Wow, that’s creepy! And a great render! 
No light. This first image is iconic, needs nothing else. Well, needs to go Top Row, actually!
R
Update with a couple elements.
A strong narrative piece, I don’t really know what it’s narrating but It certainly has a strong impact! and it all looks fantastic! great sculpting 
My congratulations everything perfect…would be great to see some shot of the render settings and the polyframed model.
One thing just to be critique , the end of the left hand should fade more in black otherwise seems cutted don’t you think? Overall strong image, amazing! Keep on posting.
Overall, I absolutely love this.
I have a few crits, which you can feel free to ignore if you like
This reflection on her nose is a bit too much, makes her look wet I think.
I much prefer the hands to blend into the black background.
I love the touch of seeing the bottom hand distorting the lips, bit I don’t think the distortion should transfer so much to the top lip.
As I said - superb. But as I also said, I loved the piece you did on your wife.
A lot of posts about this image seem to think that it is TOP ROW and very good and all that.
Correct me if I am wrong, as a woman I find this image not only disturbing but downright adolescent and catering
for the worst of our social madness. She is about to have her neck broken and then DEAD! Not a fglorious thing at all.
These days monsters and evil seem to drive most of the so called artworkers in this forum and that is also very disturbing.
Are you all wanting to be noticed by the game industry which caters for this type of vile and dehumanising crap?
Seriously ask yourselves WTF are you doing as an artist? PLEASE?
Get a grip juveniles!
While I can certainly empathize with the points you make, I simply do not agree to the fullest extent. Yes, it may depict a women about to have her neck snapped, but you fail to look at the other side of the piece; if it were a man about to get his neck snapped, would it then be okay; would the state of “madness” that you perceive our society to be in simply vanish, as if a veil were pulled from our heads? Rejoice! It is not a woman, but a man about to be killed!
In the end, I find your comment to be rash and slightly immature, quite contrary to your feelings regarding this piece. While I for one find violent pieces only somewhat appealing, the portrait itself is superb, and that’s what I judge the art by, along with the content. Who’s to say she is going to be murdered? I, for one, figured she was being held captive by some sort of demonic entity until you peeped otherwise.
Anyway, great piece! The level at which you have improved over time is quite staggering, actually. Keep it up!
Well, I apologize if you are offended, but I also find parts of your own post offensive.
First, this is not “glorifying” anything, and if somehow you have come to think that this image is to show how “glorious” death is, then you have a very warped opinion of my intentions. My intention is not to show death, hence she is living. It’s not to show “gore”, because there is none. I was aiming for somewhere closer to fear, or dread, hence the ambiguous threat, and startled reaction.
now, as it were, I’d rather think that person who barges into a thread, starts throwing around accusations of “death glorification” and calling everyone juvenile several times, is not someone to debate with.
but, if you want to tone it back, I’d be fine in discussing the piece with you, and your perspective, if you feel you can articulate your feelings like an adult. As it so happens, I have mixed feelings about this piece and its inclusion in an art portfolio, so I’m more than open to having a discussion about it, and getting opinions from people with a point of view other than my own. According to my wife she says she doesn’t feel it’s inappropriate for portfolio inclusion, but I myself am concerned about it.
Anyone, feel free to chime in, but keep I civil please.
Wow! I love this piece and have taken it completely differently from Zsoka. I didn’t take it as real hands. I took it as a physical (albeit imagined) manifestation of dread. I guess the fact that people are interpreting differently and it’s stimulating emotional responses is testament to it being a great, if provocative, piece of art.
Nice piece. Ignore the troll.
I agree with Gordon, both with crits and comments.
I would like to add that the hands are not in an appropriate position to snap her neck – if the hands were to twist they would just wrench her jaw. But they are in a position that conveys control. I really like the many many questions that raises.
To add to the crits, from a pictorial point of view, I feel the latest update with the fringe has hurt the focal points of the picture (my eye is being pulled towards the back of the top hand). The darkness of the fringe takes away the contrast between the dark hands and the light skin around her eyes, and highlights the specular reflections on the back of the hand, instead of the eyes.
I like the more asymmetrical lighting of the face on the most recent version, but there isn’t enough contrast around the tear to have it draw much focus.
But really great idea, and excellent execution. Can’t wait to see more!
great work man i like the updates you made definitely like the hair! for me i saw the hands as demonic hands i really get the sense of fear you are trying to portray in this piece I think it should definitely be a portfolio piece
when i first saw this it definitely reminds me of this the intro visuals in the girl with dragon tattoo great visuals if you haven’t seen it go watch it!
Keep up the great work man!
Thanks everyone. Again, I don’t mind having a conversation about the piece with anyone who wishes, just don’t come up trying to throw accusations around.
As it is, I haven’t really made up my mind about what’s happening. Originally I had conceptualized it as a more abstract threat, something more akin to a ‘fear of the dark’ type threat, than a monster. As time went, it got even more abstract to me, like a monster of the mind, rather than of the world. I think we all have those.
Hello slowpid,
I really like this piece you are working on. To me, its strength resides in the way the mouth of the woman is affected by the left hand. This contact modifies the woman’s face, showing the control the dark “thing” has over her. I’m not even sure the tear isn’t too much since the eyes convey already so much emotion.
As for the critics, it is very often that I feel offended as a human being by work that is being posted in various art forums such as ZBC (such as over sexualy agressive female figures). However, I don’t think rushing into a topic, throwing accusations in an offensive manner is capable of changing anything in the right way. Violence, even verbal, is the best source of even greater violence…
If some of you “juveniles” could only read then maybe you would be able to get into a converstaion about this piece. Lets address a couple of the comments by my detractors.
Firstly, I stated that I do not understand and correct me if I am wrong. What does that part of my comment tell you? Well it should be a case of exactly what I said. Explain it to me and others.
