Art The Horde

[Brasil]

A while back, I had written a poem entitled The Horde. It was a rough draft, but the focus and vision of the piece was an undead army, essentially, who eternally marches on.

I re-read it about 20 minutes ago and suddenly was inspired to do a bit of artwork for it. The end result turned out a bit differently (no actual army, but a very schway-looking swarm in the air a la Pitch Black), but I think it still captures the ominous tone of the original poem.

[img]http://img231.exs.cx/img231/5788/thehorde4dr.jpg[/img]

If you'd like, you can find the original poem [url=http://www.otakuboards.com/showthread.php?t=42943][u]here[/u][/url].

[Semjaza]

I think it looks nice aside from what I assume are sword hilts (I don't do poetry lol).

They look a bit too cartoony, likely because they don't have any color that would give you the idea of light hitting it. That would be fine if the ground surrounding them was also a flat black, but it isn't. It could also be their roundness. My eyes go [i]directly[/i] to them as soon as I look at this image; they just seem out of place.

Anyway, that's my constructive criticism.

[Dragon Warrior]

I think it is quite good, not to mention artististic. I noticed you used the paintbrush tool for the leaves (that I assume are the horde) and the grass, but you used them well, especially since you used the leaves as something else and it worked. Right choice of text makes it even more morbid, in my opinion, and the lighting seems just right. It looks like something out of an anime, to be quite honest XD But I don't watch anime, so don't bother with me. The only thing is, I thought the swords were just crosses :P Silly DW.

[b]My Rating:[/b] 9/10 Sexiness to the extreme.

[eleanor]

[color=darkslateblue] Very nice. :) I am loving the whole solid black against orange in the top half, so with that I'd like to suggest taking out the swaying plant-things and making the ground solid black as well. Yet again, it is something I'd have to see visually and compare and contrast before making a final decision. But it's totally up to you.

I agree with Semjaza that the sword hilts (are they sword hilts?) looks a bit too cartoonish for the picture.

Awesome job, though. [/color]

[Carr]

[FONT=Palatino Linotype] [SIZE=2] [COLOR=INDIGO] I really like the color scheme you've got going. The orange is, aside from the best color EVER, very good with the black. the shape of the "horde" is good as it draws the viewer directly to the middle of the page. Very nice effect.

However, I also think that the swords are out of place. Cartoonish, yes, but they also ruin the horde's effect on the page. They are the focal point, but they aren't well done and they don't really make sense. I think the poster would be better off if you simply took them out and left the space blank. Then the words in the black would become the focal point. This would emphasize your point and probably be more the look you were going for.[/FONT][/SIZE] [/COLOR]

[GTK]

Agreeing with what most everyone is saying about the swords/crosses/whatever. They seem a bit off. Lovely use of brushes, as already pointed out (ohoho~ but nice job, so I figured it was worth saying more than once)

Thinning the grass out in the middle might help a bit also (since it's thin most everywhere else but seems a bit more clumped in the middle near the swords... and since the swords/whatever are already there it seems a bit cluttered to me)

[Brasil]

Yeah, I actually agree with many of the comments here. The sword/cross things always looked too rounded to be effective for...anything (lol), and I figure I'll be changing the look of them when I get a chance. I'll probably just Edit this post with the revised version.

The center sword/cross things (I am so going to decide which they really are) will probably feel better if they're more realistic-looking. Truth of the matter is, I kind of flubbed them. I used one of the snowflake custom shapes in Photoshop and was never really happy with how it turned out.

I'm thinking a singular sword/cross (gah! lol) might rectify the center of the image. I have a feeling I could do either a sword or cross and it would still make sense for the emotion of the piece, so I'll experiment a bit later.

As for the other things, yeah. I'm going to fool with that, too. See what I can do. Thanks for all the feedback so far. Hopefully more will reply, as well.