E.O.W Round #181: Centaur Rendezvous Point

[Incinerated]

Cairn I find the middle one most interesting

Sean Mclaine looks alright, still feels alittle blurry... but maybe thats part of the process you're using

Howie the trees in the back are too uniform, perhaps add some interest or slightly change the hue of some of the trees

Rob Powell change up the hues abit and provide some overlap for those stones and finish that image it's a goddam order!

albino-z pretty, could use a centaur or 2 just for the hell of it... but mostly because it doesn't scream meeting place to me.

All Eow is looking good of late... keep working on it you'll get there

[neilpa77]

Decided to go ahead with the vertical composition. Added more elements to bring the eye towards the tower. Still lots more to do, not sure i've got the time between now and the deadline though.

[tsabu]

Good works everyone!

Trying to finish these one EOW either, i didn't paint any enviro for a loooong time already- hope it won't looks as a total poo at the end

[Migsta]

Had to try this one, FINAL.

[Jamesy]

Almost done Just realized we have til Wednesday (thought it was Monday lol), so I'll try to do more with it. I'll make comments soon too, but I gotta go run and catch the bus now haha

[AdrianNagorski]

I love everybody's work thus far!!!! Honestly!

since this topic was posted last week i;ve been trying to figure out what to do,
its funny how most of us have the same ideas and decide to deviate from our first instinctive trail of thought, constantly evolving.

so finally i started today, about 6+ hours so far, yeah i'm slow LOL
wip1:

[Wheeljack18]

Here is my final. Thanks to everyone for their helpful feedback.
Cheers!

[revenebo]

Migsta cool!! That roof/canopy/sail on the right is a bit graphic compared to the painterly style of the rest but it's just my taste...

Jamesy nice cartoony style

I post my finished second entry just to have some feedback... (I like the concept in this one but design and execution are poor)

[albino-Z]

revenebo: the palette shift is very sweet and the atmospheric perspective gives depth. You could push the statues at the back and the corridors end a bit more to lighter values using fog, but the overall effect is very good. Two notes:

1. Try checking your values once every now and then using a black layer on saturation mode so that you actually see if your light sources are "actual" light. The sky is, but the lanterns(?) could use a little push towards white at their center.

2. Using a single layer can simplify things and let you focus on painting vs management, but in your case having the statues on different layer than the background (or masking them) could help you achieve continuous flow to the cloud lines. Now your strokes seem to "hit the brake" before reaching the statue contour and kill depth a bit. I hope that made sense.

unruhe: Great entry. Masterful color balance, especially with those easy-to- become-cheesy tones. But yours do not. The flow of the branches is fantastic. Only crit would be that you could give the image a tiny bit more space at the bottom, the centaur form would benefit from some more space, but that might be just me. What kind of brushes do you use?

[revenebo]

albino-Z thank you very much!! Your comments are always spot-on and very useful. I hope I have time to correct the second image.
(btw, I actually use a desaturation adjustment layer to check values but I missed the lanterns part this time...)
About my first entry I think I over-rendered it (as usual) and actually it looks a little like a collage.

[AdrianNagorski]

This will have to be my final for now,
me gots PC trouble windows 7 has so many compatibility issues somethings corrupting all my files!

[Pixeltuner]

I hope I can do some more on this.
Cheated my way to the end with a lot of atmosphere, magical fairydust and some vignetting

[Rob Powell]

Adrian: There are a few issue with your piece atm, one is atmospheric depth, way too with objects and negative space in the background, and desaturate the sky, perhaps make it more of a grey colour, cuz remember the sky isn't always a bright blue, two that purple horseshoe just doesn't fit into the image as well, and three centralize a focal point and build around that, your image looks quite busy so nothing really stands out as a focal point.

Awesome stuff the rest of you.

Blankstate was kind enough to drop by my SB with a paintover of my wip so far, and so I pretty much gave my entry a total makeover cuz it gave me some more ideas of what I should do with my entry, still some issues here and there, but it's coming along.

[Howie]

thanks for the feedback guys, I think this is going to be my final...didn't change a whole lot but I have no more time to spend on it

FINAL

[neilpa77]

Hey People!!! Heres another WIP update...
Brightened the background and sharpened a few things up. Think the foreground may still be lacking.

[unruhe]

Albino-Z:
Thank u for the feedback, its always nice to receive some input, after finishing a picture where one has been working on and staring at for hours, that could improve the picture a lot. Appreciate it.

About the brushes, Its a combination of twitchfinger inkbrushes, custom mades and switching between the old/new photoshop brushsystem.

[Luis Gama]

Hi again guys!
Everyone is doing great!

I`ll just leave a few words for AdrianNagorski: i like your idea of this centaur complex with all the buildings and structurs etc, but right now the image is kind of hard to read, mainly because you are using the same values all over the place.
Try to brake the image into zones and in each zone you have a value. For example: Stuff closer to the viewer is darker and as it goes away in distance it gets lighter.
Try to apply this method. If you cant manage to do it on this piece try in the following ones. Have fun.

Rob: you have a lot of green going on, and thats great but if u mix in there different hues of green the image will look much better!

Neilpa77: much better now for sure. I have two other ideas for you. If you place those birds half-overlaping the "portal" we instantly get another depth cue, and...thats cool .
Also you could create kind of a curved path in that midground area that would connect the centaur to the portal, therefore adding some interest to the midground area. Keep rocking!

