[Archived Class 1] Week Five - The Effects of Time and Weather

[Form]

Week Five Focus: The Effects of Time and Weather

Recapping Week Four:

We have upped the bar again guys. Several people were very close to getting a fleur-de-lys last week, and i think there are a number of you who can get it this week. Sure, its just a few pixels as a reward... or is it?!?!?! hehe :) But really, I'm stoked to see you guys improving so fast, especially those guys who are participating actively in discussion - the revisions you make to your work are becoming evident throughout your works in progress. How are those portfolios looking fellas?? Filling up? :)

Week Five:

Time and Weather effects

This week is a breather for us, and we have already started late. It is a chance for us to bring some of our work up to speed, rekindle our energy if we are getting overworked (ok, maybe that’s just me :P) and to push a previous work a little further to portfolio level.

This week there is no study task, beyond the mark given for contribution to general discussion. I would like you all to provide, where suitable, links to artists or reference that inspires you this week, and go the extra mile in providing resources for the others.

This week we are taking up where we left off in week four, and pushing our last artwork to a higher level. As part of a concept team, especially in video games, you may often be asked to produce a series of concepts depicting the same subject under different conditions.

For instance, when doing environment concepts for a game, you may be asked to design a building and then present it shot at daytime, nighttime, when it is on fire, after it is destroyed, after it is occupied by the enemy, etc. The same applies to other designs as well – im sure many of you have seen boards of monster designs with variations in their anatomy or their colour or texture, but keeping the same underlying shape.

To begin with , I would like to encourage some discussion of notable paintings in your inspiration folders – about how they achieved the effects in the painting, and what that does to the picture. These elements convey a powerful energy in artwork. They can lend dimension, force or activity, and a sense of chronology to a piece. Returning to the fundamental goal to achieve our pictoral illusion, these methods can be a way to break a picture away from being static and lifeless, and to give them a sense of existing in time.

Lets talk about some ideas and examples (will respond immediately to any requests for removal):



Work by Emrah Elmahsi (SP?) (Atmospheria)
http://www.partycule.com/gallery/albums/userpics/normal_emrah_beginning_of_the_end.jpg

Needless to say, the flaming meteors of doom really sell this piece. They interact with the subjects in a direct manner, conveying MOTION and the interaction between objects. Their trajectory is clear to us because of the situation, and this creates a feeling of time which draws us into the picture. Our subconscious is projecting that situation forward, and predicting to some degree what is going to happen next in the situation.

Work by Cicinemo (Jaime S, sorry bro don't know your last name) And i believe copyright Arena Net.

4th one down on the left, huts at nighttime.
http://artpad.org/?page_id=6&album=1&gallery=5

Consider the presentation of this piece at night instead of day - not to overcomplicate the decision, but the warmth of the light really sells the huts. They are obviously not intended for a warfare environment, so the warm lights against the cool but still 'safe' exterior sells the idea of homeliness. The sky and the lights both create depth of time, or a 4th dimension, where we are drawn in by context and implication.

*couldn't find alexi's on his website, and nevermind - you guys are posting great examples anyway*
Production Piece:

This week I would like you to take your previous artwork (from week 4), and complete a concept presentation of this environment as if a director were asking you to present different style boards. What I would like to see are the following:

1. Your castle, changed to a night shot.
2. Your castle, during heavy rain, snow or hail.
3. Your castle as a ruin, after being destroyed.

Present these 3, along with your original, as a cohesive set of 4 designs.

Good luck again this week guys - keep up the inspiring participation (for yourselves, and others - plenty of people from CA have messaged me saying that you guys were an inspiration! Have you guys been getting those too? ;))

Deadline:
NEXT TUESDAY (anywhere in the world).


Good luck!!

[robmorfin]

Cool, can't wait to darken it, snow it and destroy the hell out of it!

[robmorfin]

Form, the atachments are not working

[Gundersen]

sorry From, havent gotten any mails from anyone ..

Your links are not working either :P hehe But ill try to imagine them in my head :)
Lets see if anyone can get a Pro Mark this week then, I think someone should manage it!
Keep pushing it guys!

I already started working on this, and one way i found was good was to turn the original image into grayscale first. Then decide where i want the lightsource to be in the next shoot. And paint it up quickly. Then go over to colour to get in what i want!

hehe :asslick:

[Agustin Poratti]

that means... we have 4 days, right?

[Earendil]

This'll be interesting.

[Gundersen]

It means you have til Tuesday next week. So 8 or 9 days, depending on where you live

[Gundersen]

Form showed me this Image the other day as inspiration to what he meant this assignment was all about.

Thought id share it with the rest of you

Its painted by: Whit Brachna (Will remove it if Artist dont like me posting it)

http://www.brushbook.com/images/05.jpg

[robmorfin]

wow, great examples, thanks Gund and Form.

[Gundersen]

Tried to play around a bit today with my destroyed castle. So here is a thumb of the work so far:

http://clicken.no/Thomas/weather/Ruin2.jpg

[robmorfin]

This image is from Yanick Dusseault aka Dusso (will respond immediately to any requests for removal):
it is located here: http://www.dusso.com/images/pa01/PA27.html , copy added below.

In this image, he is using a lot of atmospheric effects: Storm Clouds, lightnings, Fire, Smoke, and light rays.

Even though the fire is creating some focus, he manages to spread it in a way that it is not the main emphasis, this would be composed of an emphasis triangle including the lightning rod between the buildings and the light created by the reflection of the light rays in the bottom of the two towers; He creates a fog out of the smoke which is all around blending with the clouds, giving a sense of the city floating in the sky, also the smoke spreads darkness all over the place being reinforced by the clouds blocking the sun light.

