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 a 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.