[Nex]

I have been working on a little pic again and I really have serious problems lighting wise.. it seems I cannot get the brightness levels right at all.. It looks like a child's scribble to me.

I would be very happy about some tips and critiques on this one..



Gimme a spank and shred it to bits please.

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- Nex

http://on.to/nex

[This message has been edited by Nex (edited August 10, 2000).]

[Frost]

It doesn't look all that bad to me Nex. The tones are a bit washed out, but it looks fine. I guess the most striking problem to me is that the cliff to the right side could use some depth shading to show that it is receding more into the distance (although not by much).

You got the right idea... grey skies disperses the sunlight into a very ambiant grey-er light.

I don't know if you used reference or not, but an idea to make this pic perhaps a bit more interesting and adding depth would be to add breaks into the clouds with light rays impacting the ground in some patches that would define depth a lot better, also giving a bit more saturation to the scene in general, giving some hot points.

It looks very foggy, sort of like some Vietnam like thing.. very nice.

[Nex]

thanks, I will try that.

By washed out you mean not enough saturation or too bright? I guess both..

I somehow cannot bring myself to use these really strong colors that spooge has in his pics.. maybe I will give it a go.

I used reference (some bridge in vietnam) but I obviously missed something there.. because the photo looked somehow "relaxing" and my stuff there does not at all transport that mood..

I will reupload the image as soon as I got time to work on it.

Cya

[Francis]

Hey Nex

I farted around with your image a bit, but to be honest, I don't know that mine improves on yours any.



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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Nex]

Francis: seems like geocities has major traffic again.. the pic won't show--

[Nex]

Loki: No i don't have the composition (c), I used a photo of a vietnamese village for reference.

Finally geocities works too so thank both of you very much.
This really helped a lot.

Thanks for your time guys.

I worked a bit more on my picture and took the visual tips you gave into account: taking detail off in the distance, adding darker area shadows and stonger highlights, reworking the water. Using stronger colors etc.

I could not get the water right (reflection, highlights, value) still so I will rework it some more but I wont bother you with posting the small changes here again.

This really helped me a lot.. even though it may not show on the reworked version very much.

So here is what I have till now:






[This message has been edited by Nex (edited August 10, 2000).]

[Loki]

Well - I did some playing around with it too. Hope you don't mind Nex - it's a really nice painting and I couldn't resist sinking my claws into it a little bit. Nice subject too.

Here we go:



One thing that immeadetly caught my eye was the water. It was to bright in your painting. As water get's closer to your eye, it's (usually) getting darker, since the angle of view is changing - more or less the Fresnell principle. Then - in order to shape it, you might want to put stronger reflections in.
Rock is a pain in the butt to paint. Tried to improve it, but kinda failed. I just took out some blurry spots - you want to keep quite sharp features in a rockwall.
Then I took out some detail in the background, made the sky blank and fucked a little bit with the shrubs ... oh, and I tried to define the lightsituation a little bit more.

That was such a nice painting to play with. Did you do your own layout or were you working after reference?

Keep on cranking 'em out!

[spooge demon]

cool light warm shadow? It can work?

Try to be simpler with the shapes in the water. Too much Scribble.

You were after an overcast feel?

Well I like Francis' and Loki's better than mine, but it is a very different interpretation.

[Nex]

Thanks a million guys!

After I completely reworked what I had, I Fancified(tm), Lokified(tm) and Spoogified(tm) it as far as I could I post the latest version here and the reference pic that inspired this whole thing.



Another more painterly version : http://unet.univie.ac.at/~a9627269/bridge4.jpg

There is still so much that I don't like--

.) I really liked the yellow tones in the sky in spooges image, but they would not work for me here.. don't know why. Maybe because I could not get that sky tone that spooge had. I really have to work on my color-picking-and-distinguishing-ability(tm).

.) the water... damn. Loki's water is what I wanted to do first but it failed miserably so I made a simpler version as spooge suggested.

.) I tried to work with the lighting situation francis suggested, even though I failed on some places. My understanding of light and shadow is still very small.

.) I tried to go a bit with Spooge's moody overcast feeling but failed.. I think my color values are quite a bit wrong.

So I will make some new versions and work on them a bit more at home.. I think, even though this picture only consists of a few elements its not that easy to get it right.

Just take the reference image and try it yourself in different settings and moods, its fun:

http://unet.univie.ac.at/~a9627269/bridgeref.jpg

So thanks again for all your input, I will have plenty of practicing to do on that one.

(oh and comments on the last one are still welcome.. just to know if its better or not)



[This message has been edited by Nex (edited August 11, 2000).]

[Gambit]

Great posts by everyone Thanks for taking the time out and helping Nex out!

Looks good Nex, I bet you learned a lot I know I did!

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www.gamingvault.com

[eetu]

nitpicking a bit again:

i think the water might still be a tad too blue.. (although it is a lot better than the 2nd ver. - the first one's better in fact :)

in an angle like that water is quite totally reflective, and so the color should be mix of the sky color and the environment color.
(as it is in loki's and francis' ones)

eetu.

[Nex]

Thanks for pointing that out.

yes you are right..
I knew I had serious problems with water. I am working on landscape things now.. so in some time I will probably "understand" water better and get the values correct.

This is what I am working on just now. So landscapes are my topic currently, even though there is no water in that one



[This message has been edited by Nex (edited August 13, 2000).]