E.O.W Round #185: At the Banks of the Glowing River

[Alex.Zelenski]

Alex.Zelenski: thanks for pointing that out
I was too lazy to use construction lines so perspective is just eyeballed.
Thanks to you I decided to add perspective lines to see what happened.
This is the result. Not too bad, but a little off, particularly in the distance.
I had to broaden the image to get the perspective lines to the left on the horizon - maybe this broader composition is better? I don't know.

Argh! Wrote comments/crits on everyones work and now its all gone! *#$#@!!

Sorry to hear the crit mishap. But I guess it just looks like the river bank in the foreground is more like a ledge that you are standing on looking down. Idk may just be me. Looks nice none-the-less.

[Dscreet]

I would suggest that the feeling of strange perspective comes from the size of the trees further back in the composition. In particular those by the horizon.

Hope You don't mind the paintover

Nice Work people!

[KDillon]

Oh man, there are some tough acts to follow in here. Everyone's work is awesome! Working on an environment based on a river that flows from a great tree. Going for an Aquarius type of theme.

[derekdedgell]

There are nice image here! This is my first time participating in the community activities here.

[android411]

here is a second sketch as I had some time left today, really great entries so far!

[Ruri]

...progress

[KDillon]

Progress so far

[antipersonnel]

Awesome as work on here so far!

here's an update from me... hopefully one more chance to edit...

[kwshutt]

Hey! Here's a WIP of my first environment--I'm not very skilled at landscapes, so any feedback would be HUGELY appreciated.

This is a very tiny, glowing river...of larvae. They migrate across the mushroom desert before they reach their mecca, a giant tree, where they undergo pupation to become magnificent--and yes, glowing--insects.

Come to think of it...does this still count as an environment if the river is alive?

[viiiva]

kwshutt, cool idea man! On first glance I would say that you should make the 'river' smaller in the background. It seems to be the same size on the top of the mountain than at the bottom so the perspective seems strange.

Another point that I notice is that your sky is very very dark, but the landscape is relatively bright. I think if you make the landscape a bit darker, but keep it at the brightness you have now around the river, you will also accentuate the glowing of the river?

[Rob Powell]

Decided to go a different route, cuz my other one kinda sucked....
May start over but expand on this idea, may add a boat with some characters as well...

[Dkmaster]

Feel free to give as many and as much critique as possible. Here is my final.

[hekatoncheir]

arghghg this took me forever to figure out, but I hate the composition. Idk if I should keep working on this or start over. Herp derp. Went a little more loose with interpretation for river. River of lighttttt.

small round of critttts!

corrick I don't want to sound like blarhghgarg, but bro, branches don't really just stick out of trees angularly, especially ones with really large trunks. There is a bit of curvature to them. (sakura http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ssom_tree).jpg red oak http://images.fineartamerica.com/ima...e-avellino.jpg for examples).

pixeltuner I actually for some reason really liked the first wip LOL, but the meme was a perfect touch I must say.

And always, huge fan of bara's

mhugo, you might want to consider extending the canvas (more space for the bottom). Because that sliver of river on the bottom right can potentially open up the space in the painting.

I'm also particularly in love with android411's, kdillon's, and antipersonnel's colour schemes.

blargh. ;_; so many cooool entries. Someone punch this one in da face.

[KDillon]

After a few tweaks, here is my final.

A glowing river whose origin is a strange tree with a spring that resembles the giving hands of a goddess. They say that the star-like glow of the river comes from the spirit of the constellation Aquarius. The tradition is that the people of this village, in the spirit of the water bearer, carry vessels of water to nearby regions to help them out. They believe that generosity blesses the water - as long as they use it for good purposes, the mystical looking water will remain abundant.

[Yatzenty]

Hey Fellow Artists. I am so happy that I found this activity on conceptart.org. You guys are producing fantastic stuff and thank to you I am pushing myself to produce something that I can be proud of. Superb entries this week!
So here is mine. I know, it's bit Avatar, but hey, it is my version of it and its not on Pandora If you like you can join for a swim, I think it would be great!

