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firepixie — Free Falling
Published: 2008-03-13 11:55:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 900; Favourites: 7; Downloads: 0
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Description
Hello all, this is another commission (part 1 of 2) for the friendly *Green-Legend .She gave me a basic idea to run with: show green plummeting from the sky with a powerful left punch aimed at something or someone on the ground. I was interested in doing a shot of her falling with the point of view being from the ground, but she wanted a side view and that's just fine.
Man did I run with it.
I had a lot of fun with this one. I converted two styles I've been tinkering with, clean crisp lines and grainy painted effects. The background and glow effects were especially fun to paint in with custom brushes I made; the green from the power energy punch, as well as general surroundings, gave the clouds a realistic look in my opinion.
I wanted to give this image a feeling of comic book motion, hence the speed lines and motion blurs in the panels and main image; I wanted to convey that the force and speed of her fall from the sky was so intense it made it hard for the viewer to focus on her. The speed lines took ages to make from scratch, I'm so glad I saved them as a brush for later use.
Finally, the wings. This is actually the first time I even bothered to try to do bird wings properly; usually I cheat.
Even now they're not completely on the mark, but I suppose practice makes perfect, right? I was actually having trouble with that classic superhero pose, so I took a few silly reference pictures of myself (no, you can't see them; they're for me and my shame to view only 
).Ironically enough I listened to a lot of random opera while working on this. I think it had a touch of influence on the final piece.
Oh well, another log awaited commission complete, I hope *Green-Legend likes it.
Tools and References used:
Adobe Photoshop 7.0
Myself (reference photos)
Copyrights and Inspirations:
Image © Copyright 2008 Raquel Richardson; Please do not copy, alter or redistribute this image.
Green Legend © Copyright 2008 Her Player
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Comments: 7
Very cool how you mention opera infulencing you for this picture. After seeing the final result I'm curious to know what classical tune you were playing.
Everytime I look at this 2 different random thoughts come into my head.
1) The old school cartoon sound of a missile heading for the ground
2) That one near-the-end of the movie scene from 'The Iron Giant'
(If you seen that movie, you'd know what scene I'm talking about)
Great action and flow in this one, 
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Oh, I wish I could give you a nice long list of the opera that I was listening to on the day I finished this piece. I can't seem to remember. 
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This is really, really amazing work you've done here. I've beenwanting to do a comic panel type piece like this myself, but I've been lazy. Now that I've seen this, I want to try grainy paint effects even more. 
Soething I noticed while drooling though...the little green make under her eye is over her right eye in the middle panel, but over her left eye in the far right panel. Was that intentional?
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Ah... hmm... Er...?
Ha, good catch there babe. I was confused for a moment, but it seems the "right/left" switch doesn't seem to work the same when the subject is turned upside down and the viewer is looking from the underside. I see and understand what I gotta do. A simple flip of Green Legend in the center should fix it hopefully.
If you'd like a longer explanation on how I do the grainy effect feel free to note me.
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Thanks, I'm glad you like it.
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