Britomartis
In Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen, Britomartis is the female knight who is an allegory for chastity. I have drawn her preparing for battle, her wild hair plaited, in an effort to subdue unruliness. She is shown here with her delicate underdress still exposed, to show her interior delicacy and the fragility of the virtue itself.
Submitted by Anonymous at 10:00 PM
3 Comments:
DAMN, Anna. I am impressed, I didn't even imagine it looking this good when you described it. The level of detail and sharpness and boldness of the lines makes it seem much more confident than many of your sketches. I wish I could look at it bigger. I love to blow artwork up to high-res and study every detail, especially in a peice like this. I love how the textures of the mail and the dress and the armor have a very different feel. My only complaint with the composition is that it makes me a little vervous. I want to know what that sheild is leaning on and if its about to tip over on her bare ankle. Very pretty horse. Did you design that armor? It's good lookin' armor.
I think the armor and the other man-made elements in the drawing are beautiful, Anna. The armor especially is striking and really well-realized. The natural elements, the girl and the horse, I feel leave something to be desired. Something about the shape of both the horse's and the girl's head doesn't quite sit right with me. They say a horse and a hand are the two hardest things to draw, so you have your work cut out for you, but I think it's a shame because those two things are so central to the frame that they draw your attention away from all the lovely detail elsewhere. Were I not looking over each of these peices with intense scrutiny, understanding the context of this collective, I might have completely glossed over the beautiful heraldry on the shield.
Jake,
Yeah, about that shield...umm originally, it was going to be propped up against a wall to the left. But then I decided that i wanted to have her horse in the pic, and that was concievably the only spot big enough to put a horse in. So then i thought, maybe the shield could be leaning on the horse...but it really doesn't look like that's what's happening - and who the hell leans a shield on their horse anyway?! So, it's just an unfortunate, unrealistic faux-pas... I'm glad you like the armor...I like it too - as far as originality goes, it's like everything else i draw - part copy, part imagination. i copied the basic shape from a Walter Crane sketch, but the breast plates and leaf-work are my own.
Max,
I know what you mean about her face - sometimes, the right lines just don't come out- i tried it lots of times, but then the paper started getting fuzzy from all the erasing, so i figured i had better be satisfied with it. And i do need much more practice with horses. Thank you, i know i can always count on honest and helpful criticisms from you =)
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