Conan and the Snow Giants

KenJ

Mongoose
A little fan art piece I did, took an older drawing of mine and revised it to it's current state. Hope you like it :)

Conan_and_the_snow_giants_by_KJimmy.jpg
 
Mongoose_Will > thanks alot, that's some high praising :D

Da Boss > much appreciated :)

Clovenhoof > thank you :)

thulsa > Glad you liked it :) I'm certainly more inspired by old school artists than many of those I see today, not saying that I'm not in awe by what alot of them do, but for me it just works better to paint more old school style. Maybe I'm just sentimental? ;)

Hmm, took me a year ;) It was first an drawing I did in 2007, very happy with it then but looking at it now it pretty much stinks ;) But, I liked parts of it so i decided on updating it. Fiddling around with it on and off for a week, an hour here and an hour there inbetween other work.
 
Welcome to the Conan RPG forum. It good to see you here.

I remember the original from a year ago, and I had to
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it. I even remember commenting about who you should think about being a freelance artist. And by the way, your work is better then most published works I have seen lately.

I like the new one as the nighttime works better. I also like how you added some extra detail to it, like all the frosty-breaths, and and all the snow flowing in the wind. It looks a lot colder! berrrrrr......!

Keep up the good work man!
 
Malcadon said:
Welcome to the Conan RPG forum. It good to see you here.

...

Thanks alot, looks like a fun place to be.

Alot of great published artists out there, but hopefully I'll get my foot in the door somewhere with my fantasy drawings soon ;) Just have to draw some more examples first, so that I have more to show for. Doing Conan stuff would be the greatest though ;)

Hehe, yeah, it's pretty cold up there, and Conan isn't really dressed properly but I went with a bit of artistic license in order to give it more impact and contrast. Besides, I'm working on my anatomy skills as well, so covering him up in armour and clothing isn't gonna help me ;)
 
I noticed the left-handedness too. Conan is also wearing his belt around his hips, not his waist (or so it looks to me).

I also noticed that Conan's skin reflects light almost like a mirror. I would prefer more natural skin tones than the well-oiled professional body-builder look. Also, what is the source of the bright light on Conan's right side?

I am not sure what the light source overhead is (I presume it is the moon), but the giant's shoulder and Conan's shield gleam as though the light is intense, but the rest of the background treats the light source as rather mild.

I love the background, and the light coming from the interior has a nice, warm glow to it that seems realistic. If only Conan's skin albedo was treated as realistically...

The skin tones on the original were better, but Conan is still wearing his belt around his hips, not his waist.
 
Clovenhoof said:
It just occured to me that your Conan seems to be left-handed. Well I suppose he'd ambidexterous, but anyway. ^^

Hehe, well you see the old original had it right, but I flipped it cause I felt the composition worked better that way... But I did change the position of the sword, that was on his right hip before...
 
VincentDarlage said:
I noticed the left-handedness too. Conan is also wearing his belt around his hips, not his waist (or so it looks to me).

I also noticed that Conan's skin reflects light almost like a mirror. I would prefer more natural skin tones than the well-oiled professional body-builder look. Also, what is the source of the bright light on Conan's right side?

I am not sure what the light source overhead is (I presume it is the moon), but the giant's shoulder and Conan's shield gleam as though the light is intense, but the rest of the background treats the light source as rather mild.

I love the background, and the light coming from the interior has a nice, warm glow to it that seems realistic. If only Conan's skin albedo was treated as realistically...

The skin tones on the original were better, but Conan is still wearing his belt around his hips, not his waist.

Love to get critique like this, I don't mind it at all, only way to get better.

The reason for Conan becoming a bit shiny was that I got alot of comments about the pic lacking a real focal point, the background was too busy and the two giants got too much attention. So, I upped the contrast on Conan and lowered lowered them in the back... I guess the reason for the low belt is that I like to draw the tension you get in the hips and low abs, trying to get it to look more dynamic...
 
Objective judgement:
Good quality creation! but I'not a professional in the field, so maybe I'm not a good judge.

Subjective judgement:
I like your Conan but I definitevely do not like the shape of the giants.
Maybe I'm a Conan-traditionalist but, if they are the brothers of Atali (and I'm maybe wrong), I would prefer a more Viking-like appearance, especially for the one in the foreground.
 
I won't give any judgement on the pure Sword & Sorcery aspect but you have much skills in drawing.

Unlike Thulsa, though, who think of Easley, the art, the drawing and your personal "touch" as well as the lighting make me think of Luis Royo.

A good reference indeed.
 
LucaCherstich said:
Objective judgement:
Good quality creation! but I'not a professional in the field, so maybe I'm not a good judge.

Subjective judgement:
I like your Conan but I definitevely do not like the shape of the giants.
Maybe I'm a Conan-traditionalist but, if they are the brothers of Atali (and I'm maybe wrong), I would prefer a more Viking-like appearance, especially for the one in the foreground.

Thanks alot :)

Well, they're not the brothers of Atali... This pic is only inspired by that story, as in I wanted to draw him fight some giants in a snowy landscape and that's it ;) besides, the front giant is a chick ;)

I must admit to not having read all of the Howard Conan other than the comicbook versions, Buscema is who made Conan come alive for me. But, I've ordered the books now and should have them in the mail soon. I'll do more Conan pics, and by using the Howard text try to make the drawings as canon as possible. Might even ask in this forum for guidelines if there are things I'm unsure of...
 
The King said:
I won't give any judgement on the pure Sword & Sorcery aspect but you have much skills in drawing.

Unlike Thulsa, though, who think of Easley, the art, the drawing and your personal "touch" as well as the lighting make me think of Luis Royo.

A good reference indeed.

hehe, yeah it's pretty much old school sword and sorcery and perhaps not so much what Conan seems to be about today. But thanks, I do really try to grow as an artist and I'm pretty happy with this considering it's the first fantasy pic I've done in over a year.

Can't say that I'm very inspired by Luis Royo, he's very good technically but that's about it for me... Guess I'm more inspired by Frazetta, Staples, Wyeth, Sanjulian and a host of others. I used to like Royo, but he seems to stick to the same stuff all the time, and the textures are always the same for rock, metal or cloth ;)

But thanks, glad you liked it :) I'll do better next time, put more dynamics into it :)
 
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