Alien Landscape

[wanski]

Hello, this is my first post here, ive been trying to get some sort of feedback on my work mostly through deviant art but this place seems to be way more focused on learning which i need, anyway this is my latest piece.
There was no real aim or anything for this picture exept to illustrate a strange environment, if you could all have a look and give me some crit then that would be fantastic thankyou

[DAMJAN]

In my opinion this looks really good. But, I would like to see this with higher contrast. For instance, darker shadows to make certain areas stand out more & make them look more 3d. This way it's still a little bit flat, just a little. If you could upload both versions & then we can see which is better.

[DAMJAN]

One more thing. Since there is a high light source, try making high yellow/orange highlights on the path way and those strange mountains.

[Dile_]

I wish it wasn't monochrome , and I wish you used the perspective to your advantage , and not useing it to "cheat" or to make stuff easy for you.

I think its good, but very boring, the interesting shapes of the landshape is the only thing that would make the audience keep looking. Theres not much presented, and the whole thing is pretty basic, I think you could develope it further, textures, some action and more colors etc.

Keep it up, I hope you keep working on it.

-Dile

[zeitgeist]

it seems you had a very specific goal to make a vast and empty shot of a barren waste... I could be wrong... but adding more colors or actions could take away from your initial idea.

i would however, like to see the structures and buildings in the back shaped a little cleaner... and maybe add just a smidge of light from the sun hitting the cracked earth along the road.

[wanski]

Ok thanks guys alot of helpfull stuff here, indeed the idea of the picture as it developed was to make it look barren and yes as i experimented with different colours it did take away from that feeling.
i`ll take all of your points into concideration and repost thanks alot for that people.
Dile could you please explain what you mean by "cheating" i assure you this wasnt my objective and i would like to know what it is about the image that makes you feel this way so i can avoid it in the future.

[Calis]

looks pretty good
i like it, i'd like to see some deeper shadows too though and mabe a few more of those rocks on the right side of the picture or some of those pyramid type structures, it seems like its unevenly balanced with most of the weight on the left side of it
good work though, i wanna see then next version of it :)

[Dawood Marion]

I think it is a great work.
I agree with all of the comments above.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The use for this work would determine how far you would take it. Since you had no original purpose other than exercising (which is absolutely great) I would call this one done after adding some highlights/ sun reflections on the rocks and ground as zeitgeist said. There is no question that you will need to spend time on these highlights as I did just a quick pass over the picture just to suggest my advise.
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You can also mess around with the hue, saturation and levels to get different moods going. In this one the foreground element became darker and contrasted with the elements further in the distance which is always a must to create the illusion of things being closer to the camera (they become darker). As you study your favorite illustrators online take and put they're pictures in Photoshop and desaturate them. You will see the value changes in relation to the proximity of different subjects in a picture.
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Great work, Good Luck

[nickmarshallvfx]

I think at the moment this painting is good, but with a little work it could be great! I think you should just get some actual shadows and highlights into all the rocks, so they dont look like flat planes. If you work out where the light will hit, and get some nice shadows and highlights onto those rocks, maybe with some texture to make them look really sharp, then it will really pop, and stand out as a great painting!
I hope you make changes, it will be worth it I feel!

Nick

[Coleb]

I think it´s beautiful. The only thing I can find to observe is that the atmospheric perspective may be a little confusing, since the highest degree of contrast and detail is on the skeletal sort of structures in the middle, but not at the far corners, which I assume should really be physically a lot closer to the viewer. Does that make sense? On the other hand, you definitely want to maintain the focus on that spot in the middle ground.

Cool image.

[wanski]

Thanks for all your comments on this so far people, really big help, i assure you i`m taking them all into consideration and re-working this image, changed it quite alot and its looking good, v2 should be posted sometime soon.

[jvisgaitis]

I like this a lot and this is kinda the stuff I'm doing now. One suggestion that I've just noticed from life is that when you have the sun low on the horizon like that it tends to silhouette the mountains and such usually making that your darkest point. You can certainly get away with this as well. Just another suggestion for a different take though. Looks good!

