[Meaty Ogre]

Hi sijuners. I'm in middle of one of my 'hit myself in the head repeatedly' pieces and thought I would ask for your comments. what needs to happen here to bring it into the home stretch? hows the composition, color level of detail? what should I do with the blue planet? thank you.

btw, i'm going for bookcover level of detail and spectacle, i know i suck but that's what i'm going for anyway.



An additional question I might ask is 'does it suck'?

[Justo]

That looks awesome and star wars like :p its really hard to capture a drawing scene like that
I like ur colors...your lines give it textures
good job <3

[Sumaleth]

Ooh I like that.

If you're after a critique, then to me the lighting on the space ship seems artificial. Almost looks like you've used a flash camera on a model then pasted that over your space scene. The lighting of the ship just doesn't read the same as the rest of the scene, and the angle of the light manages only two boring (and mostly hidden) shadows.
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[Meaty Ogre]

thanks justo

hi suma, thanks for the crit

back to the drawing board

[Mon]

Damn, that's a nice painting. I'm with suma on the ship though, it's really good painting but the background is on a whole other level of awesomeness.. so the two elements don't fit as well as they could. That background could even put a couple of John Harris pieces to shame! What were your influences for this? Who do you look at for good sci-fi art?

Don't give up on this one even though you might want to consider changing some stuff around!
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[Capt. Fred]

Really really lovely. The background yes. the ship is cool.

One thing I think, make the lighting more like it is in space on the ship, you need some long shadows, black shadows since there's never anything around for light to bounce back off. And of course the shadows have very hard transitions/edges. If you scribbled some long dark shadows on your ship it would mean the ships surface had bumps and texture, and loosing the soft shadows behind the nose cone thing, in favour of hard dark ones would help I think. It would be very difficult I imagine to map perfectly accurate hard edged dark shadow shapes that accurately follow and describe the ships form, but it could look really good!

And of course, I know not what I'm talking about; am a snivelling minor that couldn't draw triangle.

[Mark Harris]

News flash Ogre - YOU DON'T SUCK!
Sorry for the caps but sheesh....
Capt. Fred, you articulated that just fine.

[Bishop_Six]

This is a great piece. Sorry I don't have any crits to add to what's already been said. Although, you got some good crits so I don't feel so bad. I'm really impressed by the background. It's fantastic. It really is. I'd also like to know who your influences were(if any?).

[Meaty Ogre]

Sorry if I came off melodramatic, I tend to feel sorry for myself sometimes when I'm struggling with an image. I didn't realize I used the work suck twice.

Mon, thanks for the thoughts. I like your painting style. I had to look up John Harris, I dont know much about sci-fi art or artists. I'm just trying to expand my portfolio in way that is fun and hopfully profitable. I'll keep working on this.

Cap, I agree with you about the lighting. I think I was trying to go against that kind of spce naturalism because for me in the past it's made my images boring. But I think that's just the way I did them, and the composition and stuff. I see other space artist cheating those rules and it often makes there images more interesting. But I will try to be more clever when I cheat. Thanks!

Mark, THANKS!

Bishop6, thanks. Again I dont know a lot of sci-fi artist. I like syd mead, and berkey and the grand mullins to name a few.
-Ted

[ten]

one comment [may have been made already] you have two different light sources on the planets[spheres] a hot one from the left on the 'moon' and a front lit planet. i guess pick one and go with it. if you keep the one on the left you could do a night/twilight side of the planet in the foreground with city lights [or apocalyptic scenario] on the shadow side which would work nicely in a contrasting or cool color compliment to the twinkling points of light in the warm bg. just a thought.

[Summer Pudding]

Ogre: this uncertainty about your work is staggering. I've seen your site. I lost count of the times I thought, 'Damn. I wish I'd thought of that.' You've got a vivid imagination and the ability to transfer it to the page.

This image reminds me of the sci-fi cover art of the 60s and 70s. From an art director's point of view, I couldn't say if that is a good thing or not.

Pud'

[kimchi]

Fucking stupendous.

You need a good swig of Arrogance juice, bud!

[Matthew]

Very well rendered but the composition feels a bit busy and since no-one mentioned it I thought I could give u this tip and I got the feeling u wanted tips too.
The perspective has two different horizons and we get the feeling that the ship is diving towards the planet, somehow though this makes it a bit busy for me and since there are not really any forces acting on the ship in the front it is hard to read, you know that gravity thing with fire.
If u want to have the ship diving like that it maybe would be better to see the whole planet in the background, just how I would do it anyway.
Quick overpaint with perspective, feel free to beat me up now.
The bigger the ship the more it would reach up to the top, hope it helped.



otherwise very nice mood in the painting.
Matthew

[Capt. Fred]

In my view matt, the composition is very nice, and I am enjoying what i consider to be the 'collagey' effect it has. I would say your suggestions would make for a more 'photographic' style comp/layout, but as it is i find it very pleasing, more graphic'ey and dynamic. pff. Just opinions I guess. That was mine.

[kimchi]

Yea, I agree. The composition as it was originally painted was dynamic, and somewhat unique. Matthew's overpaint, though with good intentions, made the composition far more boring.

[V Shane]

I think it needs greater dynamic metal highlights. Right away from years of woodworking, the "sheen" struck me as painted sanded down wood. There are no sharp edges to the surface, its too even. I have posted a small sample of what i am talking about with shadow and highlight details. Hope you don't mind the paintover.


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[Max]

Dude, I really love this painting.
There's something about the style which is absolutely unique, can't tell what though. Awesome man!! Keep up the good work.

[Meaty Ogre]

Woah, lot's of replies. Thanks.

Ten, I didnt mean to create 2 light sources on the planets. Maybe I should take down the highlights on that moon. Thanks for the ideas.

Pudding, ha, thats sweet.

kimchi, ha, that's funny.

Matthew thanks for the thoughts. But I have to agree with the preceeding posts, the composition being a little unusual is why I painted it up.

v shane, I work with wood too, maybe that's why I paint stuff like that. Thanks for your suggestions.

Max, Thanks!

[BrunnenG]

Ogre

I think I agree with the others here. Great ship, fantastic background.

To me it looks like you two great but seperate paintings here that are competing. Why fight it? Develop both.

I'd drop the ship and build the background into it's own painting (it's beautiful) - I really like the idea of doing the planet in twilight. I wasn't sure if the other sphere was a moon or star at first, but since you can't cast a shadow on a star. Maybe add some hints of craters or other surface detail. Maybe a lunar base exists with some streaks of ship lights? Bring some atmosphere haze out from the planet to mix with the lunar shadow?

Make a darker background for the ship, or put it in orbit of the moon. That would allow more than one light source. Have the moon to the upper left and adjust the shadows but you wouldn't have to really change the surface of the ship as it would be lit by the lunar glow..

Anyways, those are my thoughts.
great work.
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