Last of the Giant Deer
acrylic on panel
12"X16"
Some where in Northern Europe 10,000 years ago. The Climate was changing, food was becoming scarce, and worst of all hungry wolves, humans, and lions roamed in hunting packs. Unable to seek refuge in the forests because of those enormous 10ft antlers the largest deer the earth would ever see stood at the edge of extinction. A snow began to fall.
revision
also thank you to Fish who dropped that PS photomerge tutorial a few months back you've saved me hours of frustration
11 comments:
wow. the story you tell and mood you set with words and pictures...you need to be on the parent's bookshelves in hardback collections for future generations to discover and get lost in. it's pitch perfect subtle but you juxtapose it with such bold mark making. i love it
obviously you're a man who knows how to paint antlers and haunches, but i'm always really impressed with your color schemes. this one is unexpected and really works. i'm digging the purple in the fur also.
I dunno what is more beautiful, the image or the description....They have the skeleton of one of these things over at the Museum of Natural History here in Manhattan, and much like this image, its truly awesome to look at...
Great work man.. always a fan...
^what they said^ great mood in all your pieces. would love to see some process too.. it think i'd like to see that from everyone's work. i'll show you mine if you show me yours.
Tony, this totally looks like it's straight out of "Journey to the Ice Age". Amazing. You just keep getting better and better.
thanks ASOP bros, i have to say i didnt have a 100% awesome feeling about this when I was finished. I was kinda bummed because i felt it didnt appear as I saw in my head. I thought I should have designed in something that would show scale. At points there was a bird, and a rabbit, but neither worked, They would have been too small. Also I was unsure about what birds existed at that time and could find little information, so I figured it was better to leave out then be wrong. Also I went through a lot of changes with the grass, it seemed to have givin me more problems then the deer, Ive painted this type grass plenty of times but this time it really urked me. and the last was that stump that is farther back, sometimes when I invent something without reference i doubt its believability. one last thing i thought about was i feel like i should have had something moving off screen, like everything is crammed into the panel except for that fallen tree.
anyways ive been trying to write things that go with my pictures al la Howard Pyle. Ive been finding it makes it more personnel to give my characters stories. And I am finding I enjoy writing.
thomas - i had posted a process over at my blog a few months back www.anthonypedro.blogspot.com
thanks again everyone for your kind words
p.s I got ballsy enough so send this over to James Gurney of Dinotopia Fame for his opinion and this was his reply.
That's a really solid piece--good drawing and proportion, strong silhouette, and the anatomy looks rock-solid. I like the way you used foreshortening on two of the animals. The painting looks efficient and dynamic without attracting attention to itself.
Perhaps the color needs a lift somehow, but I'm not sure what I'd do with it. Maybe gradate the sky, bringing it toward relative light and warm in the distance. Having warm and cool going on in the sky might tie it together a bit more.
But this is a quibble. You did a super job, and it shows a lot of study and experience.
With all the best wishes,
James Gurney
this left me stoked today but what does he mean by relative light? the compliment?
first of all, congrats. thats fucking awesome, the man knows quality when he sees it. second i think he means to make the sky relatively more warm and light in the distance.
oh nevermind i guess he explained, but ive never seen a snowy sky with warm in it, maybe more red? toward bottom
wow congrats! and god bless photomerge (mostly)
i've definitely seen orange winter, but i would consider it more like reflective light in a still life, on the side of the shadow, but here referencing the landscape, albeit a bit impossibly. the bit of orange you put on the purple (F'ng brilliant Anthony!) does the trick more than perfectly. congrats
yeah i was concerned about warming up the sky also, but it works really well! guess gurney knows his shit...well done, boyo
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