Spacegirl crit

[TomCardin]

Hello everyone.

I am new here and I am very anxious to see what kind of critique and feedback I recieve for this piece from the community.

This image is called Spacegirl, which is more or less the working title. It began with a visualization I had of an immense space structure wreathed in clouds of its own atmosphere, a structure so large as to hold planets within itself. Then I created a composition with two astronauts tethered together but otherwise floating free within the vast expanse of this structure.

I tried to keep my palette limited and my colors from becoming too bright. The image is created in photoshop exclusively.

[Rascar Capac]

There's limited - then there's pasty - that white/gray is too much and its even worse when its against a stark black...on top of that, the colors you do have are washed out.

Get some reference for the planet. Not enough volume and the haze/atmosphere around it is too solid. Also a bit too saturated.

Not sure about the figure - the connection of her left leg to her hip looks very rubbery and lacks structure - among other things...
The same leg also almost forms a tangent with the curve of the planet but its
not that bad. The pink hitting the bottom of the same leg seems is out of place and is clashing with the blue and the red overall.

I think you could fix all that by making her more of silhouette with the details revealing themselves as her form turns on the other side - much more dramatic that way - sort of like emerging out of the shadows/chiaruscuro effect

If you squint - the line connecting them almost disappears

The composition/angle is good though -you need to work on color and that figure

[sickelsick]

nice concept. the hip on the chick is kinda weird. like the other guy said, it looks like rubber or sumthin. and u shouldnt crop the other leg.

i would like to see the structure more, but too much of it is hidden by clouds. i think you should make the clouds more transparent and get rid of some . cuz if you take a quick look at the picture, you dont even notice the structure. see what im saying?

the foreshortening of the girls arm doesnt look right. other than those few things its kinda cool..

heres some things i like:
the structure (what i can see of it) (try to give it some lights or sumthin. that usually looks cool)

the concept of a structure around the earth.

[Mad Giraffe]

Link link for tutorial from an amazing stellar artist:

Making a planet. ('http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/tuts_arts/making_a_planet.html')

Look trough his stuff, highly advised. There was also a starfield tutorial from him before but I can't find it, does anyone have it?

I'd like to see stronger values, more contrast and focus would be nice, is that a sun in the back or some circular cloud? For example.

[Seedling]

Tom, you’ve picked a *very* challenging subject. There aren’t exactly any existing larger-than-planet structures to use for reference.

The first thing I notice here is that your two humans are making the environment look small. That’s not a planet, it’s a misty curved ball about ten feet below. And how to fix that? In a conventional composition, I would suggest atmospheric perspective. But in space there’s no atmosphere. . . rats.

There’s an artist you should get to know: John Harris. He paints monumental space structures and actually does get away with using atmospheric perspective.

http://www.amazon.com/Mass-John-Harris-Ron-Tiner/dp/1855858312

Rats, I can’t seem to dredge up more info on him.

[Mad Giraffe]

Rats, I can’t seem to dredge up more info on him.

Greg Martin has got a pdf about 'Capturing Heaven' ('http://gallery.artofgregmartin.com/CapturingHeaven.pdf') in which work is shown from some terrestial artists, no Harris though.

Interesting read.

[TomCardin]

Thanks a lot. Very constructive for me. I love that planet making demo, great for getting a very realistic look fast. I will employ some of that but I want to maintain a fairly painterly style.

The distance issues in this piece are what bug me the most, never happy. You guys have shown me some paths to follow though, thanks!

Work dropped a bomb on me but hopefully I will be able to work on spacegirl more this weekend.

Keep it coming!

[TomCardin]

Here's an update to Spacegirl. A lot of refinements here thanks to everyone's great feedback. Most challenging aspects of this for me has been the color and scale of everything. I think I have seperated the fore, mid and background elements better and more effectively for the composition.

[Whammybar]

im not an anotomical expert but she doesnt really seem to have any defined knee. and also her shin area seems way to small compared to her upper leg

[TomCardin]

Thanks Whammy...Here is another update. Think I am ready to call this done. You guys have all been quite a lot of help. I hate showing this at 1/3 of original size, but the details of this are very secondary to the composition for me.

[Rabid]

Your going to be forced to do some serious detail on that planet especially with clouds and continents if you want to make it look believable....