There are four light sources in this image, -one being the Sun which illuminated the clouds and created the light rays illuminating part of the bldgs. and smoke clouds, creating a yellowish warm in the top of the image and a hazy greenish gray in the middle, -the second one, a really weak and diffuse lightsource is the clouds themselves, whichare really just spreading the light from top of the Sun andcreating a reflection of the lightning rod lights, creating the greenish gray dark tones all around the image, -the third lighsource would be the lightning rods, which seem tobe as yellow neon lights which create a gradient fromyellow to greenish gray around it from the clouds, -the fourth one would be the fire which gives orange tones to the walls of the buildings next to it, this lightsource is being kept very weak because of all the other lightsources already covering the whole environment.

Even though two of these lightsources are warm, the overall feeling is cold, fire gives us the warm feeling, we relate it with hot, on the other hand, even though lightnings are hot as hell, we relate them to cold and wet (and there is not one drop of rain in this storm), also, the storm clouds themselves and them being blocking the sun, plus the darkness all over win the battle giving us the feeling of coolness.

[Earendil]

Very good image rob. Love it!

[robmorfin]

Yeah Ear, Dusso is awesome!

Form, I noticed that you stopped by to sticky this week's assignments, but the attachnments of the images are still not working, would really like to take a look at those.

[robmorfin]

Thanks for fixing the links Form, now it works fine, great images, thanks,

Work by Cicinemo (Jaime S, sorry bro don't know your last name)

Jaime Jones

[Gundersen]

great image robmorfin

Here is a Image i have in my "folder of inspiration". I thought to show it because its almost a night shoot, it is as the sun goes down behind this structure thing. So its a relatively dark shoot. But i love how easy and loose this painting is done EXCEPT from the main focus point. Where the blue light shoots up and the smoke comes from has more sharpnes to the lines and directly draws our eyes towards it. All the lines in the pictures also points towards in it even if you dont notice that at once. I love the colours used in this piece!

[Earendil]

That's HL2 Episode 2! Great stuff!

[chaosrocks]

actually I stickied it
but the links weren't working when I did it. Glad they are now

[Form]

yeah chaos i came online yesterday morning remembering that id forgotten to stick and unstick... and it was already done... i was like... wtf? I MUST have been tired last night...

[jodali]

these are a few images that I like, there is one that I've seen but have not been able to track it down. The view is from inside of a cathedral looking up towards the ceiling. its very broken down and aged like it went through a war. I remember reading that it started as a rough 3d model and the texture painted over. if I remember correctly there was a regular one done first and then a broken down aged one. it would be a great example if any one knows of it.

(will respond immediately to any requests for removal)

the first I believe is a 3d model, but is still a great example of night and day shots
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/dayNnightshor3D.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/timedaynight.gif

the next ones are all from I-NetGraFX (http://www.inetgrafx.com/index.php)
the first 2 are a great example of night and day shots
the last 2 post-apocalyptic-ish are descent examples of time passed
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/inettimre.jpg
the first 2 use color in a strong way, light warm colors are used to represent day time, and the cool dim colors to represent night. the other 2 use destruction to the full extent to show time. you can see that the cities are supposed to be full of life and people, yet the images show no life at all. the blue one seems to use a real cold color to help give the feel of death and destruction.

[robmorfin]

Which button do I push in Photoshop to make my daylight image turn into nightime, make rain & destroy itself?

JK

[chaosrocks]

lenzflar

[robmorfin]

Yeah, specially that one!, jajaja

By the way, Jodali, thanks for those amazing examples.

[robmorfin]

Chaos, now that i think about it you are right with one of them, if you use lensflare with the image, you will really destroy it!.

[chaosrocks]

giggle
Im really looking forward to destruction
I Knew I put that fragile bridge in for a reason
crx

[rvdtor]

wow gundersen the first batch by Whit Brachna are amazing, the reflected images along with the change in weather and time really change the picture dramatically i had to look again to make sure it was the same, and the other one with the smoke and halo stuff is amazing, wow.

thanks too jodali those are really inspiring.

i might be a bit slow this week but i will get it done, just have an animation to finish for friday, but will definately pop in a read now and again.

[Gundersen]

Yeah i got a bussy week aswell. But ill manage :)

Good examples people. NOW start to show WIPs !

[daldbaatar]

Hi guys. Got some great stuff shown up there. Even thou some of them were 3d, it still is a great reference and examples. Gundersen's ( Whit Brachna ) was awesome. It was truly inspirational. Now its my turn to show up an example.
These are works of my favorite artist Feng Zhu. It was hard to find examples. In this example he made a futuristic city structures that look alike in certain way. The time line can be traced by the shadow length of the objects here. While it seems there are only 2 hour differences in each picture but the shades and colors made a great difference. And there also seem to be a great change, according to the humidity level it shows in them. 1st picture's focal point is up on the left top part. And the other two pic's focal point is around the center.
Here is a little thought that came into my head when i was reading other's comments. It seems that even if there is very strong color but lack of details, it doesnt make a focal point..is that right? So what i'm saying is detail and contrast can make a focal point in some way right?
http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/4105/fungzhuqj6.jpg

[robmorfin]

Busy week as well, tennis, dentist, Gnom. Workshop this weekend, anyway, thanks Form for explaining me how to get rid of the pencil sketch look in my piece, I am so excited changing it, it's looking much better, also I'm adding more detail, so it will take me a bit more to start posting rain, dark & demo, but will get there on time.

Great images Dald, thanks for sharing.

[Gundersen]

here is the 3 WIPs from me, they are far from done, but on a good way. I am trying out some new painting techniques, aka useing less pen pressure oppacity. Instead tryin to be more confident with colour and use pen pressure on size instead ...

Any ideas?
(and please keep in to constructive criticism, not only like "i dont like it"..:wtf: )

http://clicken.no/Thomas/weather/Thumb1.jpg

[D.Labruyere]

hey gundersen, I think you can do a lot more with the light coming out from the castle in your first and second one. Wouldn't it reflect on the things outside also?

Watch your brushstrokes. Sometimes it is better to just do one big one then a thousand tiny ones.

