The Swamp

[bLiNCk]

Hi there everyone.
Here is my latest piece. Painted in Photoshop with a wacom tablet.

Took me something like 9h to complete.
I am a lil bit desapointed with it, my style is very irregular, i would like to improve my style to a clean and solid one.
This is my second completed "big" painting, i have been doing digital painting from November 2005.

http://blinckdesigns.no.sapo.pt/The%20Swamp%20red.jpg

Some critique and advices on how can i get better would be very appreciated
Thanks in advance

[Elwell]

The color and atmosphere are pretty good, although your greens are far too raw.
You really need some reference for the trees. The branching and growth patterns aren't convincing.
Stay with bigger brushes for longer. A lot of your rendering is scratchy.
I don't undersand what the pink things in the trees are supposed to be.

[Bell]

It's really atmospheric, I love the softness to it as the scene fades into the distance. Want to ask more about what's going on!

The only thing I'm not sure about is the green snake, would rather it was a something you pick out when looking around rather than it being so obvious.

[Steph Laberis]

I'm a sucker for swamps, so I had to check this out!

I back Elwell and Bell 100%. I also feel that your composition is a bit too focused in the bottom 1/3 of this piece. You've begun to create a nice diagonal with thet branch in the foreground tree, but the other trees are too predictable and static to really keep my eye roaming the top of the piece. A lot of swamps have those fantastic vertical trees, but adding some vines or perhaps a tree that's snapped in half and fallen against another tree would mix things up a bit - anything to create some diagonals.

Also! Look at your three central trees; they're almost equally spaced apart on the canvas, each with a backgreound tree spaced in the dead center between them. That appears unnatural and too regular to me so you might want to play around with their placement .

I did a quick google search for cypress swamps and found some gorgeous ref, so please check it out if you haven't yet. :)

[savii]

Most of what I was thinking about the piece in terms of the composition etc have already been said much better by everyone else.

Just a couple of points on the figures. The figure nearest to us has a problem wih the light hititng it I think. If the lamp was right next to him it would make sense, but since it's infront of him, we would see more shadow on his back. It is also completely black on the left of it, where there probably would be at least a little light and not complete black.

The lighting on the furthest figure is slightly inconsistent with everything else, especially the trees. Nice work though, really great atmosphere! Good luck and I hope there's more to come!

[bLiNCk]

Thank you very much for your critiques and advices.
Very appreciated!

[markwagner]

I miss seeing a face, everything feels like seeing it from behind and I want to see more.

Never give up, it ALWAYS gets better.

~M