Friday, December 16, 2011

Amanda Ritchie / The Hunger Artist

Screen shot 2011-12-16 at 11.12.00 AM
(Progress 1)

Screen shot 2011-12-16 at 11.11.50 AM
(Progress 2)

HungerArtistBaseWEB
(Background)

HungerArtistOneWEB

(The Hunger Artist, fasting inside his cage as people from the town flock to see. 17 days into the fast.)

HungerArtistTwoWEB
(At night, he's guarded to make sure he doesn't eat anything. He loves the guards that pay attention, and tells them stories. 32 days into the fast.)

HungerArtistThreeWEB
(Day 40 is arrived, and his sponsor forces him to stop his fast and actually eat food. The public gathers again to watch.)

Screen shot 2011-12-16 at 11.15.04 AM
(Detail 1)

Screen shot 2011-12-16 at 11.13.25 AM
(Detail 2)

"The longest period of fasting was fixed by his impresario at forty days, beyond that term he was not allowed to go, not even in great cities, and there was good reason for it, too. Experience proved that for about forty days the interest of the public could be stimulated by a steadily increasing pressure of advertisement, but after that the town began to lose interest, sympathetic support began notably to fall off; there were of course local variations as between one town and another or one country and another, but as a general rule fourty days marked the limit.

And at this very moment, the artist always turned stubborn. True, he would entrust his bony arms to the outstretched helping hands of those bending over him, but stand up he would not. Why stop fasting at this particular moment, after forty days of it? He had held out for a long time, an illimitably long time; why stop now, when he was in his best fasting form, or rather, not yet quite in his best fasting form? Why should he be cheated of the fame he would get for fasting longer, for being not only the record hunger artist of all time, which presumably he already was, but for beating his own record by a performance beyond human imagination, since he felt that there were no limits to his capacity for fasting? His public pretended to admire him so much, why should it have so little patience with him…"

8 comments:

  1. Again like I said, I think your set-up is really strong. I like the colors you used and everything has a good balance and stands out well. You know what and who is important by how bright it is, but everything still fits together. I like the texture, and I think your lighting always works well.
    It would be kind of nice to see a little more color in the sponsor, or more shading in his hair, but otherwise I have no qualms with this. Its great to see how good you've gotten! :DDD
    Nice use of depth and space!

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  2. All of these textures are really cool I really like the way you incorporated them. Especially the little bits of grass! Plus I really like the way that you constructed you people!

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  3. Oh my gosh, this is really awesome! I love the vantage point you chose for this and I love how you chose to brown out the figures! This is wonderful!

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  4. the textures and the lighting is really fantastic! i love the composition and the perspective on this piece. the color scheme and detail really make this such a success! awesome job! it looks like you spent a lot of time on it! great job!

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  5. you really did a nice job of taking what could have been a really cluttered and messy space and refined the details to help your eye move where it should. your choice of "toning" the crowd and background and incorporating textures are really successful. it has volume you'd expect in a scene like this, but is totally not overwhelming. also the lighting in scene 2 is sooo nice and is a good breather in between the busy scenes. (also also, yay for those balloons!)

    seriously, this is wonderful + you should be proud!

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  6. I love the details and the style of you image. I especially like the textures that you integrated into your image. I almost want to see this at eye level so I could see what it would look like as the viewers watching this guy in the cage. I think addition of the day count really helps tell your story about how long the guy was in the cage. great job.

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  7. nice details and and color, and I really like the style you have in this one, so people know where they should focus on

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  8. I love the change in lighting throughout the pieces, It really helps to tell the time change, and I particularly like the switch between the first scene and the second one. I think the second is nice and dramatic. Your set up is also easy to understand the hierarchy, and the details in the background arer nice additions to the feeling of the space and the town. I could see you even going further with the outfits that the brown characters are wearing -- maybe they could show more of th time period? Is there a way you could show the location or time period with the shapes? Maybe if a couple of them had different silhouettes (fat people? old people? -- just by the way they're standing? ) (you're doing a great job adding kids!) that could also be interesting? You always have nice gestural people- that could be a great thing to add to their personalities - even though they're not the focus of the piece, I think it could add a lot! I like how you've also resolved the way that the man in the cage is treated. I think the way that he's rendered in the second panel with the lighting treatment is really nice and interesting. I could see you even adding a couple more hints of subtle color to the other two panels that reflect a little color from his environment - even just a touch! I also think that the people in the foreground could also use a touch more color - just tinted! So they still follow the same rule as the space (getting further away means less saturated and less contrasty) -- that way the cage he's in has more reason to have such a super saturated color! Just a touch on the foreground guys would make it feel unified! Finally, I think the guy in the cage could possibly change positions just a little, too? That way you can see how he might be meditating, lounging, etc in different poses throughout time! Great job on this -- and I just wanted to let you know I am super excited to see what you do from here!! You have awesome digital painting skills and I am so happy that you're experimenting with all these great techniques!! You're always such a hard worker :) It was awesome having you in class and we'll for sure connect next semester! Yeah!!:)

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