Okay, this is the first "critique" I've tried. I figure you (Gordon-Dashinvaine) know my own artistic trends well enough to take everything I say with a grain of salt, which is as it should be. With that in mind, I'll approach this in two phases: "What I Like As Is" and "What You Might Consider."

What I Like As Is: The posing of the figures is impressive. Whether or not you worked from strong reference material or a hodge-podge assortment of it, the figures are strong and have a good, textured form. The textures of metal, cloth, and flesh are all distinguishable, as well as the ground beneath them. That robe/cape in particular grabs my eye, having a sheen or silky "luster" to it that is really attractive. The expressions and features on their faces are well-executed, too--the uncertainty toward her savior and the horror of what she's lived through are visible in her face, and his pose and careful, sympathetic look is perfect. Compositionally, you've done well to surround his light-hued, light-toned hair with some shadowy recesses in the cave's rear that provide him with the contrast to stand out. Although the woman's hair does not stand out as well, you've apparently used the contrast between her hair and the highlighted cheek to accomplish the same thing. In fact, I think her face draws the eye more powerfully than anything else in the picture, and since I prefer arranging the composition so that the woman's face is what's most important, I quite like how you've done it. Another good compositional strategy is the bending of the cave walls on either side to corral the viewer's eye into the picture's center. Lastly, the design of the armor, chains, and shackles is quite convincing. Obviously, you know your stuff about such things.

What You Might Consider: First, the symmetry. I personally try to avoid symmetry this perfect because it feels too static and calm, and I prefer more movement and tension (most of the time). I've seen enough of your work to know that you are certainly capable of producing an asymmetrical-but-balanced composition, so I'm going to assume you chose to try a more symmetric approach this time around. For starters, the dimensions of the picture are closer to square than a normal book cover. But beyond that, if you draw a line down a little right of center, it's uncannily close to perfectly symmetric, even the title and subtitle (four letters on either side of the "C" in "expectant," three words on either side of "caves" in the subtitle, and "a graphic" and "Gordon" are balanced so closely with "novel by" and "Napier"). Honestly, such symmetry seems warranted in a title overlay, but when that is continued with such precision in the painting, it feels a bit too ordered and static to me. I wonder how it would look if the uneven, staggered placement of the skulls was used in the arrangement of the nether caves themselves, so that instead of four equally-spaced dark openings we had a large one slightly off-center, another large one behind the knight, and a smaller one behind the woman. Or perhaps some other, more asymmetrical arrangement could throw off that line of symmetry but still allow you to preserve the compositional strengths I noted in the previous section. Enough about symmetry, but just three more quick nit-picky notes: (1) Assuming this is underground, there is a lot of light bouncing off of all sides of that armor, and (2) Having that Garger's severed head staring straight up/forward like that feels too perfect again--it's on all right-angles relative the floor and the viewer, and (3) I think the decorations (skulls) seem a little disproportional to the central figures--they're a bit too small, unless they belonged to children.

Color. I must say that I'm not sure which of the above sections this belongs in, because I both like and dislike how you've used that powerful golden-orange. I dislike it because it seems to be the most powerful color in the picture in terms of intensity, and there's so much of it, and it's all on the background instead of on the characters. That tends to pull my eye away from the characters toward something I'm not inclined to spend much time enjoying. However, I must say that I like it because you've used strong, relatively colorless tones of gray and (mostly) white to stand out against the more brilliant and intense golden hue. That and the relatively flat red heraldry on the cape pull my eye back to the figures, and I find myself enjoying that struggle, actually. My hat's off to you for making that work. To make it work even better, I'd suggest changing the color of the title "Expectant" to match the strong white of the figures, since it will pull them forward off the page a bit more by relation. It might help to extend the piece's height dimension up another fourth, if such a thing is possible, and relocating the title up a bit higher so it doesn't crowd the figures. And, I admit that I'd like to see how this would look if the background lost its intensity behind a light wash of dull blue-green shadows.

Artistically, that's it, but I think I'd like to just add something about the function of this piece as a cover for your wonderful story. I've already talked about the expressions revealing a lot about the characters ( awesome job! ), but I also want to mention the shining armor, blood, severed head, and the chains as advertisements of what the story contains: nudity, implied sex, grim and disturbing treatment of innocent people, Violence, and true examples of heroism. Very effective in that regard, I think.

Now I'll try and rate the deviation for Vision, Originality, Technique, and Impact, but I must admit that, since this is my first one of these things, I'm uncertain how I'm going to use the rubrics. I may very likely end up being inconsistent if I do more of these things, and I don't think I'll be able to go back in and change what I mark. So, please take this with a grain of salt (have I said that before? ).