper arm way to short. His elbow should reach the small of his waist. And if he has his arm elevated, it has not been foreshortened enough to make this clear. It looks like he swiped that arm off a very muscular midget. Hand looks amazing and so does the gun and the outfit. You did an excellent job with the shadows and lights in the fabric. I also like the minimalistic background. It's quite dynamic. The only other thing I can think of that I personally would change is the nose. And that is just a matter of taste. His nose seems really short, pushed in, and bunny-like and his mouth is sort of drooping under it like an afterthought. I applaud you for the use of the Confederate flag. I get so sick of hearing how rascist it is for us to want to remember our history and our ancestors.

Ok...gonna tell you what I told a few others that mentioned this...
His body is meant to be slightly tilted, his shoulder slightly raised, and his bicep is way over developed. I have a lot of body builders in my life and typically if they don't work hard to balance everything out(or simply don't know what they are doing)they can overwork the upper arms with curls and combine that with overdoing the bench-press(what evvvvery guy does too much of) and the body gets an off balance look that seems to shorten the upper arm because the muscle is so large it won't allow them to touch their elbows to their sides.

See what I am saying? Now how the heck do I get that look and NOT make him look OFF? I’m totally clueless and just trying to figure it is giving me a migraine. I used no photo references, but now I am wishing I did. The only “reference” I really had was many hours in a gym snickering at the guys overdoing their arms..heh..I have a sketchpad full of quick little drawings from there...But yeah, life doesn’t always translate well onto paper so I don’t know how to bring this bit across...any suggestions?

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Nick Graves
AKA S.N.Graves
Me on MySpace [link]

Well, It looks pretty good. The colours are great, and the painting itself, the textures and shading are very good. I only have a couple of issues with this. The torso seems much too short from the midsection up, and his arm looks oddly placed. It appears as if its coming from too close in front, and the fore arm appears too long in proportion to his body. His face is great, though, and I love his hair and eyes... and the wolfy outline incorporating the flag is really neat, and the drapery is especially well done.

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I knew I shoulda taken that left toin at Albequoique...
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Member of: [link]

Visit, if you like dark elves/drow.

*shrug* Okay. You seem to have your mind made up that this is the position you want him in and that the upper arm isn't too short so I will just let you get back to your regularly scheduled program. I suppose if I put over a hundred hours into something, I would be loath to change it too. Or even fiddle with it any more.. And I think that the reason many guys cannot touch their elbows to their side has more to do with the size of their lats than anything else. In some cases, they have 'imaginary lat syndrome'. Looks like a step backward evolutionarily because they start to move like apes.

No...I haven't made up my mind that it isn't wrong. What I said was there was a look I was going for and I CAN'T seem to get it...That's why I asked if you had any suggestions as to how to make it look right and still retain that over developed look. Spent about 6 more hours last night trying to figure out how to shift things around to make it look right and gave up. Unless someone gives me a really really helpful suggestion about how exactly to change it, I'm just going to step back from it until a lightbulb goes off and I figure it out on my own. Otherwise I'm gonna end up deleting it and starting over...which honestly would suck.

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Nick Graves
AKA S.N.Graves
Me on MySpace [link]