Hi all! I wanted to make sure credit is given where credit is due. The cover this week was created and painted, in-house by our own Jessica Fielhauer. If you like it, here's your chance to pass along the "Wow!"

Cuz, wow!

Original Comment by: Marduk

Very cool...and a bit disturbing!

Original Comment by: Daniel Vanasse
http://ffo.warcry.com
Very nice work Jess.

What did you use? Acrylique, gouache or oil painting? ^_^

The cover is 'painted' entirely on the computer. It started as a sketch that was scanned in and then built up in photoshop. I was really excited to get the chance to do this. It's a lot of fun, but takes a long time to get a really polished piece.

If you'd like to see more work done like this, visit furiae.com. Her work is amazing and she even has some tutorials to get you started, or at least point you in the right direction.

It's purrrty.

Original Comment by: Bob

Very, very WoW.

I mean Wow. >_>

Original Comment by: Spiffae
http://beninjapan.blogspot.com/
I suppose this might not go over well, but when I saw the cover for the latest issue, I was disappointed. What can I say? The piece looks unfinished and somewhat clumsy, but mostly what I find lacking is depth. My college professor would say that the figures in the foreground are flat, that they lack real depth, and that one could almost imagine peeling them off the background. They don't seem to fit in the background, nor do they seem a part of the same world as the background.

I'm not saying it's easy to make a great illustration, but after eight years of giving and recieving critique, I have a gut reaction when I see a piece I feel strongly about and I disagree.

When you create a piece, it is so tempting to focus on that which is working and coming together and important to the message, in this case that would be the hand and the guy's face. His expression is good and that hand is as fine and delicate as anything I could draw. That said, the drawing suffers if the whole thing doesn't get the attention that the key moment does. When I follow her body down, her clotes and back (is that her back?) fade into a smudged blur, and the paw looks flat as a piece of paper. Same with the cape. It looks fantastic sliding over that perfect metal shoulder, but as soon as it goes down his back, I can just feel you losing interest in drawing it.

Last critique would be the woman's face. though lighter on the right than on the left, the edges cutting it are so sharp that it stops reading as a 3d shape curving off into the background but as a flat piece of beige, an abstract shape that gives very little information. People are the hardest thing in the world to draw, and you picked an incredibly tough angle, and all told the effect is there, and the message comes across. As a piece of art though, I think it still needs work. You need to look at a face from that angle, a real living one, an arm, and the lighting is important.

That brings me to my last point. The lighting. The lighting is what creates the flatness in this picture. On the guy's arm, it's coming from the left. On the girl's arm, it's coming from the right. On his hair it's coming from directly above, and on her left arm and hood, it's coming from below and on the left. This indstinct lighting is confusing and - more than anything else - flattens the field. This is where drawing from observation (and I realize you don't have mystical beasts to draw from) really helps a lot. You've got a great evocative background throwing amazing lighting opportunities at you. A dark green jungle, misty and with light filtering through. When I see that background I imagine a beautiful beam of afternoon sunlight hitting these two lovers and making the moment golden and magical, and when I see the drab grey light from everywhere hitting them like so many neon lights, I am disappointed.

I hope you take this the right way and put double the effort into the next painting. Every time you put your heart and soul into something like this, it shows, and every time, they get better.

Original Comment by: Spiffae
http://beninjapan.blogspot.com/
I couldn't help myself. I used to frequent the sijun.com forums, some great critique and commmentary on digital illustration there, and one thing people did when you posted an image was to grab it and propose some ideas on top of the old image. This is your image, completely untouched, except for color and light. I used adjustment layers, levels and color balance, and that's it. I promise, no more posts from me.

http://img107.imageshack.us/img107/9965/escapist16ma.jpg

Original Comment by: lindsay dolin

Jessica has this uncanny ability to consistantly produce incredible results. Every project that she is associated with ends up coming together beautifully. She puts her heart and soul into everything she creates.

Wow!