Sauron and the forging of the One Ring

[morphine]

It was made for a fictious book cover, hence the space at the top of the img.

Clickitty click (http://www.morphinemedia.com/images/digital/tolkien2.jpg)

Yeah, he's looking kinda goofy atm.

Comments? Crits? Suggestions?

[littlejohn]

I especially like the shadow and heat distortion in the upper right portion.

Overall, I think it looks kind of blurry and somewhat monocromatic. Maybe adding in some dark, cool colors in the darkest shadows might help. And adding some sharp texture in places could help create some additional points of interest.

I also think that Sauron could be a bit bigger. Perhaps the lens flare from the ring could be done by hand? It looks a bit stock.

[morphine]

Thank you for your reply, lil' john.

I'll add some more sharpness on the rocks. It's blurry because I couldn't yet realize how their textures would be, and it relation with lighting.

The lack of color is basically because each LOTR book cover has a predominant color, in order: green, blue and red. The last one has red flames (if i can remember well), so the yellow I used is kind of a reference to the last cover, making sort of a connection to it. Closeing [?] the circle, the "ring" :D
There are some more symbolism around it, for instance, connecting the colors with the ring color, with gold also, and with greedyness. That's my intention anyway. heh

Someone else pointed out maybe adding a bit of blue might help, right on those shadows far from the fire, but I can't figure it out how to do it now... Because the sky is orange-ish, and reddish... so the only lgights would be orange or red, wouldn't they?

The other covers had the caracters depicted as small as mine, more or less. I had to mimic that style a bit.

The lens flare... heh, it's a photoshop brush. It does look mechanic, doesn't it? hehh.... I'll change that. :)

Thanks again, john. EDIT: Or david. :D

And if anybody might make a paintover showing something for me, plz, don't hesitate. Thanks for the help! I appreciate it.

[littlejohn]

To clarify my comment about adding some hue contrast in the shadows, I'll add this: All color is relative, and if you were at a volcano that had really bright orange areas, when you took your eyes off them for a second and looked at the areas of dark shadow, they would probably look blue relative to the orange. Even grey will likely look blue if you put it in your painting.

Try it out and see what you think. I have a feeling that dark, dull blue in the shadows will make your painting actually look more orange-themed as well as increasing its realism.