Master study of Frank Frazetta painting
3yr
Gannon Beck
I've been doing black and white studies in gouache and decided to do a master study of my favorite Frazetta painting before I moved on to color. I'll probably come back and make a few adjustments to this, but on the whole it was a great learning experience/confidence builder.
Man I bought some very nice gouache 2 years ago and I've never used it. I have got to get it out, this medium looks amazing.
Very nice replicate there! Slight distortion problem but overall looking quite well done!
You picked one of the most challenging paintings to replicate. In this depiction of "The Destroyer," Frazetta shows his masterful level of skill. I think you did a good job; however, there are some slight details that you could work on to make your replication better.
1. The destroyer is pretty darn good. You captured the ax and the stretch of the main character's pectoral muscles well.
2. The fighter at the immediate left has his head down. You oversimplified the cranial shape and the necklace, making the form hard to decipher.
3. The fighter with his helmet facing the viewer has his back foreshortened more in Frazetta's version.
4. The fighter in the center and closest to the viewer has more rump. Your version chops that off ever so slightly. Butt that makes a big difference (that's a terrible joke on my part).
5. The fighter, bottom-right with his rump facing the viewer, needs to have more mass in his left gluteus maximus.
In all, this is an excellent attempt. I would try again, as I think Frank did. I'll bet he practiced this painting or parts of it several times before he finalized it. I feel inspired and may attempt this one myself.
Franzetta was also a master of focusing the viewer's attention. Your level of detail and constrast is more uniform across the whole piece, which tends to dilute focus.
Good attempt. Keep at it!
Thanks for the feedback, John.
I'm putting this down for a bit, but will come back to it with fresh eyes to make some tweaks. I'll make sure to reference your notes when I do.
I'd like to start using gouache it seems like such a great media. Is this step, establishing all of your values, your first step before color, would you start color on top of this?
You can paint in gouache that way--Alex Ross does--but this was strictly a value study for me. It's a way of getting used to how the medium handles while controlling values.
I signed up for some videos at Jeff Watt's site last year and he does a good job of walking you through the procedure. His courses starts off using black and white and then move to a limited palette.
From here, I'll practice on small portraits using the Zorn palette, and once I feel comfortable do another master study using that palette.
Whoah, that's very cool ! Nice study in value and mass !
Thanks, Charline! Understanding value is one of those things that did not come easy for me, but I feel like the hard work is paying off.
