A Critique from Trollsmyth....
I am insanely flattered at the moment. I had made up my mind to set up some links to this blog of other blogs I found inspiring. Artists mostly... save one which is Trollsmyth (cool name eh?). I placed him as a link simply because its not just other people's art that inspires me... but the wonderous worlds that spring from RPG games. People who know me know I am a total MMO dork... and that prior to that I even did some geeking out to pen and paper D&D. They always spawned some of my most inspired doodles. Trollsmyth seemed to me a blogger very on top of the RPG industry.. something admitedly I wouldnt have a clue where to start outside of the small circle of MMO's I am involved in now.
So where am I going with this?? Well if you take a gander at his most current post he has done perhaps the most thorough critique of my art and myself as an artist I've had in my entire life. And I have to admit, he mentions things about my style I had never even noticed before.. for instance the fact that I work from the bottom up. I pondered my most current illustration (I'll post a WIP tonight)... and realized that indeed, the bottom is almost complete... the top, hardly touched.
Thanks Trollsmyth. =) It means alot to receive such a wonderful crit from someone who so closely follows and world and genre that is created and imagined by artists and dreamers that are leagues ahead of me in skill. You could have posted a scathing crit if you'd wanted! ;-)
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Masks & Highland Cattle Sporrans by Lea Sheler Evans
1 comment:
Thank you very much for your kind words.
Yes, I could have posted a scathing critique. You can always find something to grinch about if you really want to. But since I’m too poor to patronize artists, I encourage the only way left to me.
As for how I guessed you work from the bottom up, I wasn’t sure, but there are little clues in your art. The way your figures have their feet firmly planted on the ground, or even have a “third leg”, like Gollum’s hand or a flag’s staff, also touching the earth. The way your horses are standing, not galloping. But it was the sketch of the dragon from ’97 that really got it to sink in for me. That long, wonderful tail, looping around and then coiled up, like the exposed root of an oak or the knee of a cypress. The dragon is solid, grounded, full of weight and depth, in spite of its gossamer wings. I get a very strong pyramid sense from it, sloping levels built up over time.
That’s one of the things that makes the “centaur and stuff” sketch so intriguing for me. The dragon with one foot precariously balanced on the ball. And that horned helmet (?), floating in the air, severed from earth, hanging like a warning, perfectly balanced but top-heavy. It retains that sense of depth and heft that your other drawings have, but it’s not rooted like they are.
Thank you again for the link and for sharing your art. I look forward to seeing more of it.
- Brian
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