Romantic Evening

[Dawood Marion]

I wanted to do my own concept of a circular, social area. I am currently learning composition and color scheme. Color is what I feel I need help at the most. Also I am getting familiar with rendering in Photoshop. I am rough around the edges. Please submit any crit no matter how honest.
Thanks
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/final.jpg

http://www.dawoodmarion.com/

[theincredibleandy]

Did you do a line drawing for this one? There are scale and function problems all over, especially with the bridge and the doors. For the rendering, my first piece of advice is to not use the gradient tool again for at least a year. It ruins your colors and form almost as much as your non-diligence with the structure of your lines. It also makes your painted areas stick out too much.

The composition seems completely unplanned. There's no hierarchy of importance, so my eyes don't move around to explore the piece.

I'd recommend checking out the environment speed painter guys (there's a million of 'em), particularly Craig Mullins, Hipper, and Khang Le. They have structure, they have design, and they have color palettes, all 3 of which are needed here. Good luck!

[theincredibleandy]

You asked in your PM about creating a center of interest, so here goes:

First off, for good compositions check out Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis. It tells you everything better than I could. Since you'll not find the real book, hopefully you can find a pdf somewhere. Elwell also champions a book called something like How Pictures Work, which probably has similar golden knowledge. That said, here are some basic ways to establish a focal point:

1.) value contrast, i.e., have your focal point pop out with value contrast. Since you wanted the dome on the left to pop out, you made a horrible move by having a bright light in front of it, making it completely blend with the background. I know you're trying to make the scene functional by putting stuff where you figure they would go in real life, but since real life isn't always well designed you can't use that as a crutch. Dean Cornwell said that he held back on his values in order to put his lightest light and darkest dark next to each other, thus establishing a focal point. In fact, so many people do it that it's basically a universal rule.

2.) placement. When you start cropping something, you make it less important in the piece. It's hard to focus on that dome because you can't see the top, bottom, or left edge. An interesting silhouette draws attention, and overlapping it with other stuff makes it harder to focus on. Since the dome can't be focused on for this reason, I kinda notice the doors, but then I'm focusing on details instead of the big picture, and making the big picture digestible is what makes art memorable.

In fact, I would say that detail is about the least effective way to make something more important in a piece. If your design doesn't read properly in its early stages, don't expect textures or decorations to turn your piece around. That said, it's an impulse that I still have to battle, and when you get so far in a piece only to realize that it was wrong to begin with and you're running out of time, it can seem like the only option left. Thus, the extra detail on that dome is fine, but doesn't solve the problem.

There are plenty of other ways to go about doing compositions, but I hope this is a start for you. Like I said, those artists I mentioned before are quite good, as ar people like J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, and most of the old masters. Go to it, and welcome to CA.

[Dawood Marion]

This is the idea. I have am having problems understanding how to gage the degree of my ellipses in perspective to the vanishing point. Perspective is easier when I deal with rectangular buildings. I think this is throwing me off the most composition wise.

I want the focal pont to be the circular area (bottom right) where the people are sitting. This is the featured element. In the previous image I chose the dome as the focal point because I the social circle was not coming out right and I went in a different direction.
This is another look at it:
http://www.dawoodmarion.com/elevator.html

Now I am ready to problem solve and make this image work.
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/th_romantic_evening_sketch.jpg (http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/romantic_evening_sketch.jpg)

http://www.dawoodmarion.com/

[Seedling]

This is the idea. I have am having problems understanding how to gage the degree of my ellipses in perspective to the vanishing point. Perspective is easier when I deal with rectangular buildings.

Amen to that! Ellipses are hard. It won't matter how well you can use color or photoshop tricks if you are still struggling with ellipses. The solution is to keep drawing cylindrical things. Draw from life, draw from your head, and just keep at it until you get a better feel for them.

Ellipses are something I've been working on in my own sketchbook. :-)

[Dawood Marion]

I went back and replanned the image. In the second image I am setting the mood. Yesterday there was a cool sunset on Sunset blvd (Hollywood). I snapped it and incorporated it into the sky. The third image (thumb) is the actual snapshot.
Let me know what I could do better.
Thanks
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/romantic_sketch_002.jpg




http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/romantic_evening002.jpg




http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/th_100_8512.jpg (http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/epoxy4000_2006/100_8512.jpg)
http://www.dawoodmarion.com/

[Hendric VII]

This design works much better than the first one. Rock on!

[Dawood Marion]

This design works much better than the first one. Rock on!
Yeah, I think so too. I need to figure out how to add vehicles, foliage and solidify a palette. I also think some rectangular or cylindrical shape would help contrast the domes - what do you think? How to communicate with color is one of my weakest links. I am figuring out how and where to put stains on the surfaces. I also plan to experiment with textures toward the end to give it an aged appeal, as if this place has been there for generations.
I am still having a hard time understanding center of interest. Where do you think it should be? I need to come up with a theme - at this point I just had a vision I wanted to express but no back story to back it up.

[Dawood Marion]

Amen to that! Ellipses are hard. It won't matter how well you can use color or photoshop tricks if you are still struggling with ellipses. The solution is to keep drawing cylindrical things. Draw from life, draw from your head, and just keep at it until you get a better feel for them.

Ellipses are something I've been working on in my own sketchbook. :-)
Any comments on the ellipse set up? I created a grid (the red lines in the second line drawing) and use perspective lines to try and get them right this go around.

[Hendric VII]

Ok, the first one had the couple as a potential center of interest. Are you wanting to add them back in or keep the structures as the focus? You could add them in at the bottom right to give some close points of intrests. The buildings are mostly middle ground focus. I wouldn't put vehicles in the near ground, that would make it look like a car commercial, but putting them behind the fountain would create some scale issues because it is a pretty big fountain when you look at the size of the figures you have now.
Texture would be tough at the distance that you have them. Because of the way that you have the light hitting them, a smooth texture would read as sharper highlights and shadows and a rougher texture, like stucco would be softer.