I like your start and am eager to see more :)

[Agustin Poratti]

umm.. i dont like it, gun

[Gundersen]

D.Labruyere thank you for comment, as I mentioned i am experimenting with diffrent ways i can use the brushes. Cause i realized my round hard brush with opacity on pen pressure created a very soft image with no real hard edges, so i wanted to try to see what i could do to change that

Since it is not real proffesional work i think its good to try diffrent stuff atm to see what works and what dont work. So watch out for more funny stuff from me

Augustin : What a terrific comment

[chaosrocks]

gunderson- you are getting sorta sketchy line patting style. its very pointy. in your frozen scene you might want to contrast the white smoothing edge blunting look of snwo with the eveil pointy icy look of the castle. using the edge quality to emphsise the different content
your landscape is pretty bare and stark to begin with. so changing it to more desolation is going to be difficult.
ever considered burying it in jungle
?

[daldbaatar]

its sweet Gundy. The flaw here is that all them strokes look too hard...
The first pic looks like some reflections are wrong in degrees. As for the snowing part, it looks as if the ground is like an ice covered field. And for the 3rd part the area looks kinda dry but why is that a wet weed grown? But very early huh? well this week i cant be as early as i was...

[Gundersen]

as i said its WIP, so not early .. its just some hours of work, nothing to serious! :)

But thanks for comments dalb

[robmorfin]

Gund, I will comment on yours tomorrow, sorry, I've been very busy.

Updated the castle itself, got rid of the pencil lines sketch finally.

Also, night shot.

[Earendil]

Nice rob! Not sure what to say...maybe double check the foreground stuff, would they really be that dark? O.o Not sure just trying to think of possible places...

Here's a piece that I like (everybody's used I-Net-GFX so much :D )

Mr. Swigut really sells atmosphere here with his color palette, it's like you can feel the light going "dear god why do I have to go through so much crap and shift to really warm colors???"

He puts the recognizable Eiffel Tower close to one of the 3rd focal points, and right in front of a big bloom of light so it pops out. Great great great!

[Agustin Poratti]

hey punks, hows that going?
loving that detail update on the castle, robmorfin, really good

my night shit so far....
er shot.

[chaosrocks]

thinking
not gotten very far were in tech for a show, we open on monday. but I think about it all the time
destruction will be fun

[Gundersen]

robmorfin: Your castle is looking alot better, lovely details. But be carefull about light/shadow/colour(dont know which one... will explain), there is a tower in the foreground that has a dark orange colour and REALY stands out in the image. You told me once that you wanted the main building in the midground to be the focus point, atm its not the focus point. On the night shoot, add some lights from the city, MAKE IT SHIIIIIIIIIIINE :) hehe

Good work mate so far, keep pushing it!

Agustin: same about the light, its a night shoot, make your building SHIIIINE and let the soroundings be darker, atm its just grey .. But it looks promising, bring those burning torches back, they will be great in the night shoot

Chaosrock: Same as Augustin, your night is very grey. Look at your window at night, its pretty black. Also the lights you have put around is at just dots, they dont give of any lights or dont have a stand .. So its floating yellow dotts in the air. If they are bright lights they should reflect on the buildings around.

Will post an update on mine later, and YES its gonna be MESSY experiements!

[chaosrocks]

yeah just sketch thinking... Blush actually doone with a mouse...
but I want the buuildings to sillouhette acaisnt the sky. I can see pretty well at night esp with a clear sky. maybe its just stardust and guessing.... :P

[Gundersen]

Here is an update on mine ... Messy as i said :)

http://clicken.no/Thomas/weather/Thumb2.jpg

[robmorfin]

Gund,

Looking nice, that was very fast!, few things I see could make your images work better:

-NIGHT- whatch your lightsources and the objects been lighted, they are not matching in some areas & darken the foreground more, the values look as in the Middleground in some ares.
-SNOW- too hard and linear lines, snow is soft and fluffy, soften it and create roundness.
-DEMOLISHED- destruction is random, again, lines too straight where broken, create rubble and holes as if you smashed the bricks.

Thanks for your comments, I will add lights, great idea, and I like the focus on the front tower, changed my mind.

Thanks.

[robmorfin]

Not sure what to say...maybe double check the foreground stuff, would they really be that dark? O.o Not sure just trying to think of possible places...

Thanks Ear, the FG is suppossed to be lighter, my laptop screen is way too bright, so i didn't notice until today, thanks, I will also add some interior lights and maybe some torches around to give it some balance with some warms and define better some of the areas as well.

Thanks.

[robmorfin]

Agustin, hope you don't get offended, I made a quick paintover on your image, I feel you need to add a bigger element on the foreground, also, you need to go darker wherever there is not any night light, also, crop the image, its' too centered.

Hope it helps.

[robmorfin]

Chaos, go darker on the FG and show those lights in the walls.

Looking nice.

[chaosrocks]

yeah thanks
gund watch that if somng is back lit it will be in the darkest shadow. you could apply that to the walls coming from the big door..
the snow banks are getting a little softer. um you might want to think about that if rain comes down it has to go somewhere... it pours off of things..

augustin- lookin good although I think like mine your night is not reading as night yet

[robmorfin]

updated the night shot, made it lighter, still going to add lights and torches.

[Agustin Poratti]

lol, right, ummm.... great job everyone, you're the future, people
im leaving the class, sorry - personal stuff.
thanks for everything Adam, you're a very talented and patient guy.
seeyas classmates, twas nice while it lasted!
cheers!

+1 open slot.

[chaosrocks]

crap!
Augustin.. are you sure? thats too bad
you added a lovely painterly style to what be comes way to cold at times
I value mark making with character and you add a lot to our discussions
you will be missed
crx

[Earendil]

Nooo Agustin don't leave! But...I know personal stuff so, if you gotta leave...Good luck to ya!

[Gundersen]

lol, right, ummm.... great job everyone, you're the future, people
im leaving the class, sorry - personal stuff.
thanks for everything Adam, you're a very talented and patient guy.
seeyas classmates, twas nice while it lasted!
cheers!

+1 open slot.

