"Dark Elf Fight" by Christopher A Malidore

I love the picture. It's great. Just one thing though. I'm really into Dark Elves and I just got the impression that they were smaller. These two seem too bulky to be drow. Also their armor looks clangy and loud and well, I thought drow were supposed to be very fluid and practically sound-less. Your shading is amazing though. I love all of your other drawings too. You are really very talented!

Christopher A Malidore replies: "Apply the actuality of it though. What is secretive if your life is in jeopardy. Plus, if you worked with a sword all the time you'd have some muscle build up. And third.... you get sound off of this? Oh well, just a few points for you to consider. Thank you for your comments, I appreciate it!"

Ouchies, nice job. Good detail and pose for those dark elves.

Since that's the most obvious "great" thing about this pic, I'll have to add something smaller, yet just as important as the comment on the main battle: your backgrounds own too! Man what a nice drawing. Deserved mod's choice.

So, happy belated mod's choice ;D

Christopher A Malidore replies: "Thank ya kindly good sir! This pic was me learning backgrounds mostly ..it really influenced a lot of my current ones."

Okay for starters I'm going to make a comment about a comment, somethingwithatail's comment that is, Here goes:

Drow armor is usually chainmail which is why its so quiet but drow platemail is also extremly quiet for the type of armor that it is. As for these drow seeming bulky its because you can't compare them with any other races in the picture so you can't really judge how tall or wide they really are. If we were to place maybe a Moon Elf in the backgrounf aiming a bow at one or the other we could easily judge if these two drow were indeed as small and gracefully made as they are so described in many-a-book.

Now for my own comment :

Being a man obsessed with drow I love this picture even if I do see flaws, which I see few and all can be explained, there are few people I have found that can really capture my mental image of drow and or influence that image. Now for alittle poking and proding at it, I don't really like the way the toes on the boots are pointed it just seems alittle 'Santa's little Helpers' elvish. The sword I do like but I was considering its actual function and ablitties and came to doubt that a dark elf would use it, maybe a surface drow such as a follower of Vhearun or a Renegade, some drow are known to use double bladed swords and spears/halberds so...yeah.

To finish this long long post Great job.

Christopher A Malidore replies: "Thank you for your detailed posting. I enjoyed reading it. For some info though, let me state that I'm not doing this in any continuity so it's of no relevance to Vhearun or anything Forgotten Realms related. I also agree on the feet. It's hard to remember that far back but I'm thinking I did it because the foot angles were hard to pull off and then of course it feels wrong to have one foot pointy and one rounded. Thanks once again."

well i have to say i enjoyed this pic! if you look into it too much your eyes'll start to bleed, who gives a flinging crap what a dark elf would use in combat, or what armour they would "probebly" wear. what matters is... THIS PIC KICKS SERIOUS *@$!!! i mean seriously, i think the only thing i would change is the background, where as it sits on the fence of being too detailed and just subtle enough, i think i would play it back just a smidge, REALLY bunch these two awesome characters out more!!!! as for the characters themselves, i think you've done an amazing job. the action in their poses, the angle and perspective and right there!!! the flow of this piece is spectacular! it's feels as thought you've caught the first elf (with the wicked double sword and armour) nearly finishing his downward swing and the other elf (obviously the one on the ground getting schooled) desperately attempting to fend off this fierce attack. i have no doubt the wicked double sworded elf will win this contest. no doubt! great job! cheers!

Christopher A Malidore replies: "Thank you, this is probably one of my older pictures here, and still receives such a great reaction. I'm pleased with that. I may do a redo of it some day though, perhaps a bit more dynamic angle, better background, stuff like that. "

OOOOoooo! I shall put this awesome picture on my tour of awesome elves!!!! YAH, I love a good drow fight XD.

Oh so cool....Not into artistic commenting, but so cool!

I like it

its very detailed it took me a minute to get the whole picture.

I love this it looks simple at first glance but when you look at it properly the detail really shows.

great!

I can imagine the silent fighting, except for the eventual grunt of effort. They really look like they hate each other, though you can’t really see their faces, they are into it. Very good.

Could this be a DRIZZIT battle? Drizzit is the ULTIMATE dark elf warrior! R.A. Salvatore was the man over at forgotten realms! He’s semi retired now. No more Drizzit stories from him. But he does deserve a break after writng about the same character for 16 years.