[Kamal]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some honest feedback here. This is an illustration that I'm working on. It's either close to completion or finished already. I'd like to know what you think.



Okay, here's the result of all your great feedback. I think it's trully finished now, or I should say... abandoned.

let me know what you think.



Here's a closeup shot, so that you get a sense of how much detail is in this monster.

[chaplin]

ok, I am being very picky. This is great stuff... amazing -- and i admit, it would take me a few or more years to get to this stage. But since you asked -- here are a few details you can add to make it more realistic.

1. I would imagine some of those homes would have smoke coming from their tops. The smoke would go to the direction where the balloons are deformed towards.

The upper right ballon is a bit deformed on its upper right so I imagine the wind is coming from the right to the left. --

Otherwise this is an AMAZING city scene with great rich color details.
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Chaplin

[Kamal]

Great idea with the smoke!
I think the reazon the balloon looks deformed on the upper right is because that's where the highlight from the sun is hitting and because the balloon highlight is so close in color/value to the background, the outline of the balloon gets lost. Thanks for pointing it out though, coz now I can fix it.

thanks again!

Kamal

[Tinusch]

This is absolutely incredible.

[ceenda]

Yep, this is awesome.

The only thing that comes to mind is that, if the ocean is water, then at this distance I don't know whether we'd be seeing the underneath of the buildings. I mean, I can't recall ever seeing the underneath of buildings across a river on the other side. Could be that Frenel (spl?) thingy. I think it would be better as just ocean with reflections (and you have reflections in there that are quite nice).

[Kamal]

Thanks guys. Ceenda, I think you're right. I hadn't noticed it till you mentioned it, but the water does look too translucent. It's sort of a bummer because I really like the translucency but maybe I can fade the building out quicker or something. Although regarding the fresnel effect, what usually happens is that if you look at a surface at a more oblique angle you see more reflection (mirage effect), if you see it at a more perpendicular angle you get more translucency or you see the color of the surface itself, depending on whether or not the surface is translucent at all.

thanks,

Kamal

[Cicinimo]

I think its great. It could use a little color harmony though, and the composition is kinda different
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[Kamal]

Thanks Cicinimo.
Could you be a little more specific though? You said the composition is kinda different. What do you mean? What would you suggest for the color harmony part?

[godee]

the support/design rib she's leaning on seems to be at an odd angle compared to the curve of the rest of the balcony/tower... i dunno..
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[godee]

[XIA]

KAMAL!!! Damn! havn't seen your stuff in years (since you graduated)...you've come a long way man. Awesome!

[xheadinthecloudx]

very quickly, re: the water - i don't mind the translucency. what i DO miss, is any representation of motion - unless the water is perfectly still, it would at least ripple a bit from impacting the buildings (if it's an ocean), or from whatever wind you have. A pain, I know, but it's true.

Also, your depth of field is a bit off - the tops of the buildings all the way to the back seem too sharp. I'd also soften the windows in the building in the front row, far right. they're a little distracting, although

That said, it's still an amazing piece. Good job!
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[bech]

Really beautiful work

[Slimjimer]

First of all neato pic and neato idea, i just got a few crits. i dunno if this has already been said, but about the comment on composition and color or whatever. It looks like you have 3 different images put together into one, each with a different lighting and style. The background seems all yellow and then just darker yellow, but i think it would look a bit better if you made the shadows on the far away buildings more of a cooler color, like how you did in the foreground. Maybe you were trying to create a sense of depth but maybe it lost too much color. So basically I think the middle bunch of cities and and back would look better if the shadows followed the lighting of the front tower with the chic in it. Or you could make the blue on the front tower a bit less intense and slightly more like the shadows on the other buildings. Hope that made sense. I really like the first tower by the way.

[Kamal]

SlimJimer, Thanks! That's great feedback. I'll definitely try something along those lines.

Bech. Thanks!

xheadinthecloudx: Good idea with regards to the water. Yeah, I need to add the big shapes that water creates from a distance.

Xia! Thanks!

gode: Thanks godee, I'll see what I can do.

[Rubber Duck]

this is really a beautiful picture and looks like a lot of work!

my 2 cents:

the composition could use a bit work in my opinion.. you have some focus elements very close to the image border to the right which creates a lot of tension that probably isn't needed since the scene looks like it was supposed to be a relaxed shot and not an action scene.

and secondly the image is separated into 3 pieces, the blue front, the gray middle (that has a very sharp line with the water makeing the separation effect stronger) and the yellow background (which is additionally separated through that diffuse smoke layer).

the perspective looks different for different buildings.. look at the perspective for the tower in the front and at some buildings in the middle for instance.

hey, but besides this whole nit picking this is really a great image!
I hope you will post more like this one!

[Kamal]

Thanks Rubber Duck,

I think all your points are valid. I'll look into it and see what I can do.
With regards to the perspective it seems what I should do is simply nudge the tower down a bit and that should fix the problem. But I see what you're saying. I just have a tendency in my work to purposely distort perspective for compositional purposes. But I think I can fix this problem without hurting the composition. You have a good point about the tension though.

thanks again!

Kamal

[Kamal]

I've updated with the finished version up on top plus a zoomed in detail shot.

[maxetormer]

looking as great as the first time i saw it =)
the deatil is used very well,
and it helps instead of hearting the pic.
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