See you around. seems to me to be a sarcastic post ... but i wont go into detail.

[D.Labruyere]

To bad to hear augustin. Hope you're doing well.

[rvdtor]

http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/4852/222111196065545largego8.jpg
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/9711/thetreebigbue4.jpg
well srry for not being around just getting a lot done with school and resting my eyes cause they were burning and i almost burst a capillary, so taking it easy. anyway got a few mins here to decided to post. the first one i liked cause of the soft evening sunlight and there seems to be like mist around the painting but it adds to the feeling of dusk.
the second was good i though because of the contrasting sides so u can clearly see the hues, and saturation levels and atmospheric effects that help define each half's time in space.

chaosrocks i like the lights but they need to illuminate the structures more to make them more vivid like on augustins.

robmorfin the same i think the city looks really dead like no body lives there the change to night time really shifts the mood which is excellent, adding few lights would make it pop up a bit more although staying with that abandoned mood gives it a real sense of mystery and is really creepy.

gundersen i like the destroyed image better, the rain compliments the buildings destruction and the lighting is ok. the others i think esp. the snow the strokes like everyone says are a bit too sharp but the snowing and the blurring on it give it a real sense of motion, i like that.

[Gundersen]

Thanks for comments and critts guys, WOULD BE NICE if any of you would post WIPs aswell so people could comment. This is not a get an assignment, show all work one week later thing, for that you can take part in the EOW or similar instead. This is supposed to be a class room, so PLEASE start posting WIPs ... it should be a daily requirement, will talk to Form about that later

Some of you mentioned snow being fluffy, yes i agree that snow in principle is fluffy, but on distance in the mountain when it has been there for a while it gets HARD :) Check reference on this! Well here is a reference image to show what i mean ..

[Earendil]

Here is my nightshot so far. It's only about 1/3 done. Just wanted to give folks an idea of what I had. The composition I think works better because of that intense orange near the 3rd focal point. I'm going to pump up the sky detail, and bridge design a bit this pass. Rimlighting to teh maXz0r!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2326/2079518704_ef5a713c11_o_d.jpg

RVDTOR, those are some nice images!

[jodali]

a little update
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/112707castlesnowy4b.jpg

[Earendil]

Jodali> That looks like my city at the moment! Blizzard!!! The only thing that bugs me is that section of mountain near the waterfall; it's too dark, and is competing with the castle itself which is nearly disappeared. You have a nice whitish/hazy castle, moving to the right...nice hazy whitish waterfall, and then this rock that says "HEY I"M HERE"...Even THOUGH, it looks like both the rock and castle are the exact same distance away.

Make sense?

I speak wurdz. :P

[daldbaatar]

Hey Gundy. Listen up. It is wrong to force peeps up just becus u are early and stuff. Everybody has their own life and schedule. So this whole after one week thing is all fair and good. What if some dudes wont even have time to show the work in progress during the whole week or wont have time until the end of the week? Its not only you bro...its about all of us. If u're early then thats fine with us...

[Gundersen]

daldbaatar: its perfectly fine if your bussy, but as you can see two people where holding back there WIPs instead of posting them. And i am not early, I am bussy as hell this week, barely have time to paint at all, have a big deadline for a Theater complex design on thursday next week.

My point is that if we are to learn about anything we need to do it togheter, and we dont learn much if you only read the assignment and post in the end ... Form has talked about this in previous threads aswell.

Earendil: Nice night shoot so far. Why is the left side of the building more red then the right side? They both seem to have the same lightsources. The bridge design is ok, whats funny is your character. Looks like you can see through it, has a hughe bow and tiny arrows, and the anatomy is a little funky :)
Look forward to seeing more

jodali: as Earendil mentioned your castle is kind of disapeared in the snow. Your values seems to be correct, I think the reason we loose focus away from the castle is based on sharpnes, detail, coulour and light. Its kind of faded away.. Add some lights to the castle to bring our eyes there, something that stands out, a Warm colour in the cold winter.

[daldbaatar]

well...lets get a move on

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/6899/castlerainge3.jpg

[Gundersen]

can you post a little bit smaller mate? atm i need to scroll back and forth, up and down to see it :)

Watch the shadow and highlights, decide one angel where the light is mainly comming from. Atm your door is the main focus, it has the brightest colours and sharpest details

[Earendil]

Good comments Gund. Thanks!

dald> The rain will integrate better into the scene if you keep the streaks closer to the perspective you've already setup. Right now it looks "overlaid".

[Gundersen]

dalb: I think Chaos game the same critt to me, if its raining that much you need to consider that it creates pounds here and there, and the ground need to look wet, the building dripping and so on.

The perspective of your rain doesnt make sense atm as earendil said. Unless there is strong wind the rain falls verticaly. So you have a 3 point perspective. That means the rain falls in the same perspective as your building!

But looks good, keep going mate!

[chaosrocks]

hey am posting wips... even updated it in the orginal post.. Thats just habit from EOW I guess it actually is raining here. heheh I went back and added lightposts to my castle so I could do the night shots. I think Im putting in gargoyles or a least down spouts for the rain...shoul dbe fun..

Gundy the snow is hard. but look at your ref in the middle ground it makes rounded curved shapes by blanketing the edges.

Dal heheh Im have trouble withthe idea of torential down pour in what has always appeared to be a desert environment
the water just doesn't make sense withthe dry parched look of the land


We are in full dress rehearsal today for a show that opens monday. after opening my schedule should lighten up. Bu tin any case

[Gundersen]

Chaos please post your WIPs in new replies rather then update in the thread, since most of us just check the last post each day, cant go through the entire thread each day :)

/me takes a look at Chaos update

Chaos why does your yellow lights give off a white light? Don think i know of that types of lights ;)

[Gundersen]

has worked on different elements today.
1. Been fixing the original image a bit
2. Added texture to the castle on all images
3. Added water splash on the raining picture
4. Worked on the depths of the images
5. Light
6....... ahh had fun with texture :) :) :)

http://clicken.no/Thomas/weather/4of4.jpg

[Earendil]

Gund>The first two thumbs read better than the last two. I'm not sure, but I think the rain/snow is interfering. Not sure, but maybe try thinning a bit? Rain in my experience is usually only visible against a darker background...it's a bit tricky because rain is reflective and transparent. You've got some good stuff.

