NIKOLA TESLA, MAN OF SCIENCE

[Conzeit]

hahaha, I love that. I've been waiting for you to take your hueshifting out of desaturated tones, hope this turns out well.

First of all, I just dont think what you want to express with the pixels is in the photo in the least.  I feel like you're trying to force that "intuitor" angle into a photo where he was just trying to look like a nice guy for the camera.

you say likeness isnt that important, but generally these pixels dont really make me think of intuitivity at ALL,  you just sort of grayed out the eyes and I see no expression in them whatsoever. as far as I'm concerned this might as well be some uptight 50's general or something.

in the photo the eyes are directly engaging the veiwer, they hit me in two waves, when I first look at them a compasionate kind vibe hits me, but when I look a little deeper the second wave hits me and I see a very introspective mind.

http://www.pbs.org/tesla/images/ts_h_right.jpg I think this one fits the mood you are going for much better. it is more about his introspective aspect, even though you can still tell he's the same compassive guy.

I think by avoiding the commitment of likeness you basically avoided any depth the portrait could've had, because it just doesnt have a distinct personal gesture, which the real Telsa portraits do really have.

I dont know what kind of crit that is, but that's what I think and care about with this piece.

[Darion]

I still don't get it, even after reading your 5 paragraph replies every so often. Hopefully - one day - I'll understand how to get these trippy palletes.

I don't really notice anything thats too crucial to mention. Looks great.

[Faktablad]

I think part of the fact that it doesn't look as Tesla-ey as it should is his outfit.  The question is: are you going for a motorcycle gang leader, or quaint late 19th century scientist?

[Turbo]

The "since the collar is black and his skin is white" bit makes no sense from where I'm standing, though, and therefore I'll leave the red be. My whole approach rests on multiuse of colors in improbable places.

Just stating that, as you probably know, if you shine a red light on a white object, the red will be reflected fully, making the object appear in the same red; while if you do the same on a dark/black object, the light will be absorbed by it and that object will appear at a darker red. This is all assuming that the red here is a secondary light source, which might very well not be - a possibly trippy use of colors, and fine at that.
Now that i look at it again, the surrounding grey shades of the reds in the collar and in the cheek skin do make these reds appear of different values. I'd give it a shot on brightening the skin one anyway. Do tell me if i'm completely lost here, please

[Crazy Asian Gamer]

Impressive work as always, Helm.
(I love your oily robot men).
Those painterly strokes also gets me. Damn.
I would rally for moar colour though. I mean, you've got plenty color, but bring out the individual colors just to the point the palette doesn't collapse from it. It'd make the desat. colors slightly more interesting than in its current slightly-more-interesting-than-gray state.

Tesla is nearly as burnination-kaboom-clamationmark as Bruce Lee. But then again, Bruce Lee 0wnz Chuck Norris, so meh.

Oh, and LIEF's BACK!!! (I shout with frank glee.)

[ndchristie]

Please note that, if i thought you needed gushing praise this piece earns it in full amount, but my understanding is that you value critique more than anything, and im sure a piece as good as this will earn more than enough praise to float any man's ego.  so with that being said, here's my critique.

Helm, you have a wonderful sense of color that in my opinion is not demonstrated in this particular piece.  perhaps you could explain why you chose the hues you did?  Keeping your goal in mind, they appear entirely arbitrary, almost counter to that idea, and that leads me to feel as though you were trying to force a different relationship between the colors that simply does not exist.  the combination serves to provide the portrait with a complete lack of life.  Also, in every picture i have seen of Tesla, there is a quality that exists in his eyes that this portrait does not capture.  Though the man in the picture looks like tesla, he also looks dead, inside and out, and that is something that i simply dont associate with a man like Tesla.  my suggestion is to perhaps change the colors of the face not only to be warmer and more alive but to have a better relationship with the other colors, but most importantly though i think something in the eyes need to change, personally i think he should be looking at the viewer, as at the moment he is looking away and down as though he has been in some way defeated.  If this was your aim i applaud you, but from looking at this piece i do not feel that it is 'EXPRESSING THE AWESOMITY OF TESLA SCIENCE.'  Pieces that are technically brilliant can still fail in their goal, and i dont wish that for anyone, especially not someone with your talent and a piece executed with this level of skill.

good luck, its an awsome piece you have here, especially for the timeframe

[sonic_reaper]

Hm, who am I to critique?  It is you who could teach me a thing or two (or three or four ...) 

[Blick]

i read he developed a way to transmit electricity through air over long distances, which is not being used today, i'm not really sure why

He'd need a giant coil to do so, how he set it up would work, but I won't go into what little I know about the setup since... I know little. I remember one reason it's not being used is that the coil itself would be so large that it'd just be impractical to build. Also I'm sure it'd be more difficult to track and control and we don't want electrical companies getting any more cofused or losing any money :\

There's actually a way to basically create an electrical field on the land and you would be able to stick a stake into the ground and basically plug into dirt. The only problem is that, again, it'd be impossible to regulate since anyone with a conductive spike and an appliance needing electricity could plug into the ground, and we don't know the long term effects of living in an electrical field. Since the frequency of the waves would be so high, it should just be able to travel around us, rather than through us and the whole resonance thing happening, which should mean that there'd be no harmful effects. It's still a bad idea to live in an electrically charged world though. Who knows what sort of things would happen and to what extent. Some college students down in the lower 48 demonstrated it at half time of a college football game and it worked perfectly though. Information here may be wrong, so anyone feel free to correct me if it is.

As far as the art goes, I'd like to see more definition in the eyes. A bit of highlight would be nice, doesn't have to be too strong though. The blank space there seems awkward to me, especially on his right (viewer left) eye, since it's in the lighted side. I'm really loving the red ambience, by the way. I feel the transition from red to the greenish gray hues could be smoother. The area around his mouth and chin in particular.

[Xion]

http://www.teslasociety.com/teslacoil.htm
Yeah, Blick, I dunno if I'd wanna live near one of those.

Before I put a sketch on paper, the whole idea is worked out mentally. In my mind I change the construction, make improvements, and even operate the device. Without ever having drawn a sketch I can give the measurements of all parts to workmen, and when completed all these parts will fit, just as certainly as though I had made the actual drawings. It is immaterial to me whether I run my machine in my mind or test it in my shop. The inventions I have conceived in this way have always worked. In thirty years there has not been a single exception. My first electric motor, the vacuum wireless light, my turbine engine and many other devices have all been developed in exactly this way.

If he'd been around long enough he would've made force-fields, lightsabers, and mind control devices...and phazers and just about any other science fiction reference.


Nothing I have to say about the art hasn't been said before. Eyes. Cheek. Yeah.

[ptoing]

Very nice. Apart from more aa i got no crits. I think on some of the thin lightning bolts you should break the lines with the aa

X=aa

000X
.....X000

stuff like this.