Battle in the Ruins Part II

Where as in other battle pieces before this one I tried to paint them like a traditional  late 18th or 19th century battle  paintings I wanted to make this one more like a film paused at just the right moment to capture the peak action of the shot. In my previous paintings I lined my figures up with the picture plane as if lining up toy soldiers. Or an ensemble on stage set not like the naturalism of more modern films. probably the most filmic technique I used was framing the character facing us with the swords of the ambushers to emphasize the narrative of being trapped and the character having to stand her ground.

In this piece gesture was also very important when arranging the figures I left them on their own layers and re painted them many times especially the one running with on foot on the ground a sword in either hand. This technique of using multiple layers meant I could arrange limbs almost like a puppeteer then render the joints once I was pleased with the result. It also meant I didn’t have to repaint the background or worry about repainting any thing covered up by a foreground shape.