I really hated that glowing eye from the earlier version so I paint in a more conventional eye, choosing a yellow/green hue that will hopefully stand out from the blue/green in the background. I also feel that the background is a little unbalanced, so I use a soft brush to stroke across some of the textures around the edge of the painting to reduce their contrast which should draw the focus more towards the centre, and touch some of the blue from the horizon into the top of the picture in an attempt to balance the distribution of colours a little better.
Conclusion and Critique :
The painting feels complete, so I add my signature and give it a gentle pull with the levels tool in Photoshop to add a little extra punch. Done!
Now is a good time to look back and see if the image is a success. It's often interesting to compare the final product against those early value sketches to see what's changed - I think that comparison holds up well, with the composition and basic distribution of values remaining consistent throughout. I like the way the demon's flesh has ended up, though some more variation in hue across his body would be in improvement, in my opinion. The jewellery does it's job connecting the less well defined areas of the character's body, but looks a little like an afterthought - perhaps some more significant metalwork, maybe a belt or ornamentation on the horns would help to solve this? There are always lots of little niggles like this that I try to remember for the next time. The big one this time around is to make sure I have the contents of demon's hands worked out well before I start to paint..!