[Radio24]

Daewood makes a good point with the saturation and atmospheric perspective. It is a hard piece because the depth perspective competes with jvis's comment about the silhouetted mountains...
personally, i'd like to see a scale reference... maybe a figure or a doorway.

[YVerloc]

I like the idea, and I like the piece!

All my "I wonder what it would look like if..." thoughts are the same as the others have said. I decided to try an overpaint. I wanted to see some stonger foreground elements, so I extended the spiky walkway foward. I also wanted to see some surface sheen on the spikes and ground, so I darkened the whole picture to make room for some really hard edged highlights. Monkeyed with the saturation and color balance a bit too, since I was wondering what it would look like if it weren't so blown out and monochrome.

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/9774/wanskioverpaint08ys5.jpg

[jvisgaitis]

All my "I wonder what it would look like if..." thoughts are the same as the others have said. I decided to try an overpaint.

I like the overpaint. The darkness in the lower part of the painting works well and helps bring it all together.

[Radio24]

my monitoro has lines on it.. the new overpainting looks like there is rain, the wet highlights help with the effect. I also like the purples and cools added. good suggestions

[MrArmadillo]

Hi

I have a question for everyone: regarding landscapes/environments, where do you begin? What's your process?

Myself, if i try to sketch the image, it becomes impossible to complete. If i paint and start with a horizon or mountains in the distance, creating a foreground element becomes impossible. If i try to block out shapes with large brushes, it becomes all mixed in and i can't tell anything apart.

Yverloc, your overpaint looks like a finished product, and it actually helps a great deal to see the process from wanksi's original, however, wanksi, I am wondering how you even arrived at where you did.

I have a post in another thread somewhere around here (probably buried around pg 50,) with a landscape of a stormy sky with mountains in the background, but i couldn't stick a foreground on it.

Any pointers on the process would be greatly appreciated.

[wanski]

YVerloc that overpaint looks great, ive put some more foreground elements to help bring the path into perspective instead of it just kind of vanishing down of the page, the colours look great, i`m relatively new to colour so its interesting to see what somone with more excperience could make out of it.

[wanski]

MrArmadillo, heres some quick time lapses, in this case i just messed around until something nice came along, established my horizon and background and then went from there, try creating thumnails and playing with 3 different gradients - black (foreground) middle grey (middleground) and a light grey as your background and a lighter colour again for your light source, it creates simple small pics but they are readable to the eye, from there its just filling in. haha but i`m still learning too so look around the boards

[Zimzibar]

Wow, loved it when i first saw it but it def has potential to be developed, like it has been in the paint-overs. Can't wait to see v2 :D

[MrArmadillo]

thanks wanski!

helps a lot to see how it just comes together.

i too am looking forward to a finished version

[Moai]

I like the idea behind this. It reminds me of the Hell level in the first Earthworm Jim game.
Like others have said, the original version is nice enough, but it lacks focus and interest, and the values could definitely be improved. In my opinion, if and when you go further with this piece, you should go towards something YVerloc's paintover. That would greatly improve the value and focal-point situation.

[wanski]

Ok heres version 2

Let me know what you think

[Dawood Marion]

Bravo!! Great work ... This image is very dramatic and I commend your efforts to constantly work to may it better.
Thanks for the inspiration.

[wanski]

Thanks, and thankyou to everyone for their comments and paintovers, certainly learnt alot from them, i realise the picture still isnt quite right but its was great to learn from :).

[daveneale]

rocking...you've really developed this nicely....I also dig some of the paintovers:P....one think I'd suggest is making the foreground cracks more defined....just make them darker and highlight the edges (you know-nice light line on the egde at the top of the crack-I know theres a technical term for this but it wont leave the tip of my tounge)-just cause this area isnt as polished as some of the rocks and makes it look slightly fuzzy. Awsome pic-real cool atmosphere

[mehran]

the piece came out rather nice....I like final version BUT there is jsut one little crit that I sorta wanted to put up to you...
those speculars on the walkway in the foreground arn't all that hot and look fuzzy.. they should be sharper..
and that' all I wanted to crit..
thanks for posting
and THANKS for sharing your workflow

[dkounios]

great job man. love the updated version, it stands out much much better.
cant wait to see the finished version