Intrusion by ThemeFinland on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Overall

Vision

Originality

Technique

Impact

I really like the patterning and depth on this one. The scene is fairly balanced and the depth of field is spot on. The false musculature on the creature's body helps create a sense of realism and robustness amongst the surreal atmosphere. And of course, the creature's pose makes the piece work well by complimenting the dynamic background and foreground components. The foggy breath, then, brings everything to life - though only a hapless observer would think that that is merely fog!

However, the foreground lighting leaves something to be desired. Mostly the ceiling light closest to the viewpoint and some odd reflections on the body:

The rough ceiling lighting works just fine in the background because it's not distracting or overwhelming back there. However, the clear 'beams,' which you pretty much never see on indoor lighting unless as an artistic effect, are somewhat detracting where they overlap the creature's left shoulder ( on the viewer's right ). The foreground glare is something I'd expect the creature to ominously pass through if we were watching a movie, but it doesn't work as well in a static image.

There also appears to be some sort of sharp line at the end of the creature's left shoulder tentacle ( on the viewer's right ). I can't seem to figure out whether it's lighting or rain or what. It doesn't appear to follow the shadow/body marking contour shown on the creature's midsection just below that area, but the parallelism makes it somewhat more noticeable. The light scribble just above that spot doesn't help to hide it either.

Lastly, although the other light spots on the creature's body are similarly roughly lit, the spot on the creature's left hip ( on the viewer's right ) quickly becomes a focal point due to its extreme brightness and strange shading. This is a problem because otherwise the creature appears to be smooth, punctuated by deep ribbing, and then stretched or compressed along the axes where the creature has extended its body. However, the deep rifts on the left hip give the impression that the creature is bending over at that location even though the body curve is much more gradual. Succinctly put, it takes away from the illusion of continuity. I believe the lines themselves are well-positioned (rotation + bend = large diagonal & small horizontal stretching) but it's just too delineated relative to other such reflections, especially given its central position on the image. Additionally, one of the dark vertical coloration bands in this area appears to split in two on top of a dark stretch line, then one of the two vertical branches terminates on the nexus of multiple dark stretch lines. One could call that an "injury" or something, but because of the strong lighting nearby it ends up looking unintentional. All of that said, while I'm not usually a fan of roughly-drawn bright spots, it works well on the rest of the body by adding detailed context to the creature's visage.

One more thing - I really like the work you did on the glass shards and broken window. It draws your eyes around the image, you think, what is that? Then you realize it's glass - well drawn glass at that - it's one of my favorite parts of this scene. It seems like you took time to set the reflections on the edges of the glass, which I really enjoyed seeing once my focus moved away from the creature.

All in all, this is one of the best images I've had the pleasure of viewing lately, it seems like my inbox has a lot of great work these past few days. Thanks for taking the time make and share it with us.