[Clockwork Bacon]

Hey folks,

Before I get crack'n on this month's Dra..well, you know ;-)..I need some advice before this post sinks down to like page 10 tomorrow.

Like most artists here, I'm fascinated by the results of spooge's digital painting style, so I thought I'd give it a try with this dinosaur idea I had. I sketched the pic out in Photoshop as quick as I could while the idea was fresh. I spent a little time after cleaning up the dinos.
I like how it turned out overall, especially the colors, but I'm not sure about the composition.
What do ya think? I'm very open to suggestions.

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Digisaur's Lair

[Gumby3D]

Wow that's great, I love it!
The contrast is nice between warm and cool, and they look nice together, I think it's very well blended, I'm not the best person to be commenting on technical stuff but I think it looks good. One thing though is the dinos look great, and are nicely detailed but then you have the very sketchy looking trees, and ground, somehow it doesn't work well, maybe a bit more time put into the backround and it would be perfect, I really like the clouds though they look awesome!
The dinosaur's muscles are very well defined, if this is just a sketch I can't wait to see your submission to the dra- er ya, it'll be cool.
Goodluck on your piece!
~Gumby

[Simon Gustafsson]

The composition works fine. the only thing that bugs me are the clouds. nice thing with the dinos looking at the birds. It creates an invisible line.


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simonworks
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[Jezebel]

They just proved that it would be physically impossible for a dinosaur to hold it's neck up like that. They would hold their heads straight out in front of them.

^_^

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

http://div.dyndns.org/portfolio

[Clockwork Bacon]

Good advice so far, thanks! Keep it coming.

Gumby3D
Thanks, the contrast between the warm sunlight, and cool shadow areas is what I was working toward. The background will be detailed as will the dinos. I spent a little more time on them to get their silhouettes and the lighting work'n.

Simon
I'm trying to make the birds look like they were disturbed by a carnivore stalking the mother and young. Like they just heard a twig snap ;-)

Jezebel
You're right, the current ideas are that Diplodocus held its head straight out for feeding along the ground, but Brachiosaur's (the ones I'm using) bodies were built to hold their heads higher, although not the 90 degree angle that mine seem to be. I'll fix it.

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Digisaur's Lair

[samdragon]

well, as i said before. you know too much about dino's. How long you been studing them now..20 years? or more? anyway....
I agree, the comp is great. You may want to put a little bit of something in the forground. It's pretty empty right now.
HEY! what's the black outline doing on there??hmmm! well..what's your excuse this time..hmmm? serriously tho. your main elements are surround by a black outline while the inviro isn't. I realize this isn't done yet, but that outline causes some visual tension and it seperates your dinos from the inviro. I think we talked about this before with some of your images.
I think this a good change for you. I hope you continue to explore this. You have the skills for it, it will certianly be interesting to see where you take it. I can't wait.
On a side note, while your working with this way of painting. Take some time..(heheh time..) and look over loomis's explination of informal composition. And there is a very very nice part in the color section about outside color v/s inside color. He speaks about how outside colors are warmer where as inside colors(light) is cooler. He of course does a better job of explaning it you do alot of "outside" settings, so it may help you with your color choices.

As I said, I hope you continue to work in this way. Great stuff as usual dude! give us more

[Liquid!]

Post a bigger version?!?

I like this pic quite a bit, but the first thing that jumped out at me is that I really don't like the composition. Not that its bad, but because your two elements 1: forest on left 2: dino's on right are about the same size and balance each other out perfectly. I think that composition should push and pull your interest and focus and carry your eye through the painting. In other words. Make the dinos bigger [don't be afraid to crop. Cropping can be your friend ] and make the forest a bit smaller. Thus, you could have the eye start at the top left with some birds that have been russeled [sp?] up which then moves to the top right to catch a ride on the dino neck going to the bottom left for the forest and jumping off on the bottom right with the main body of the dinosaurs. Phew long sentence.

Sorry for the slightly goofy post. Its getting late, but I hope there is something useful here for you...

[Clockwork Bacon]

Thanks Sam and Liquid!


Is this sort of what you were talking about Liquid? I like were it's going, when I make momma bigger the focus is changed to the youngster and its fear of what's in the trees. You think it would tell the story better? I'll make the forest a bit smaller too. As for the light/shadow areas, I want to make the scene look like it's early morning and the sun it coming through the trees.

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Digisaur's Lair

[-- Transcendent --]

The second picture may be slightly more accurate, in terms of proportion, but I like the first one better ... it evokes more emotions, to put it simply.

Nice color and compositon.

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Formally know as Transcendent

[Liquid!]

Clock - I think the re-work is better in terms of balance, however, cutting the neck off the big one isn't really working for me. Also if you were to leave it this way, you would have to put the baby in the foreground to truly put the emphasis on it.

I tried to tweak it with some mixed results. What initially bothered me was that if you were to draw a rectangle around the forest and than one around the dinos they would be about even. Not only that but about symmetrically opposite of each other. I tried to push and pull some of it, with little success.



I think the main problem is that the dino has a super long neck, so its hard to fit in. So here's a slightly modified sloppy version. Hint : the dino is that curcy thingy under that tree. Yes that's supposed to be a TREE




Hope this sort of makes sense. I wish I could have tweaked yours more easily, but I was having quite some trouble...I suck.

-c

[note: please feel free to ignore me at your leisure]


[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited November 14, 2000).]