I haven't changed the orange light yet, you'll see but that area is only light from that side, I haven't done much to seperate the forms of the buildings in front and sides, I've been working on moonlight since it's the largest source of light.

Still not finished, but getting there. Still have the bridge, and elements on the left side and middle. annnnnnnd more stuff.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2419/2081755186_0893a850fb_o_d.jpg

[daldbaatar]

Chaos, Ear, Gundy...Thanks for comment post. I thought so too...ok will fix it accordingly. Here is another work...The night castle

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6974/castlenightphase1ms8.jpg

[daldbaatar]

here are my comments...sorry for being little late.
Robbie: Good my friend. Now all u need is little refinement ad some torches. And it would seem better of the streets get lit up...u know what i mean. Light the buildings from below
Gundy: Sweet. Now u seem to be making your own style. Colors are the best here i think. The big crosses got random thikness here. Gotta work on that. And on the destruction part...i think u better get those huge spiking columns more broken, and little shorter than it was. And on the winter part we seem to be loosing some depth there.
Chaos: I dont see much color richness and the lights are kinda weird...it should be better if it was little warm in color u know...
Jodali: I love it. As mentioned above the castle is losing its importance...Kill the rock and bring the castle up front in contrast and colors. Then it will make difference.
Earendil: It would look better if u add some tiny branches in the trees...some leaves look like they are flying. Still needs some stong color variations and some really dark tones here and there. I guess u see that as well.

updated the Rain>>>see above

[jodali]

thanks for the comments everyone,

daldbaatar - I'm liking your night shot, for my taste I would liked to of seen slightly brighter "window lights". the perspective rain on your weather shot really helped

Gundersen - i like your first 2 shots, although I'm not a fan of the neon green in the night shot, but thats just me, neon was made for underneath cars or the local watering hole. the same goes for the rain/destruction shot, i had the same problem with the grass in my original, try shifting the slider from green towards the yellow/orange side, not to much though, you don't want to get lava foliage.

Earendil - I like the night shot you got. If someone forced me to criticize it I would have to say put more light reflections on all the reflective surfaces, leaves, bridge uprights, a tiny bit on the trees.

Agustin Poratti - sorry to hear that your leaving.

robmorfin - the night shot looks great, I like the fact that you got rid of those sketch lines, that helped a lot. I would also like to see a little more lighting from the streets or the lower parts of the buildings.

chaosrocks - your night shot is looking great, I'm liking the torches you put n, just don't forget the reflections on all the surrounding surfaces.



I'm not sure which rock you guys are talking about, is it the red one?
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/snowycastleRock.jpg

[Earendil]

You got it! :) The red one it is. I love your paintovers :D

[robmorfin]

Snowed castle.

[robmorfin]

lol, right, ummm.... great job everyone, you're the future, people
im leaving the class, sorry - personal stuff.
thanks for everything Adam, you're a very talented and patient guy.
seeyas classmates, twas nice while it lasted!
cheers!

+1 open slot.
Agustin, best of lucks, too bad you had to go.

[robmorfin]

Rvdtor-Thanks, I want to add the lights, after I do the demo version. Great images, thanks for sharing them.
Chaos - Looking nicer, where the yellow lights illuminate, there should be some of that yellow show combined with the color of the object; Good move on the darkening, but the MG should not be as dark as the FG, that will create some Atmos. Persp., great improvement. Good luck with the opening.
Gund - I like the moods you have now a lot, I love the darkness of the catle; One thing that is confusing is the right front wall in the night and snow shots, the values are exactly the same as some objects in the FG and it's hard to tell which are at front and which are back; Also, the light ray in the 1st image it's hard to tell if it comes from the sun or from inside the bldg; Is the rainy shot the destroyed one?
Jodali - Looks great, very nice snow effect, I really like the icicles in the warterfalls and the sheet of ice in the water, nice touch; The snow falling at front seems to be right at the camera because of the size of the snowflakes, if so, it should be shown all the way to the bottom of the image.
Dald - Thanks, I'm planning on adding the lights. - Very nice images, I really like the rain effect you got there; make the ground darker, it's mud by now, make rivers falling down and eroding the hill, make the rain splash on the top of the walls; On the night shot, turn off some of the lights to create some dark spots & randomness, and be more believable. Looks awesome.
Ear - Looking very nice, but a little bit on the B&W side, add some blues and purples to those grays, the dark cloud shape is following the same shape as the tree branches, make them random & overlap; The lights should not be reflected in thewalls because they are directly behind them, but I like that orange reflection a lot, maybe you want to consider adding a fire in the outdoor courtyard., anyway, looks great.

[Gundersen]

Thanks people for comments and critts !!!

First answer to questions to me:
Earendil: i am not sure if rain is visisble only where its shadow, its the opposite way i would say. Since as you say yourself rain is reflective, and on the dark areas it doesnt reflect anything... Thanks for comment

dalbaatar: Thanks mate, I am starting to like it myself

jodali: hahahah :) nice comment, well the inspiration for the green colour came from the classical evil castle where there is this evil green light sorounding it. I think me and you have a little diffrent use of colours :) Which is cool atm for me NEON POWER! :) And yes its the red part, but its not only that its so dark, its that the castle is faded away that creates the problem. WOrk on bringing the castle forward

robmorfin: The rainy shoot is the destroyed one yes. The first one is the original image, so dont bother to much about that one :) But yes the light cross come from the sky.....

