Feersum Endjinn

[blexarady]

Hi folks,
I've been working on a fake book jacket for a book I liked recently, and have been taking some pointers in the sketching forum. I'm almost ready to paint in the image properly and think its time you talented individuals took it to pieces and told me what was wrong with it.
Slash away, need your help guys, particularly the wacom legends that post here!

Apologies in advance to Chris Foss, I pinched on of his spaceships, but I promise I'll paint one in of my own, swear down.

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j208/rodmcban/COROSEREHFA.jpg

[kidkreep]

Wait... did you make the upper right corner image with the text? Or is that the original that you're working from?

I'm not a PS legend, but I can give some feedback on the composition... specifically the text.

Watch your tangents on the text at the top of the piece (the Ian M. Banks). The "N" in Ian is almost flush with the side of the blimpish thing, so it makes for a wierd tangent. See if there is any way to re-arrange the text or the blimpish thing slightly so that it crosses the "N" in a more crisp manner, or try make it not cross the "N" at all.

I initally was going to mention that the text at the top didnt read well because of the color (especially the "IAN" part with the blimpish thing behind it), but adjusting your tangents might solve it altogether. If the text still reads funny after adjustments, you might want to fidget around with the colors, contrast, or text to make the authors name pop more.

Anyways, nice piece.

[Madme]

Hey! blex...

I thought i was the only one in the world to know about chriss foss hehehee!!
have you any news about that artist?

globaly il like what you did with that painting.. my two crits woub be that maybe the spaceship is a bit too much on the left and the castle proportion are too big from the landscape but overall it looks great!

Cheers!

[blexarady]

Thanks guys, appreciate the help! Kidcreep your text analysis was very interesting, fortunately I've got the whole thing as a PSD so I should be able to add some more black to the ship and move it a bit and fix the problem.

Mad, Foss is the business isnt he? The ships he did for Jodorowsky's version of Dune would have looked so fucking cool on screen to the strains of Pink Floyds OST.

The scales definitely wrong; the size of the details on the farmland in the fg suggest its maybe 10000m high, not 30000. never mind.