Nice moody image ..but the LINE in the air ? is that a error ? otherwise im not shure what it is doing in the air... The whole image is a bit dull ..can do with some brightness for my taste..

Excellent work luv lou x

The body language does NOT read despair. Resolute, maybe, perhaps fearful and recoiling? His shoulders should be bowed and he should look defeated, but that isn't what the body language shouts. The foggy desolateness is good to set up the mood, but the picture just doesn't follow the name of it. I like the dragon, but why is it not looking at the figure, or reacting to the wind? Look at birds sitting on a wire in a high wind--you'll see what I mean.

JOELGLAINE pretty much summed up my thoughts. I also think the dragon should be larger. It doesn't look that far away, and it's so small that it's kind of lost in the larger props in the scene.

Excellent feel from this image, love the sword in the water it reminds me of King Arthur, ;0) Heztia

I agree that this has an Arturian feel to it. The water and rocks are wonderful. So is your work with the hair. I don't think the pink dragon really works though. Maybe a big one draped over that great choice of rock?

Very beautiful artwork, excellent done.

i'm going to disagree with the opinions on body language - i think that expression of any emotion is as individual as fingerprints, and i actually like the subtle pose, the hands protecting the chest and the arms quietly trying to comfort... it feels quite natural to me... what i also like about it is that it leaves it open for me to interpret several ways - is the despair his, or is it empathic to the dragon's despair [the posture of the dragon seems a bit forlorn to me], and i like the fact that it engages me to partially create my own 'story' for it... i do think the dragon could be scaled a bit larger as long as doing so doesn't disrupt your artistic vision & story behind the image, and i also am not sure that the fleshy colour of him works... while i absolutely adore your use of materials on the rocks and water, there is something about the way the sword looks to my eyes that makes it seem not quite as integrated into the scene as p'raps it could be - it may very well have something to do with lighting, but i honestly cannot put my finger on it [then again, it may just be my eyes...heh]

Whatever's been said, has been said, and I have nothing more to add. I'm reminded of Ann McCafee's Pern Series. DO keep up th egood work. DPH

Beautiful, love the hair flow.

love the blacks on this, and the contrast with the bright sky. his hair is great- lots of motion with a great flow. i have to agree with the comments about the poses, though. neither the man nor the dragon seem despairing to me. i don't find their poses subtle- the man is so perfectly aligned and stiff that his pose seems very stylized to me. which is fine, but it seems more neutral than desparing. and while i like the brightness of the sky, i think the pastel tones in it are more playful than fits the rest of the image. the dragon is very interesting looking- he seems unique which is great since the only dragon in most works tends to be the millenium dragon. his pose is wonderfully dynamic. and i like the touch of the sword in the water. i can't say enough good about how well the water and rocks work together. overall, a very strong image, it just doesn't quite communicate despair to me.

Though people show emotion in different ways, the word despair, artistically is usually catagorized with a more exaggerated body/face pose. The word despair in the mind, also generates its own expectation, a word reserved for use in an exaggerated way, such as death, loss of a lover, child... or some key figure in one's life. The image itself is brilliant, and executed excellently....... the title however, will likely cause critiques on an otherwise exemplary image. It is a strong, psyche reaching word as title, and the word, and the mood of the image, do not seem to fit cohesively.

I agree whith Giana and Tiari completly. We all have diffrent ways to show emotions. I like this image a lot and the emotion here is very touching! I would like to write you now a long comment , but my english is not good enough. About people who talking about stuff they really not understand. ;)

Is she despairing about slaying the dragon? Very good mood and atmosphere!!!

Thank you all for taking the time to comment on Despair As I read the comments, I had concern about some of the earlier posts... JoelGlaine, since you were pretty much dittoed I'll address your comments... The body language does NOT read despair. Resolute, maybe, perhaps fearful and recoiling? His shoulders should be bowed and he should look defeated, but that isn't what the body language shouts. If humans expressed emotion in such a limited and rigid way then I assure you Poser would ship with partial body poses expressing the whole gamut of human emotion... despair-upper torso... elation upper torso. No, humans express emotions through a deep and varied body language filtered through their innate disposition and affected by factors such as rank or position in society, activity level and childhood conditioning. That you and others, so rigidly expect a stereotypical display of an emotion goes a long way toward explaining why humans often fail so miserably to communicate with each other... even those whose relationship is on an intimate basis. How many divorces, separations and relationship failures because one partner claims the other unfeeling, when in fact they are incapable of reading subtle nuance? Yes, art, whether it's a visual medium or the written word often does present emotion in the broadest of strokes, an exaggeration, a caricature so that even the lowest common denominator can correctly interpret the message... But not always. As for your comments about the wind... In my experience, wind doesn't blow in uniform sheets affecting everything in many locations in the same way at the same time-- especially in an area with solid objects to deflect the flow. Why you would suppose that a wind that does not budge a man-- with the exception of his hair-- would affect something with even greater mass, at a higher altitude in a different place is a mystery to me. So, with notable exceptions, I feel that many of you didn't critique the image presented to you but instead addressed your expectations and how I failed to meet them. Not what I was looking for. For those of you that actually looked at the image, thank you, very much indeed. DrifterLee He is a soldier, a warrior and a ruler that has inherited a losing war that began before he was born. He is not very old and any older generation that could have advised him are long ago slain. The dragons that remain to his people are being slain in large number by the ongoing the conflict. The surviving dragons are either not breeding or too young. The only advantage his people have ever had over their opponents are the dragons. The point has long passed where he can negotiate a peace with his enemy.

