Someone’s going to have to help me with this. Here’s the latest promo art from Matt Fraction and Howard Chaykin’s 2013 Image series, Satellite Sam (yanked from their Tumblr, yesterday):
So: Retro fetishism and a woman in lacy lingerie and suspenders. So far, so Chaykin, right? Here’s my question: Why does it look as if both characters are floating and weightless? Is it because of the coloring, and the way the shadows are done (Note the fact that the lighting on the woman suggests the light source is to the left of the reader, but the shadows suggest the light source is behind the reader)? Is it the angle of the shot (Either the woman is standing on the man’s hand, or that’s crazily bad perspective, and I can’t tell which was intended)? It’s a really problematic image, and I can’t work out why. Help?
October 18th, 2012 at 11:34 am
Does not look like that to me at all.
October 18th, 2012 at 11:55 am
The light source on the woman is not to the left of the reader. That’s rim lighting. Never critique art again.
October 18th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
It’s the perspective on the spaceman. His belt is at a straight-on angle to the viewer, and his collar is almost as if we’re looking slightly down at it. We should be looking up from below at both, given the perspective of the ground plane, his feet are closer to camera than the rest of his body. The body looks flattened out and not solid as a result (and the color modeling’ s not helping).
October 18th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Also, the blood splatter’ s not really lining up with the ground plane as well.
October 18th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
I swear she’s standing on his hand as well.
October 18th, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Yes, after shooting this being through the helmet, the suit is now empty (blood splatter aside) and she is standing on an empty glove. The gloves and boots are harder rubber, thus retaining some dimensional aspect. Have to agree with others about the lighting however. Clearly coming from behind while the front is edge lit. I see no issues here.
October 18th, 2012 at 3:25 pm
I think my main problem is that his right foot looks like a left foot.
Spacesuit looks like it should be empty as well, making the shadow underneath it all wrong – it should barely be present.
October 18th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
There’s no problem with the lighting. Light can come from multiple source.
Biggest problem is the perspective of the spaceman. His feet, waist, and head are on slightly different planes.
October 18th, 2012 at 7:44 pm
From seeing just the top part of the pic before scrolling down, I thought it was meant to suggest the spaceman had been giving her oral sex. Silly rubbish anyway – Howard Chaykin is one of those noir-fanboy types, who are always crashing bores.
October 19th, 2012 at 2:37 am
never be a critic graeme cracker you suck in so many ways maybe someone should detail how many differing problem,s there are with you blogs and columns….
you pretty much are a terrible commentator
October 19th, 2012 at 3:28 am
The place where the blood splatter suggests the floor is doesn’t match where the shadows suggests the floor is. Also the spaceman has two left feet.
January 12th, 2013 at 8:53 am
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