Based on the crits i got, i decided to make some little changes on my image. So here`s my final.

Thank you very much everyone and excuse my english please.

Cheers!

[Luis Gama]

Hi again guys!
Everyone is doing great!

I`ll just leave a few words for AdrianNagorski: i like your idea of this centaur complex with all the buildings and structurs etc, but right now the image is kind of hard to read, mainly because you are using the same values all over the place.
Try to brake the image into zones and in each zone you have a value. For example: Stuff closer to the viewer is darker and as it goes away in distance it gets lighter.
Try to apply this method. If you cant manage to do it on this piece try in the following ones. Have fun.

Rob: you have a lot of green going on, and thats great but if u mix in there different hues of green the image will look much better!

Neilpa77: much better now for sure. I have two other ideas for you. If you place those birds half-overlaping the "portal" we instantly get another depth cue, and...thats cool .
Also you could create kind of a curved path in that midground area that would connect the centaur to the portal, therefore adding some interest to the midground area. Keep rocking!

Based on the crits i got, i decided to make some little changes on my image. So here`s my final.

Thank you very much everyone and excuse my english please.

Cheers!

[RoboMat]

Wow I love to browse through the EOW threads. Amazing to see how you guys approach the final image!

merl1n - Your image instantly reminded me of Titan Quest and I guess that's a good thing I really dig the colours.

Luis Gama - I love the idea of this one!

[Incinerated]

Final would have done centaurs better but ran out of
time.

[neilpa77]

Tried to link the foreground with the mid.

[Trespasser]

First post there (: Just thought that I need more practice with environments (which I do rarely), and the topic attracted my attention. I don't think that my work is 'environmental' enough, though. But at least I tried (:

I thought of centaurs as of nomads, living somewhere in sandy desert. So this is their camp with white striped tents, where centaurs rest while it's too hot outside

[Vyse]

Great entries everyone! Really busy round.
Albino-Z is my favorite so far though =)

Escaped from work and sat for some time, here´s my entry:



...any suggestions?

[albino-Z]

Vyse:I love the texture of the swamp water surface(edit: I realized it was snow and centaur tracks!). Since you asked for feedback and given the tight deadline, I would go for 2 easy mods: 1. add some moon rim-light to the rocks on the right to make them pop out and let the eye "slide" down and hit the water then the centaur silhouette and lock into a loop. I am talking about very subtle higher values.

2. I would also go for one or two complimentary color highlights here and there. Maybe some yellow orange fireflies and some of their light bouncing on rock?? Again very subtle.

I think that both those easy fixes could enhance the piece quite noticeably. That said, being a desaturation junkie myself, I also enjoy the piece as it is.

[0Hayes]

Hey all, fantastic entries as usual! I haven't managed to get this as refined as I'd like, so anyway here's my final =]

[Jamesy]

Howie- I like the lighting a bunch and the rock formation is pretty cool.
Deep City Lights- Whoooaa that moon is HUGE! You've got a nice dramatic night scene
Albino-Z- Really love the atmosphere and execution of the piece dude. My only crit is that it doesn't totally read as a Centaur Rendezvous point because of the lack of anything Centaur-y. It's still a totally rad piece though
Revenbo - The first piece is pretty hilarious just because I'm curious as to what's actually going on. It's a mating area with two Centaur lovers with each other, but then there's another Centaur looking down at them. He could be some a jealous Centaur furious at an ex-lover or he could just be a perv creepin in the background. I dunno. Either way it's pretty interesting lol
Unruhe- Love the colors and brush strokes
Pixeltuner- I really liked your initial sketch with the nice saturated colors and angle of the scene. The final piece loses some of that blue that I really in the beginning which complimented the reds/warms.
Luis Gama- That's a pretty slick composition and idea. I like the lighting and how the colors where handled too
Neilpa77- This is pretty nice so far. I think the one thing taking away from it though is the Centaur. I like the Centaur being there, but it's kinda standing there in a near static pose. . .needs more action and emotion methinks
Merl1n- I reaaallly like your image The colors are super awesome!
Incinerated- Pretty interesting idea. It seems pretty rough and I'd like to see it fleshed out more.
Rob Powell- Every thing is reeeaaaally green. . .Try weaving is some reds and oranges to bring out those greens
Trespasser- Nice mood and color. I'd like to see the actual environment fleshed out more, but this is a great start
Vyse- Nice eery mood and atmosphere!
OHayes- I like where the piece is going and would definitely like to see more put into it
Adrian- I'm not too sure what's going on in the piece. . I'll write some mo' tomorrow cuz I gotta go catch my bus again. . .

Here's my final

[Pixeltuner]

FINAL FINAL

Thanks for pointing out the drabness my final was drabbing in. Back to colourful lsd-centaur country ^_^

[CyrusD]

The artwork here is amazing!

Very inspiring I hope with enough practice my work can look as good !

PS: This is my final.

[Rob Powell]

I'll call this my final unless I decide to tweek a few things, wanted to throw a centaur in there but got a bit lazy, but still quite happy with the outcome, learned a lot this round I'm happy to say. Good luck to everyone else, great job overall!

FINAL

[MartinC]

Final