I like the composition, it's very well balanced. Like usual, you payed a lot of attention to detail, like the very small water ripples around the sword. The color palete chosen was good for the scene in general and for the theme, but the sword colors dont seem to fit in it, IMVHO. It seems like you desperately wanted to draw the attention of the viewer to the sword (so much in the foreground and with so different colors from the rest) but that, IMVHO, brings a certain unbalance to the picture. The water is very realistic and the fog as well. I think it would be interesting to have some fog in front of the dragon, also to enhance the sense of distance, which I think is necessary because of the POV you chose (if you cover the bottom part of the image and look only at the top part, it's not obvious if the dragon is very small or is very far away). I like the pose and i think it fits the title. Before I read your post, i almost could hear him calmly think "oh my god, what did i do, is this really the end?". Like I said, I like the fog but I think that so much fog is incoherent with such strong wind (the fog would be gone very quickly, i think). All in all, a very good scene.

The rocks are downright brilliant, as is the water. I like this desolate landscape. Very well done. The wind blown hair is, as stated by many commenters, very, very good. A couple of nitpicks though. The sole of his foot doesn't seem to follow the surface of the rock, so it's almost giving the impression that the man has been pasted onto the environment image in a 2D app. The wave patterns on the water suggest a certain scale that makes the dragon look rather small, no more than man-sized. And at this scale it's not clear whether the dragon has a duck-like head looking down, or if it is looking up, making the downward extension some kind of beard. The pinkish color of the dragon body may be an indication of its youth (which would also be a good explanation of its rather small size). Maybe the color of the wings could be shifted towards pink too, to better match the body color. In short, this is not how I would have done the dragon, but I recognize good reasons to do it the way you've done it. The only real "error" IMO is the sword. The greenish yellow color of the quillon detonates, it doesn't come back anywhere else in the image. A more brownish/reddish tint to the bronze material would integrate it more into the image. The color of the blade also seems too light, especially when compared to the dark water. Maybe a reflection node on the blade, with the diffuse color set to almost black, would increase the impression of "metal" on the blade. Something similar for the blue gem on the hilt, it looks too dull compared to the water. The ripples in the water surrounding the blade look a little too perfectly elliptical, negating the short choppy waves of the water. Subduing, or even eliminating those ellipses might be a good idea. And finally, the story. I like the little story you've written in your comment. It might be an idea to include the story in the notes section. The story could reinforce the image, and the image could reinforce the story. (I must admit, however, that story + image is something that I like VERY much. Most of my gallery posts are set up that way. So this is purely my personal opinion) All in all, I like this image. Well done fantasy work.

I think this is a really well composed scene and I'm in agreement with Rutra, especially about the small details. I think the rock textures and colour tones are excellent, as is the water. I'm not keen on the sword coming straight out of the water though. I think it would look even better if it was leant at a slight angle against the rock. Perhaps a touch of depth-of-field would more clearly mark the distinction between foreground and background and keep the focus on the warrior, rather than the dragon, which keeps pulling my eye towards it. Overall, I think this is excellent. Well done!

I really like this image... I think it gives the feeling despair quite well actually. The colors and water are perfect to help set the mood and the hair is fantastic. Now as it comes to the mans pose, I think its pretty much exactly as it should be. Considering how straight the wind is blowing his hair out, I would expect him to lean back with his shoulders (as most people do) to balance himself against the wind. If he were to be all hunched over and limp, the wind would just knock him into the water (and that would be a whole nother image :P) I also looked very carefully at the water to determine how far away the dragon should be. It looks about right distance-wise but I would suggest maybe blurring from about 3/4 of the way into the water and up through the background or rendering it with the DoF to give it more of that far-off feel. Everything else is really nicely done, beautiful work! :D Cheers!

For all of you that admired the hair... There is absolutely no postwork, this is 3Dream's Sensual Hair. I wasn't going to purchase it, but then someone posted the poses and I saw this one... Inspired the entire image.

VERY. NICE. HAIR. As you can probably guess, that's what really grabs me with this piece. That really came out beautifully. The water ripples look excellent. Fog on the water looks excellent. I don't have any issues at all with the pose, except that his feet need to be a tiny bit more under his center of gravity, and it's a little bit hard for me to visualize where his right hand has gone - you might want to adjust the arm pose a bit to make it more obvious. But that's small stuff, beautiful piece of art. Really excellent.

Seems I am a little bit late, but however gg Overall I like that image very much. In my eyes the pose and the colours in combination with the fog create a lonely or desperate, even barren atmosphere to me, which I like in this work. I especially love the water which turns out very well and also the soft flowing of the hair. If I had anything to suggest perhaps I would have chosen a darker background sky, but that's just my personal taste. I would skale up the dragon a litler bit, though, just as to see it better - although that it seems so remote and small enhances the loneliness of the man somehow, on the other hand. The pose of the dragon, with it not looking at the man, even stresses this feeling of loneliness even more so it seems very fitting to me.

It's interesting to come to this after many commenters have had their say. I think your scenery elements are excellent - the rocks, the fog, and especially the water. I love the water! If it's your own node creation, would you mind sharing the settings? I like the story you've written and I think if you put it in the notes then it would help a lot with their confusion over the title and whether it "fits" given his pose. The hair covering his face probably exacerbates this; we're dependant purely on his body language to tell his mood, and as you've noted, that's very individual. Perhaps some small glimpses through the hair to his face would help? (I honestly thought you had painted the hair. I need to check out this hair model for sure!) I like the placement and pose of the dragon. It does seem very lonely and forlorn.

Really cool image!

Very beautiful work! 5+!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!