Defeat - Gladiator
Like the photographs of jocks in an emotional state of despair, these paintings show gladiators in a state of despair after losing a fight. I made these images as paintings as I feel that this medium is a better fit for the subject matter and the historical context.
I made a series of paintings before I made the photographs about the athletes, but I didn’t quite like the renderings, so I have never posted them before. I decided to remaster some of these and tried new generations with Midjourney v5.2, and the results are a lot better, so that’s why I’m posting them today.
Regarding the different zoom levels, the zoomed in version was what Midjourney originally produced, but I used the zoom function to get the full frame. The zoomed-in versions highlight the emotional states of the gladiators better. The zoomed-out versions give better contexts of the situations they are in.
As an image, the zoomed out versions are what I preferred as the final images, but I thought that I would include the close-up version here as well since they are technically the original.
Text prompts in Midjourney v5.2. Paintings with selected artists. Adobe Lightroom color correction.
Images
Painting 1
Painting 2
Painting 3
- 1Beach Fight 1v1
- 2Group Fight at the Beach (Study)