NOW to comments

Earendil: Looking better mate, as Form happend to say to me in a critt once; "Now your cooking with gas man!" I dont think your moon will be your primary light source. The strong orange/red light in the foreground will take up most of the attention and reflect more on the soroundings in the foreground then the moon will.

daldbaatar: WOW that night shoot is amazing. :assspank: Maybe just bring up the brightnes of the red colour. Take a large soft brush, set it to colour dodge mood and pick a nice red bright colour and use a HUGHE sized brush.. do a click or two on your image and youll see the colours all of a sudden popp out.

robmorfin: Its looking good mate. But atm it only snows on the left side in the foreground... :) And where is the clouds that makes it snow? :)

[Earendil]

Rob> Do you mean the lights coming from the interior should not be reflected on the exterior? I agree, and yes, the idea is that there is a bonfire, but there's not much there to suggest that. Maybe a reddish "bloom w/sparks" might get the idea across, as I'm not sure actual flames would be visible from this perspective.

You're totally right about that damn cloud shape. I just need to say goodbye to my precious leaves and repaint that area.

In regards to your piece, those purples are very saturated and seem very strange. I would in this case go towards desaturation with those elements, and maybe you can add purple lights or flags to draw the eye to areas of interest.

[robmorfin]

Rob> In regards to your piece, those purples are very saturated and seem very strange. I would in this case go towards desaturation with those elements, and maybe you can add purple lights or flags to draw the eye to areas of interest.

Good points, I didn't see it before, I will work on that.

Thanks.

[chaosrocks]

Snow!

[Gundersen]

Chaosrock: The main problem with your images is that they are very flat ... There is no real distinguish between for, middle and back ground .. There is nothing to lead our eyes into the image and keep looking for details.

Go back to the design principles we had last week, and implement some of them. Decide on a focal point, create depth, use rhythm

But its looking better, keep working

[Earendil]

Final version:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2321/2085022724_d9d97d5ff1_o_d.jpg

[Gundersen]

Final Piece

So this is my final piece this week, quite please with it. Learned how to use custom brushes and texturing ... all in all i am pleased.

Hope you guys enjoy it, and i look forward to seeing all of your work aswell!

http://clicken.no/Thomas/weather/Finished.jpg

[jodali]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m120/jdlfx/CAorg/castlestimeset600.jpg

[daldbaatar]

Well there ya go...My final. And see ya tonight. Now im'a jet to class. I am also pleased just as Gundersen does. Been great
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1774/castlesqb9.jpg

[Earendil]

Snowy version! Lemme know what you guys think!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2248/2086245298_537e262e28_o_d.jpg

[Gundersen]

Earendil: to white. Use dark blues or lighter blues to contrast it in the shadow areas. Snow is not black in shadow, its more blueish.

WOW stunning work Jodali and dalbaatar!!

[robmorfin]

Final original, night & snowed; Preliminary demo, still have to finish, will post final tomorrow.

[Earendil]

Earendil: to white. Use dark blues or lighter blues to contrast it in the shadow areas. Snow is not black in shadow, its more blueish.

Here's the tweaked pic...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2388/2086390838_d13d58d0b8_o_d.jpg

I dunno...I don't doubt your conviction, but I'm just not sure about blue. I don't think "blue" when there's grey clouds with white/grey snow, with foggy blizzard like conditions and full sunlight above the cloud layer...In my experience, snow is only blue during the morning and evening hours, but during daylight on overcast sky in a blizzard there's not much of any color getting thrown around...ohhh...but then there's the skydome... Gargle...

[daldbaatar]

Critts.
Earendil's got some point here. Im from a land with snow, and i remember that snow does have a blue shadow, i think it has something to do with the sky colors, since the snow flakes are crystals of water themselves, they be reflecting a lot.
Robbie Still needs some refinement there...i know. And i think u need more color variations as i always mention. Will crit it after its fully done

[chaosrocks]

I'llprobably go on messin wif them but here they are
252916

Night
252922

Snow
252920

Ruin
252923

[rvdtor]

Hey guys sorry i haven't been as active as i should have been, and yes gundersen we should try to learn together, but we can't all be spewing wips every single day, don't get me wrong the constant feedback is very helpful in working with these pieces getting everyone's opinions but also the work should take time and though placed into it before presenting a workable wip.
Here are my pieces, i was lingering reading everyone's comments on each others and taking helpful notes, tho whether i achieved and used them correctly remains to be seen.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/200/castlenightcopyvh4.jpg
my night shot, i noticed the key points that bring out the night shot are the brightly lit sources coming form within the castle, here the mountain face and the immediate surroundings are lit by the source in the castle, since the moonlight is not as strong in mine but has a little impact here and there. There's an overall blue hue in the shot but tried adding small touches of color here and there where i though it would be possible to see such color.

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5936/castleraincopyvz8.jpg
my rain shot, with rain ,the drops are like sheets especially given the type of rain whether its torrential or just soft drizzles, mine is hard rain but little wind, being objects themselves the raindrops the further objects disappear in the haze, the low saturated clouds, lack of light dictate the overall hue and mood i feel. so i tried to layer the rain as it progresses closer to the viewer.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/3824/castledestroyedcopydk3.jpg
with my castle destroyed which was pretty fun, i tried not just showing debris and fallen posts and that type of stuff, i went more with using color to help with the dilapidated and broken mood. hopefully it comes across as such. looking at it its not even recognizable, blends into the rocks.

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/7336/castle5ov0.jpg
the original.


srry for the long winded post guys just a few short comments here

Chaosrocks i like your simple style its quite effective but it does come across a bit flat even tho it reads well. Really wanted to see all those lights shining and lighting up the night shot.

Robmorfin i like yours tho the snow shot is weird there only seems to be snow falling on one side on the right, the night shot is great tho the lights could have been brighter i think.

Jodali SWEET!! i like your style, your work on the snow is great really well textured and u can feel the cold in the water its good. the night shot is good the lights a bit hazy which at first gives the sense of depth but the texturing on the right side of the castle and the surrounding cliff and rocks give it a wierd perspective.

