Treasure cave

[designboot]

.....

[Rascar Capac]

Your figures are doing a lot to disrupt this piece

A: The guy in the extreme FG - I can barely make him out - is he an archer? You squint and his silhouette is gone - therefore the top of his helmet (?) become a distraction

B: The guy on the far left in the red - very stiff and straight - kills the composition. And I think the local colors need to be more effected by the surrounding cave - more cools vs the warms

AND his sword is tangent with the guy in the middle and straight through the guy the farthest away - (im not sure if thats even a figure). What the sword and all these straight figures do is stop the eye from flowing through the piece and directing your eye to where you want it to go.

My eye hasnt even gotten to the treasure: Not only because of how these figures are placed - but also of the lighting: you have the light from the gold yes, but the light from the entrance of the cave and a bunch of little lights hitting the figures: result is I dont know where should look. I see the faint ray directed at the treasure but again, light from cave entrance is way too strong and larger and just overpowers the treasure.

Also - if you're using color dodge, stay away from that, its very distracting. You also need more color, getting chalky in some places.

hope all that is helpful

[Adarias]

your only red is on a character who is barely visible, so not only does this unbalance the color composition because of the placement and lack of repetition, but it confuses it even further because he is clearly not the focal point in terms of your value composition and the page in general.

what bugs me most though is this graininess, it looks noisy and everything appears to be poorly hyperfocussed, which leads to dizziness.

your piece is very well thought-out conceptually, but you really need to think it out technically to the same extent, as it suffers from the "good art done badly" syndrome (which granted is worse than the bad art done excellently, but you dont really *want* to be either now, right?)