Paintover #2 : Mirko Failoni

For today's paintover, We'll be looking at the work of Mirko Failoni 

Mirko's in class study shows an adventurer in a mountainous landscape.

While the space and tone are reading pretty good, I think we can push things a bit, but more importantly, I want to see if we can push the details a bit to imply a bit more narrative. 

More after the page break!




Starting with the far background elements, I'm going to start by bringing a bit more contrast in by lighting the sky and drawing out a bit of detail on the castle.

Moving on to the middle ground, I'm going to expand on the idea of the waterfall, both as a visual element that will contrast with the main figure better, and also as a narrative element to help tell the story of the character- by putting something more visible in between him and his destination, we're going to show that he has a tough journey ahead of him

Finally for the foreground I want to inject a bit of color to contrast with the stark greyish mountains. From a narrative point of view, it also communicates that perhaps the character is at a threshhold between the normal world and this new evil wastland which he must cross. 

Obviously, this narrative may not at all be what Mirko orginally had in mind, so these choices may not be the best for him. However, the main point is that by thinking about both composition and narrative, we can find ways to give our work more personality and impact very easily!

Paintover time: 1-2 hours

Feel free to ask any questions!