My rockman lives for another day = ) Nice colors.

Great entry and a great sbs..., good luck to you

Beautiful. Nice work.

well shuck my corn and call me grits... I do declare I may have just peed myself.. a little (got my depends on so I am fine) .. Now do American Gothic ...purdy purdy purdy please?... hehehe.. super duper perfection.. and the SBS is exhaustingly excellent (I know exhaustingly is not a word but I may as well earn the thumbs down I'll get shortly... hehehe.. seems to be a trend LOL)

Any whooooooo... GREAT JOB!!!... I do back flips if I wasn't so top heavy (very big head) LOL

GOOD LUCK and awesome SBS!!!

Fabulous very peaceful scene author...i see some personal mark on this one...look very soul-ish...well done

so this is how to counterfit art - awesome work

Very, very nice!!! Yep!

Really nice, well done

Wyeth was a very subtle colorist. He was never this monochromatic. The hues of the main subject always stood out from the background.

Wonderful work, cool sbs! GL author

Hey man!! Love this result!!! Best of luck!!! fantastic!

wow! this is facinating!

On it's own it looks like a picture you took and just change the tones and texture, that's how good your blending is. But when you look at the SBS, you can really see how much work went in to this, and now I like it even more, goo job = )

@ Emik - Thank you so much for noticing. Your comment is really appreciated as I was afraid that the work I put into this would not get noticed!

Thanks to everyone for your comments and favs!

Very good entry.

WOW, this is incredible work, author! Great sbs, thanks for sharing, those are some interesting techniques. I think the high-pass adds a sort of sparkle to the foliage. I personally like the subdued tones and I think Mr. Wyeth would be impressed.

Again I want to thank all for the wonderful comments and recognition on this image. I was afraid it would be too suble.

I got really sick last Wednesday with what the think is Bronchitis or possibly Bronchial pneumonia so I did not get the voting and commenting I would like to have done but please believe me that as soon as I am on my feet again will be around to visit your latest art and fav anything I have missed! Hugs to all ... from afar as no-one wants what I have!

Congrats for 2nd

Congrats.., very nice work

Congrats!!

congrats and well done Nancie

This is why an SBS is so important - it's a pain to remember to grab a screen capture when in the throes of creating and tweaking, but only a detailed SBS reveals the intricacy of techniques used (and some great tricks!) This is strikingly beautiful in its subtlety.

As for some comments... last I knew, a tribute was a nod to a style, an interpretation, not an imitation.

very good......

Thanks saman.......

very nice

Thanks...

Work is very nice author but i am sure that u cannot use image of this girl...cause this girl is Emma Watson actress, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter saga...So if u don't have legal source link your work will be removed probably...My advice is to change Emma with some other source usable image of the girl...Best of luck

I like the overall look of this, but a few things come to mind. I agree with erathion about the source of the actress not being useable...but you have nearly stark white areas around the arms. There's no shape at all. Hands nearly look to appear from nowhere. Maybe allow some tone back into those areas.

Thanks pixelkid I appreciate that

I hated to replace Emma Watson, but it is against the rule of Pxeleyes. Thats not a problem I am back again with this image.

The wings are unevenly lit, with the one on the left brighter than the one on the right. The overall values are too high contrast, almost looking washed out with the whites too bright. The birds are losing their shape from it.

U did very good thing author with changing the picture of Emma cause this cool entry stay's in the competition...best of luck author

Thank you Erathion,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Author...I know you liked Emma....but this fix is far better in my opinion. Nice chango fixo...you actually improved the whole thing. I also like the way the new figure's positioned with the arm.

Very nice

author.. only if you have time.. think about flipping the tree to enclose around the house and the swings to hold it in.. just an idea.. right now it seems the whole image is spreading out (especially the smoke rings) it's like your eyes are going out ward instead of holding the viewer's attention (IMHO)... Its a really well done chop.. but if the tree was OVER the house it would give you a much more stable composition.. (you know.. the Last Supper.. where everyone in the pic is focused on a central subject.. the great JC).. just a suggestion.. good work here and good luck and great job at managing so many sources...

Wonderful idea. Though I do agree with Drivenslush but I think the author's intention was to hang the swinging benches over the edge of the cloud. Maybe if the house and tree were a little closer together or the smoke were to drift towards the tree, it would close the composition a little more.

Drivenslush and Mad, thx for constructive comments, that's the idea, you let the chairs out of the cloud...

Very cute, but agree that the image is too spread out, with too much negative space.

Nice work

very cool image author...love the bright positive feel on your creation...best of luck

Love it!

wonderful, good luck!!

Slushy's comment nailed it IMO ... very clever work but composition is a little disturbing. Good image all the same.

Very nice surreal image.. gl

My fav in the contest..gud luck author

Beautiful imagination.... good work. GL author.

Congrats, wonderful work

Congrats

Congrats....a wonderful dreamy image.

congratulations...

Congrats!!

congratulations...

I hate that you do hair so well and demand a one to one lesson! great image author!

Anytime my friend. Once you have the trick it is not too bad, just time and patience and it doesn't hurt to have a tablet

nice nice nice

very well
favourite entry

and the minute i saw this image, i knew ... you've done a LOVELY job. such a touching piece of work. and hey, when you teach geex, will you promise to teach me too???

Excellent command of the fantasy genre.. every image you make makes me think of fairy tales and story books.

Edit: My only suggestion would be to make the model's shadow a little lighter, it seems very dark at the moment (or maybe blur it more?) If not i'd darken up the shadow the horse is casting.

@ Ponti - Thank you for the critique. I was really unsure how dark to make her shadow and was hoping someone would comment. I have made some changes - lightened the models shadow and darkened the horse a bit. I think it looks better now. Thanks for the help, your comment was very much appreciated

I realize this is surrealism, so all bets are off, but the figure doesn't match the scale of the horse. All else is well done!

Thanks CMYK
I did check here http://figure-drawings.com/How-to-Draw-Proportions-3.html, as she is curled up I based the proportions on the size of her head (within reason as it is a fantasy/surreal image as you noted). I added a step to the SBS to show what I did ...Check it out and let me know what you think?

Look at images (photos) of horse and riders...the woman is just too small.

good work.

Would love to see this in really large scale. Nice job!

This is amazing entry author,really really amazing...and black and white mood is perfect for this...your details are perfect...love the lucid feel of movement on horse tail and mane...And as for the size of the horse and the model...don't worry author...this is the Nahar horse of the Valar god Oromë and he is huge...on his back is Arien the maiden whom the Valar chose from among the Maiar to guide the vessel of the Sun...through clouds and sky Nahar take Arien to the Sun...so for that quest horse have to be huge...

erathion: If there was a super, double gold thumbs up it would be yours! What a wonderful story! I had forgotten about Nahar (LOTR... right?) Thank you so much for sharing your vision of my vision (I will have to steal the story for future use)!

wow ...... wonderful imagination..... really a dream work ...... all the best to u author .......

A whole story in a picture.. Love it, great execution, amazing hair. I thought the size of the horse's back was to big, but it didn't bother me one bit, it fits the purpose of this image very well.. I even think when the horse was the "right" size it would have not looked as surreal as it did and did not have the ability to mesmerize, what it sure does now.. Great work author and good luck!

congratulations...

Congrats!!

congrats for the 2nd place, beautiful job...