[Simon Gustafsson]

Hello!

Here is an environment concept Ive been doing in my spare time.
It would be nice to here som criticism and opinions what you think is good/bad with it.
I tend to get "blind" when Ive been staring at my work for to long.

cheers!


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[Joe84]

beautiful!

[Odds]

awesome... would like to see more life in the scene, though. if it's a staircase currently in use, make it look like it. or, if it's rustic and ancient, throw some moss on there or something. other than that, great!
keep it up-

[Naeem]

great work.
this is a very very unique/outstanding piece.
personally, i think it's perfect and would leave it alone.
however, if you really want some criticism, then it wouldn't hurt to put something living in there, walking on the steps or wandering on the pathway.
but as i said, it's perfect even now.
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[kimchi]

Simon, it's gorgeous. You really need a webpage to properly promote yourself. It's tragic, damnit.

Post more!

Edit: may we have a wallpaper version?

[AdamMiller]

Great work. As stated above one last touch could be added. I don't think you really need a person or something using the stairs though, just something to create a sense of movement. Waterfalls and flying birds often used for this sort of thing. Awesome work either way.
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[Sumaleth]

Fantastic image. But as the others have said, it looks like a background to something not added yet.
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[p4b10]

Really nice work! great atmosphere and mood. I'll just try to add something happening at the start of the stairs. Maybe some character action.

Cheers.

pablo
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[Capt. Fred]

Beautiful!

crit:
the house in the background seems marginally lower quality than the rest.

otherwise, extraordinary!

[jo]

Great work Simon!
I especially like the water.

I think it works really well like a scene, with it's uniform yellow-green-cyan hues. If you want to go elsewhere with it there are some other things that can be done. Right now there are several focus points, and for scenic views like this I don't find anything wrong with that. If the scene is the subject I believe that it's only good to have multiple points of focus for the eyes to wander about.

(The main focus points to me being the leaves to the left due to saturation and contrast, the stairs because of the light and the sky/mansion in the far back due to light and detail compactness.)

If you would like to change the subject to a person or a certain point without ruining the beautiful mood you got going on (or flattening away nice details) I think just adding another colour to it would be enough for it to steal the attention. If you wanted to take attention to stairs or a person, maybe red leaves or a red scarf (extreme examples, not suggestions). Changing saturation or having hueshifts works as well I guess.

But imho I think it's MIGHTY FINE as it is. :)

(I don't do much scenic work so my thoughts might be a bit off, others might be able to give you more legitimate comments. I just wanted to give you another thought than "put a character in there". Hope you're getting by well in the UK!)

[Guest]

i don't think it needs any thing more
it's so living
but if you want add some living to it, i suggest you add a young girl laying on the staires looking to the sky or something like this

[Nag]

Stunning! Love the colors and everything about it. Great mood.

[daryl]

yeah, awesome. there's something about the bridge thing to the right, at first impression I thought it was leaning, probably because the shadow where it connects with the main walkway, grows towards the viewer. also the bricks on the bridge makes the perspective feel a bit funky, but that could be just me. the lighting feels great, but also, where does the light on the stairs come from? since the light in the sky feels different. this could be just a choice of style and it looks great, just made me wonder.

nitpicks as this is stunning work. do you add colors from the start or paint greyscale and add it later? is it painted over 3d models or perspective lines? just curious. again, well done!
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[Ranath]

wowz

[Reakshun]

hot!!
put it in the 'folio and get some MORE work!

[Max]

Beautiful!!! Wonderful painting! I feel like going around in one of Italys huge gardens with these great mansions.
The atmosphere is just like that - amazing.
It could be a nice background for an point and click adventure game!

[Duracel]

[Max]

[Simon Gustafsson]

Thanks everyone! I really apretiate your comments!

Odds: I agree, I think I might have been a bit too careful with keeping things intact. I should have smashed things up a bit more in general.

annishamad: I did a rough test with a woman wearing a long red dress walking up the stairs, but it felt to cheesy. Im gonna start trying to put more characters in my work though.

kimchi: I will set up a webpage at some point! Ill let you know.

Adam: Birds is a nice idea. Ill think about that...

Capt. Fred: yeah I would have liked to have the house a bit looser and hidden in the mist. But I got carried away with trying to make it look like convincing arcitecture. Its supposed to be Georgian period...i think =)

jo: the multiple focal points were intentional. Your thoughts make perfect sense! Btw do you work at starbreeze by any chance?

Daryl: I think youre right about the perspective on the bridge, there is something slightly odd about it. Might just be the shadow thing like you say.
I did a couple of colour sketches first, just drawing and painting freehand without drawing up any perspective guidelines. The perspective turned out quite wonky in places.
I then did a rough blockout in 3d, basicly just some boxes. Then I started to paint on top of that. I liked some parts of the loose sketch so I copy/pasted them into the new image.

Max Kulich: Something like this? =)


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[Tzan]

Haha! nice

Use the book! Use the book!

[daryl]

totally sweet , man them pixels look goodie.
I was one of those who played MI3 before the old ones and the 3rd installment is to me one of the best adventure games ever. previous ones are great too but I missed the speech and wonderful music / ambience. Too bad the 4th one sucked ass

bit off topic but I blame it on the pic
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[gLitterbug]

Very awesome. The only thing that really bothers me is that the walkway on the right bottom looks out of perspective or oddly sloping at least.

Oh and the guybrush adventure montage made my day.

[Max]

NICE!

[jo]

Haha, monkey island deluxe. It looks much better than any of the games that came after 2. (The cartoony look ruined it for me)

I kind of figured they intentional, they seemed a bit too well-balanced to not be. =)

And why yes I do work at Starbreeze!
It's been quite a while since you went away now.. I continued working for them after you left, worked on riddick until they had to lay "everyone" off. Then I applied for game edu & took up 3d-modelling as well as starting to paint more. After a year of edu I was back at starbreeze resaddled as a prop-modeller. So I've come full circle, kind of.

How did england work out for you?

[Simon Gustafsson]

Sorry to post this here...

jo - who of all starbreezers are you then? I dont remember everyones nickname =)

send me an email
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[Godwin]

nice work
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[Nag]

Lmao! Monkey Island is the best.

[Red_Dragon]

I love it!

[Spectra]

Great work!

Do you have a web site or at least an online image directory?

-Guillaume Le Tual

[Bg]

"How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" Ahhhh, the memories... Anyway.. Great piece, my new wallpaper!
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