Earendil i love your night shot the shining moon illuminating the water and hunter guy is mesmerizing and although its sort of competing with the blazing fire and lights from the castle its strenght isn't overpowering the mainfocus which is the castle. the snow as snow is ok in the bluer hues but the castle disappears and the interesting detail it had is lost. but its good nonetheless if its a raging blizzard

Daldbaatar Sweet, i like your sunny days they're so bright even with the beat up castle, ur night is awesome the red lights are a nice complement and it draws u in to find the castles shape and its location in the night sky. the raining i like too how the taller towers disappear into the haze and the sprinkles on the ground really make it seem wet. good stuff

Gundersen honestly ur second shot at night is better than the original. i think its because the two sides of your painting are clearly distinguished by their main light sources and the moon in the distance balances it well. ur original the colors in the sky and elsewhere seem a bit crude. the snow shot is very rough on the strokes for the snow unlike jodali's soft strokes and blending giving the snow fluffiness, i know u commented on this before. i like the demolished castle but im confused about the lightsource, either the castle is lighting up the water drops or there's another light source up there that is affecting the castle more than the drops its a bit confusing. but the contrast, colors and mood is good.

[Earendil]

rvdtor, I could be wrong, but I think the links to your images are down. I'm also sending you a PM.

[chaosrocks]

they work for me
crx

[robmorfin]

I can see them fine as well

Chaos, Rvdtor, nice images, will comment tonight.

[chaosrocks]

i did rain too
but got distracted

[Earendil]

My final pieces. Once again, thanks to the class and Form for really pushing me to my limits! There's so much more to learn O.o

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2384/2088613354_10cb09b344_o_d.jpg

Gund, hope the snow looks better!

Not sure how well the future one reads, but I was going for "alien apocalypse aftermath".

I think the Archer is a time-traveling demon-elf.

[Gundersen]

Nice finals frome the last people.

Earendil: Your night shoot is clearly your strongest shoot of these ones. Ill do some constructive critt to help you develope further and cause i know you want to have some critt like this:
The person gets very static since its there in every shoot. I guess he/she would have moved pose at least :)
The snow shoot has good snow now, but by adding in a light source or similar it could have been alot more interesting.
The destruction scene is a little soft i would say, looks like its just been erased and forgotten to build up the sharpnes of the ruined parts. Where are the broken parts of the bridge for instance? It looks like it has just been cut of :)

rvdtor: I totaly agree that my paintings from this week is better then last week :P But that was ofc what i hoped for aswell, since last week sucked :P

[robmorfin]

Final. Everyone, great job.

[rvdtor]

nice finals robmorfin, the style u used and colors you used for them all work best for the last piece [the demolished castle]. really strong mood there.

[Form]

ok guys, I have been asked to extend the deadline this week so +1 day. final touches are welcomed, or if you are already all wrapped up, just have a breather. Next week we work on architecture - so maybe start taking a look at some different styles. Someone this week already got pro :)

[Earendil]

My money's on Jodali.

Oh, hey Jodali. :^^:

[Gundersen]

I think there is alot of good stuff this week, so i wont put my money on anyone.

Keep it up people, lets all get pro before then end of this!

[Earendil]

I think there is alot of good stuff this week, so i wont put my money on anyone.

Keep it up people, lets all get pro before then end of this!

That's a good point, and an EXCELLENT idea. :yayca:

[Gundersen]

I wonder who it was that aked for the extension ... I guess the person that post soon :)

[robmorfin]

Wow, it's hard to decide who to bet on, you all had some wonderful pieces, who might it be :shrug: ?

[robmorfin]

I wonder who it was that aked for the extension ... I guess the person that post soon :)

I guess Labru, haven't seen his final.

[robmorfin]

Small refinement

[daldbaatar]

Robbie...i really dont feel right on the skyline ( ocean part ) of the winter pic there. Gotta make more study about it
Earendil...Now its all done and cool, unified...it just needs to make sense.
rvdtor...Awesome...u got your own style there mate.

[Earendil]

Earendil...Now its all done and cool, unified...it just needs to make sense.

What am I to do with this? Not sure what you mean exactly. Could you elaborate?

[robmorfin]

Robbie...i really dont feel right on the skyline ( ocean part ) of the winter pic there. Gotta make more study about it


You are completely right, I didn't see it before, will try to fix it tonight. Thanks.

[daldbaatar]

Earendil: Well i mean the guards on the castle should move right? and the only dude comes to see is elf...he is demon. But the same guards all in same places in time is scary, like everybody is a statue...and the only remaining statue is the elf-demon...yeah. And the trees should need some little branches here and ther cus some leaves are flying. Just to add realism. And what the hell happened to the mountain in the 1st pic? where did it go? its tooo bright, hard to notice, and mountains kinda lost consistency in shape...

[robmorfin]

This week I would like you to take your previous artwork (from week 4), and complete a concept presentation of this environment as if a director were asking you to present different style boards. What I would like to see are the following:

1. Your castle, changed to a night shot.
2. Your castle, during heavy rain, snow or hail.
3. Your castle as a ruin, after being destroyed.

Present these 3, along with your original, as a cohesive set of 4 designs.

Alright, it's a presentation for a Director & he asked me for Style Boards, so here is a more formal presentation:

[Earendil]

Earendil: Well i mean the guards on the castle should move right? and the only dude comes to see is elf...he is demon. But the same guards all in same places in time is scary, like everybody is a statue...and the only remaining statue is the elf-demon...yeah. And the trees should need some little branches here and ther cus some leaves are flying. Just to add realism. And what the hell happened to the mountain in the 1st pic? where did it go? its tooo bright, hard to notice, and mountains kinda lost consistency in shape...

Much more helpful, thank you! Blarg, I wish I'd noticed these things earlier, but I believe you mentioned the leaves before and I didn't change those...blarg.

