CGAN Feb 23 - Fairy Tale - Final entries

Fairy Tale

Brief: A pretty open theme this month. Do something Fairy Tale related.


Deadline: Thou hast until the stroke of Midnight Tuesday the 28th of February, late entries will turn into a pumpkin.  

This thread is where you post your final entries, WIPs should be posted over here:  cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...b-23-fairy-tale-wips


Challenge rules and guidelines:
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challenge-rules

Rules in brief:
- All challenge entries must be your own work.
- You should post at least two WIP images that are clearly different from your final entry and each other.
- Your final entry should contain your image (inserted so it shows up full size) and at least two links to your WIP posts on the forum.
- No chatter in the finals thread – if you have questions, post them in the WIP thread or PM an admin.
- Feedback is allowed & encouraged together with the voting and in the WIP thread.
- Deadline is given in UK time (midnight UTC) with a grace period of 5 minutes for getting the post sorted.
- Each member may cast one vote.
- No cheating! Admins may decide to disqualify an entry that does not adhere to the above rules.

WINNER - Charlotte

WIP 1: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=20#44517
WIP 2: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=20#44522
WIP 3: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=20#44531
WIP 4: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=30#44546
WIP 5: cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=40#44562

Hans my Hedgehog 

Wip1
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=10#44478
Wip2
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=10#44491
Wip3(a+b)
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=20#44516
Wip4
cgartnexus.com/index.php/forums/challeng...-wips?start=40#44587

Final

 

Voting time, please cast your vote in a post for one of the following entries:

• Charlotte
• Banj
• Va... er, oh 
  

Voting will close at midnight of Wednesday the 8th of March, and a winner will be announced several days later when someone notices it hasn't been done 

I vote for Banj!
Little Hans is so cute and I like how we can tell the difference between the soft fur and the (allegedly soft) spines and even the straw on the ground, even though it's all done in black lines....

I vote for Charlotte 
The clean lines, nice sense of depth, book covery (which I considered doing with mine but didn't).

(and now we wait... again )

I think both of these images are wonderfully successful at capturing the essence of the brief and both could equally be a part of a single book collection of tales with Charlotte providing the cover and Banj creating the illustrated plates inside.
As Charlotte said, I think the way that Banj has put so much variety in his surfaces and mark-making shows an impressive sense of patience and discipline to control those lines and details. And that face is just so expressive!
For Charlotte's book cover I was also impressed at the use of texture. I think the use of different grains works well to add interest to the areas of negative space and the work on the fruit and the bowl is good enough to make that a little still life picture on its own. And as I said in the Wip thread, the consistency of the portraits is excellent. I know from my own previous efforts with mirror pictures that it's all too easy to end up with something that looks like two different people staring at each other through a window. But there's none of that here, in this image I can see and believe that it's one person looking out and back at us.

Minor critiques for both images would be that text in Charlotte's pic. Maybe my eyesight is getting worse (actually it really is! ) but I still find it hard to see that initial "O" against the background.
And for Banj, I think the linear shading under the foot tends to make that area look a little flat and maybe contouring the lines more would show the form better for something so far in the foreground.

Voting time now...
I think I'm gonna pick Charlotte. The colour choices, use of texture and capturing a gaze that bounces through the picture to engage with us are all examples of terrific work and the overall image has a recognisable feeling of something from an old fairy tale. Well done!


As for my own effort... I did successfully repaint the texture masks and made an attempt at a last moment render but weirdly the result was so dark that you couldn't see the wolf at all. In the last frantic days I seem to have introduced something that creates a conflict with some of the lights in Cycles because earlier lo-res tests looked OK. I'm still not sure what the problem is and investigations will continue. If and when I solve it I shall post it in the 3D thread.

Congrats! ... Both are very nice images folks, and very well done. ... But I would have to say Banj, for this one.

I may be a bit bias here, because I am a sucker for sketches/inks such as this. Especially when well done... 

👔