What are you working on?

Almost ready to call this one done. It feels like I've been working on it forever since I get such tiny segments of time to work. I'll pick at it some more and then poke a fork in it and call it done. It was commissioned by the girl's grandmother.

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Warrior Queen on campaign. I saw a Picture by fantasy artist Boris Vallejo and thought, well it's beautifully done, but this, and that, looks silly and started changing it in my minds eye so that there was very little left except the way the dinosaur/dragon was turning it's head and lifting it's paw. I reasoned this new conception is more mine than Vallejo's now so why don't I paint it? We'll see if hubris gets the better of me.
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I thought the beast has the body and neck of a herbivore, but the head of a carnivore. The front of his saddle will impale him if he's thrown forward. He's left handed (well that can happen of course) and his weapon is far too small to be of use while mounted. His breast plate goes out too far on his shoulders reducing his ability to reach across his body, and too far down his abdomen reducing how far he can bend (Although there were some breast plates with this feature in ancient and more modern times. For example, Napoleon's unhorsed cuirassiers were said to roll on the ground like upturned turtles, having to get on their hands and knees to get back up.)

How did the very nicely painted girl get there? ( I suppose she could have hung on the back for dear life.) What bothered me most though was the way the open dragon maul was being ignored. No effort at all to control, subdue or acknowledge the cause.

We'll see if I make a fool of myself with my picture.
 
Her shield mostly comes from archaeological find of British iron age miniature shields. They were probably intended as affordable offerings to a god, instead of the full sized ones sacrificed by leaders. A bit silly to put this in a fantasy piece, but I'd never seen them before, and they look a bit fantastic.
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Not happy with the right side, and her sword looks a bit wimpy somehow. Now I have to reason to risk messing it up, and if I do, to do it now.
 
Ah, yes I think this looks much worse.
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I wanted the skin to be pale, but with the golden haze it looks corpse like. The sword stands out more, but I don't like it dark. The ground shape might have been the right idea but it's poorly done and it's off with the background silhouettes. Is the shield working? Too early to tell.
 
It is a great job but you would have liked the sword better if her wrist would have been down and her hand up as if she were going to chop with the sword. I don't think it was the sword that you didn't like, but rather, her gesture.
 
I Have a desire to to have her sighting along the sword at some danger (just off the picture) approaching to her rear which the reptile is reacting to. Also I like the idea of the weapon masking part of her face like a raised cloak.

Not happy with the dragon body colour, too transparent, too golden. I guess I have to decide how monochrome the finished piece will be.
 
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