The Hunters, Hunted...(update10/3)

[dogfood]

They tracked the Beast into the forest: the Captain of the guard and the village’s mightiest hunter. The young initiate went with them in light of the unnatural aspects of the killings and was the only survivor, though he never spoke again, nor even acknowledged another’s presence. The howling was heard just at sunset…
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/dogfood411/Role12.jpg

OK, I was trying to get the feeling that they were in a darkening forest at the end of autumn toward sunset. It's been uneventful, but we're at the point where there's a subtle shift in music, when the tension rises a little and the audience begins to feel that things are going to go badly (though the heroes are unaware of the subtle shift).

The lighting on their faces is mostly from the reflection of the grove's light bouncing off the helmet (phew, a lot of bouncing!). I tried to add some more color, but it kept getting too saturated. I'd love to introduce more, but am uncertain how to do so. There's also something else missing, but I can't quite put my finger on it. If you followed the thread in the Helpful Crit forum here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=30589) , I removed the ravens.
I welcome C&C's, overpaints, anything. It was much brighter on my other screen.

[JoelNoel]

Hey


Very Cool. Nice details.

Crits (sorry i would say more, but im STARVING)


Theres a massive empty space to the left - thats kindof a bit big atm. And watch out for the monks ear - its wandering a bit.


regards

[the stranger]

very good work! i love the atmospher in it!

nik

[Nathaniel West]

I saw your other post with progress for this piece, and I have to say that it really has come a long way. The lighting is so much better than before, and by making if much more of a graphic piece, it has a stronger effect. I think the trees on the right side could use a little edge light just to indicate that they have form. Right now they are a looking flat. I'm not saying you have to go and render them out, just hit the edges with some broken up light spots like what you did on the necks and faces of the figures.

Also, the shapes of the trees could be changed to be more menacing. If they were more angular and crooked, with sharp branches point toward the people, it could serve the dangerous uneasy mood you are going for. Look at the treees in the movie 'Sleepy Hollow'.

And lastly, I would like to see some more color variations here and there, but that's just me. Great work overall. You did well on this one!

[dogfood]

Joel, Handsome Stranger (obscure Arnold reference), Nate, thanks!

Wild, wild West, you are spot on. I'm a color novice and each time I tried to put more color in the piece, it just looked horrible. I would love it if anyone could give me a clue on how to enrich this. It needs color; practically begs for a little. And my initial trees were actually just one tree, duplicated (accidently). Crooked trees would certainly make it creepier and wouldn't be difficult (I hope), right along with some vague highlights.

Joel, I moved the ear, thanks. Once you pointed it out, I was floored by how "off" it was. Now his head looks a bit too deep, me thinks. As for the space, I was trying to indicate that there was about to be a lot of action happening there, but may have overdone it.

[Nathaniel West]

For color I would recommend leaving the overall tone you have right now, and then picking various colors that you want and using a really low opacity so that they don't start turning into a rainbow of colors. For example, you have a sort of sepia, red-orange color washed over the whole thing already. If you pulled some more intense reds, oranges, yellows, etc. into it, especially around the characters, it would add more interest. But when you paint a blue color for example, be careful not to paint solid blue. Just enough to make it feel cooler in areas. If you color picked it, it would probably be a grayish red. I hope I'm making sense to you.

To keep an image harmonious colorwise, the colors have to be dulled down quite a bit, or keyed off of one color. So your painting is reddish right now, and therefore all of your colors would actually be subtle variations of that red color. They might be a little grayer, or have more yellow, etc. This way you'll achieve a better color balance. Just go for it and put another version up for us to see. I'm sure it will be great. I hope this helps.

Nathaniel

[Joey-b]

looks great... maybe u could sharpen en texture those tree's a bit more?

[defcombeta]

nice use of colour and the relation between the character is very clear, the space to the left seems dead to me, perhaps having the shadow of the fiend that will tear them into man meat would be interesting. enough has been said about colour so i will leave it at that. great work

john mac

[dogfood]

Thanks Nathaniel, Joey, Def. I'm still looking at that space to the left, but punched it up with some more detail in the trees (and a little twisting, as my attempt to really freak the trees out did a number on the composition and I got lost). I also raised the value a tad and introduced some color.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/dogfood411/Role13.jpg

[Joey-b]

looks better.. but i'd say loose the color..

[Nathaniel West]

Yes, it does look better, but I think the blue is a little too much. You might want to use a solid gray instead, which will still be cool compared to your overall pallette. Also, some more color in the skin tones and clothing could help to focus the eye on that area, which I'm assuming is what you want. Right now it's still looking monochromatic, so push it just a little more so that we can distinguish colors there, and I think it will help.

Nathaniel

[dogfood]

You were right, NW, the gray was cool enough. I'd originally thought to put some blue mist swirling menacingly in the background, but that started to take too much away from the focus. I tried to punch up the skin tones even more, but everythime I tried to go past this point, it started to make them look like they were wearing make-up ("where have you been!? I'm shining like a disco ball over here?").
Thanks Joey.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v328/dogfood411/Role14.jpg
I'm still interested in any comments on how this could be better, but am going to start focusing more on Thunderdome (my first!).

[Joey-b]

well i would sharpen up the helmet of the guy on the right

and u know what would be really great .. if u gave brother tuck (hehe .. looks like him) , the guy in the middle.. a tortch.. so that u get a cool usefull light source.,. if u do that.. u can use orange and yellow for ur lights and maybe some blue purple brown for the rest..

think that would make it look allot stronger cause if u do so.. the tree will look better 2.. with a nice sharp light line around m..

[JAIR428]

i think by adding some red to the highlites in the trees would give it a nice touch
i love this picture very much ...but i think if you sharpen up and kinda give more color to the three people in the picture. and show a lot of contrast between the backround and foreground... you'd be very surprised on how adding subtle color like red yellow and blue to highlites really increases contrast and makes it look very fantasy like... and if oyur interested look at the lord of the rings trilogy and look at the color levels of blue and how it makes the scenes realistic and fantasy at the same time! or for instance the matrix they put a green filter by like 2% over the norm you jus see how it jus adds to the moment. but very good compisition and imagination

[JoelNoel]

Hey there,


This looks a lot better now - good job dude. Keep it up. The pics starting to tell a story - which a lot of people dont manage. Good job.

Regards