Secondly, the juvenile aspect - that I stand by totally. I am a fully trained graphic artist in the advertisng industry in the UK who also is an exhibiting artist for over 20 years and as such I am definitely not a troll. Get a grip on your asinine assumption.
Thirdly, people are saying that this piece is great, and well done and keep up the great work. Well let me tell you that the average first year art student at the London academy does better work before they get seriously trained and I do not mean just in the draughtsmanship.
Fourthly, it always is amusing to see people start to defend their artwork AFTER the fact. It is only once someone crits them agressively that they actually start to seriously think about what they are doing.
Fifthly, I asked a colleague of mine what he as a martial arts expert thinks about the position of the hands. He said that they were within the tolerance of snapping her neck and considering her lack of robust stature and the apparent strength of the hands he suggested that this was indeed a serious position for her to find herself in. As regards to whether this would have been an image of a man, well it was NOT. That says something to you surely. Most of the agression is from men against women, go check the criminal stats if you do not believe me. So this image just underpins that behaviour - like it or not. Excusing this sort of image as some form of great expressionism is just ludicrous and JUVENILE. There - I have said it again now go flame.
Sixthly, it appears that some of you have pretty thin skin if you think that my statements are over agressive or whatever and to suggest that the words are violent is just stupid. Now go suck on that.
And finally, the nature of much of the art both here and in other CG forums seems to be driven (not entirely but substantially) by the overwhelming game industry genre (mainly aimed at underdeveloped formative JUVENILE BOYS) and if you suggest anything else then you are living in a dream world. The fact that art can be confrontational is totally OK and infact is the cornerstone of much of histories greatest artistic achievements but to suggest that this piece is anything but a rather poorly done and not well thought out sketch is being extremely generous. Go right ahead and defend yourself but understand that even in undergraduate discussions the crits are often much more severe. If you can not take the heat then get out of the kitchen.
Now you go and have a nice day and continue to exist in your little bubble of self delusion. Man I enjoyed that.
Hi again Zsoka -
Hey, just for the sake of continuity, please do lump in my own responses with the responses of others here. I’m responsible for my own words, and if we’re going to have a discussion about it, then best to leave others out of it. My last post was, by design, non-threatening, and I had no trouble at all absorbing your criticisms about my piece.
It seems as though something about this really sets you off. It sent you railing at me (calling me juvenile), and railing against an entire industry (the games industry). I’m sorry if this piece offends you, but perhaps its not a great jumping off point to get into the subject of the dehumanization of women in video-games. That’s a much broader topic, and perhaps not a good use of our time.
>Thirdly, people are saying that this piece is great, and well done and keep up the great work. Well let me tell you that the average first year art student at the London academy does better work before they get seriously trained and I do not mean just in the draughtsmanship.
Well, I was not trained there, and I’m sure, as you say, it shows in my work. I apologize that my work isn’t up to that standard, and I recognize that there are major flaws in my ability and approach. All I can do is work towards resolving these. However, it would be my personal opinion that in the future, you should find a more subtle or appropriate way of saying these things. I have thick enough skin to recognize it for what it is, but it perhaps too aggressive for others, and you might get a better response from them if you are a bit softer. However, again, I do appreciate you highlighting my shortcomings, and I will strive to improve myself.
>Fourthly, it always is amusing to see people start to defend their artwork AFTER the fact. It is only once someone crits them aggressively that they actually start to seriously think about what they are doing.
First, it is truly impossible to defend yourself ‘before the fact’, so I apologize for doing it ‘after’. However, if you read my original reply to your comment, you’ll notice that at no point do I ‘defend’ myself, so I am not sure where this specific crit is coming from.
>Fifthly, I asked a colleague of mine what he as a martial arts expert thinks about the position of the hands.
Sounds correct. My intent was not to have the womans neck about to be snapped. The reason for the mis-interpretation is probably because my art skills are sub-par and thus my illustration here conveys my meaning improperly. However, this is not to say that I did not want to express that she is in danger. She clearly is.
>Sixthly, it appears that some of you have pretty thin skin if you think that my statements are over aggressive or whatever and to suggest that the words are violent is just stupid. Now go suck on that.
I think that perhaps what people are referring to when they call you statements aggressive, is less about what you are saying, (because what you are saying is a reasonable enough conversation to have), but in HOW you say it. Your lack of grammar and punctuation gives your run-on sentences the appearance of being typed in great haste. However I am sure you have put a great deal of thought into what you are saying. For instance, saying ‘go suck on that’, is an aggressive way to say, ‘please consider that’, and I think maybe you’ll get a better reception if your wording, grammar, and punctuation is less aggressive overall. Not what you say, because again your argument is reasonable enough, but HOW you say it.
So, can you perhaps reframe your statements so as to be less aggressive, so that we can have a conversation without the unneeded name-calling and tension?
I think for me, the issue wast that you are not only criticising the piece. I had my say about how I see it differently, so from that point of view, you are not right or wrong, you just have a different interpretation of it. I also, didn’t see anything, previous to your post, that was suggesting it was in any way ‘glorious’, even if it was about someone about to get killed. I am not an artist, but do create stuff, although most of it modelling and not here, and I don’t think any of my stuff is driven by monsters, evil or the games industry. Biggest issue for me, other than your glib “WTF are you doing?” was that you said ‘juveniles!’ which is not only aimed at the artist, but aimed at those people commenting on it - me being one of them. As a man in his fifties, it has been a long time since I was a juvenile, in body or state of mind.
It seems to me, the artist is willing to take comments, positive and negative, but there is a huge difference between critiquing and criticising, and you have only done the latter.
Next up, I’m going to work on the hands. Some sort of particle effect in vray to make them look like either smoke or shadows.