[Form]

254818

[Form]

critiques on finals:

Chaos:

Nice ideas here. I think the idea of the overgrowth in the destruction scene was a subtle but good way to push the concept beyond just erasing parts of the architecture. This probably works the best of all your pieces, since there is a fairly clear cool/warm relationship, as well as a nicely established focal. Your main downfall in this piece, and all of them, is as we have discussed previously. The loose style you have adopted in your traditional painting has carried over into your digital work. The problem with this is not the looseness in and of itself. I was reading Alla Prima again today, and once again reflected on the way he explains looseness as being the pinnacle of accuracy. His quote which i love is 'Loose should describe how it looks, not how it is made'.
Im sure you have heard it all before - but the problem as it pertains specifically to your work is that your loose rendering or lack of rendering makes us unable to read your MATERIALS, ie their TEXTURE. so when we look at your painting, we see shapes of colour, and guess the subject matter by their relationship to the overall mass of shapes. If i were to take a thumbnail sized selection of your painting, i wouldnt be able to tell what it was. I think you need to force yourself to render more tightly before you start loosening up again, and if working in PS helps this, you need to do so! All the best :) xx also, your snow and night pieces lack value contrast in the mid ranges.

Daldbaatar:

Fantastic work this week man! I love the way you work large, and with simplicity and confidence. You have adjusted your saturation, colour and edges very well to depict the effects in each shots. There is pictorial tweaking you can do - higher light contrast in the dark piece so we dont feel like we are strainging too much, and some more interesting shape breakup on 'destruction'. But overall, with the concepts you have presented, i think you did a bang up job. For the next piece, i still want you to focus on a more elaborate or creative concept as far as idea and unique shapes.

earendil:

really nice work again - im appreciative of the rounds of revision that went into this week. I think the night shot is very strong and the cool vs warm relationship really pinpoints the focal! its strong - and of all, i would consider this as a folio piece. I think snow is runner up, the ideas and shapes are strong but it lacks variation in contrast and colour. Destruction feels a bit empty and weak, like you have removed too much from the painting. It almost needs to be reduced to this, and then built back up a bit in terms of rendering and content.

gundersen:

its good to see you beginning to find a balance with your brushwork - thanks for taking critique into consideration. I like the lengths to which you played around with your dominant colours. I think your values can become a bit noisy and your forms get lost, losing your concept. I think a good exercise would be for you to get used to separating your painting into value 'areas' at the sketch thumbnail stage, and not deviating from these so much. The way you work seems to leave patches of high contrast throughout, which make it noisy and distracting overall. Looking really good though man :) The night shot could maybe have used ref for the sky, and i dont feel the synergy between the sky and ground in the snow one, but what you have done with the rain/destructo is really cool :)

Jodali

fantastic! i think the way you render is going to evolve into something very eloquent and classical. you have a skilful way of maintaining your inherent value structure and composition while working into the rendering.the luminosity. Are you painter or photoshop?
Great shifting of cools and warms and keeping the focal heirarchy there. Again on the snow piece you could look at some more colour variation, like looking at clouds, so many colours there. White is reflecting the full spectrum after all! Destruction perhaps isnt as clear (conceptually) as it could be...

[Form]

rest of the c+c tomorrow.

[daldbaatar]

Thanks. Will do. Form

[robmorfin]

Well deserved Jodali & Dald, you guys did an awesome job, congratulations!

[D.Labruyere]

hey guys,

It was me that asked for the extra day. Since I even didn't showed something after that extra day, I can only fully agree with the decision form made to kick me out of the group :)

Good luck with the other weeks. I will still do and watch them, but I have proven 3 times already (first week, last week and this week) that I just aren't able to get a finished product in one week, and therefore not able to keep up with the group.

You guys are the best!

ps. this is how far I got:

[jodali]

great work everyone this week, I'm sorry for not being very active, I decided to take on a little project that may have been outside my skill level. It has chewed up all my free time the last two weeks, hopefully after monday I will have time to participate this week

thanks to everyone who helped me out and commented, i could not have done it with put guys.

form - I use photoshop and slowly growing library of custom brushes

[robmorfin]

rest of the c+c tomorrow.

Form,

Please let me know, so I can try to avoid the same mistakes.

[Form]

sorry for the delay on these final crits, and thanks to rob for reminding me

robmorfin:

destruction piece - i think there are 2 problems here. The first is with the smoke - seeming like an overall darkening rather than smoke. Smoke has a source, and then gradually dissipates in the air. You need to show its source, where the smoke starts out narrow and thick and then gradually dissapates into the atmosphere.

The second problem is with the destruction. Your buildings have what I like to call easter-egging, where they become just an exterior shell and you forget all about what is inside them. As a student of architecture i assume you know your buildings inside and out, so in the destruction you need to show that as well, not just the exterior form like a shell. Texture and rubble and colour changes would help as well as just erasure.

The snow one is good but it needs more form to the snow, at the moment it almost looks like you have just changed all the top planes to white. Think about snow piling up against the edges of towers, melting snow running down walls and creating watermarks, and even falling snow in the air to help suggest the environment.

The night shot has 2 main problems, the first being general handling of light/forms. Things like the moons reflection which would go straight down, not at an angle.... the lighting on the foreground buildings (rimlight??) and especially on the clouds, which look like they are lit from the opposite side...
The second problem is with the yellow lights. The simple rule here is to make sure you think in values, not just hue. It looks very muddy because you have just layed some yellow over the blue, making a muddy brown-green colour. You need to work with more opacity, improve the value contrast, and maybe experiment with some colour dodge brushery or another effect to achieve some glow to the lights (unless youd prefer to do it alla prima). Always remember to check your work in B+W every so often.


Rvdtor:

destruction - same with rob, it feels a bit easter-egg ish. Where is the interior? Your destruction forms make it look like a wall, which was a problem from the original anyway. Also needs colour, texture, etc shifts in the surrounding environs to indicate what has happened.

Night - this one i like better. The values mostly work, though you could do with some more refined thought on indicating the planes... moonlight could also be good to flesh out the forms with a second lightsource.

Rain - feels a bit too desaturated on the first read. While rain does dull an environment, it also adds some coolness to it generally. There will also be impact effects from the rain, flattened grass, trickles of running water etc...