____

Thanks for your critique Corrick. Let me just tell you that your concepts are real treat to look at, full respect my friend. Following your advice I worked bit more on the foreground also added few glowing from hunger mosquitoes hehe Linked with updated version.

[kwshutt]

Hey! Here's my second WIP for the EoW; the river of larvae. Still don't know if a live river counts as an environment...

Also, I'm having some serious trouble with the ground. I've never done an environment before, and I'm kind of awful at landscapes, so any help at all is DEARLY appreciated. I love the stuff that's been posted!

[kwshutt]

Wow, Yatzeny...your use of color is gorgeous. The contrast is really striking, and I think your brushstrokes reveal the perfect amount of the shadowed landscape. Beautiful work.

[Corrick]

Pixeltuner, kinda liked the first one. Good colors, good potential.
Dscreet, good start, made me look up Tad Williams out of curiosity.
bara, nicely done.
Rob Powell, different route looks good, nice color and light bounce on the trees.
antipersonnel, lovely colors and composition, but still very ambiguous as to what's going on (not that that's a bad thing). The detail in the second pass is helping a lot.
zephyri, the machine-world perspective is fantastic, and the use of color lends a very ancient feel to the image. The second set of images lost the steam elements which were working quite well.
Ruri, lot of interesting shapes in the latter image, there's a design quality to everything that I really like.
artcontrol0, these aren't saying "river" yet, but as they're in progress, we'll wait for more.
android411, good scale to the environment, it will be interesting to see how you pull detail out of the shapes. I do like the new one in contrast to the first, more environment, more story.
Harmageddon, I agree with the comments here, the perspective is a bit off, flattening the image. Everything looks like it recedes to a certain size and then stops. Keep pushing the distance in this one, and maybe bring the horizon down just a bit.
Dkmaster, not sure what colors you're going for here but the grey-ness ringing the image is overwhelming. That one tree was trying to add some color, but now no more red tree. More blue light reflected on the underside of the tree might help, and on the walls in the background. Push the dimensional aspect of your objects.
Mhugo, one of the best, in terms of mood. The 2-color tone tends to wash out the image just a little but honestly I wouldn't change a thing, it's pretty great.
KDillon, good, solid image, great texture in the tree-trunk. Could use some natural colors in the environment, unless this is a strictly blue world.
derekdedgell, nice take on this, love the clouds in the background, great texture. It'll be interesting to see where you take this one.
kwshutt, love the glow worm river. Great idea. Keep it up all day long. Push the aerial perspective though, darker tones, more contrast, brighter color in the foreground, smaller details and fading hues to the background. Try breaking the ground plane into different levels of distance.
hekatoncheir, thanks for the crit, I'll see what I can do. Lovely image, great shapes and composition.
Yatzenty, nice image. Only suggestion would be to add some detail to the water in the foreground, it's the only place that doesn't seem to have the degree of attention you gave the rest of the image.

[Pixeltuner]

Corrick, Hekatoncheir: Yeah I think the first one is better mood and designwise, but the second one is a bit more dynamic and actually just for fun

[Syle]

I'll have time later to give critiques to people. For now, just going to post my WIP. I started this sketch a couple of days before the topic was posted, so I don't know if I am allowed to post this in the finals, but I figured I could still participate in the constructive critiques.

This is sort of a cascading volcanic river of some sort.

[Yatzenty]

Hey! Here's my second WIP for the EoW; the river of larvae. Still don't know if a live river counts as an environment...

Also, I'm having some serious trouble with the ground. I've never done an environment before, and I'm kind of awful at landscapes, so any help at all is DEARLY appreciated. I love the stuff that's been posted!

Hey Kwshutt, if I may I will give you some of my thoughts on your piece. I would search bit more for balanced composition. Maybe one of the mushrooms could be way closer to the camera , say you could look under its cap depicting the gills. Check out work of Dylan Cole from Alice, pretty amazing stuff there. Also try to darken the whole image and emphasise the larva river. Give the illumination from your distant light source - add gentle shadows and highlights. The values are not quite right in your painting, try to have a black and white adjustment layer on top of your stack in PS and turn it on to check out your values - once on and you see majority of values same means you need wider range. I would move the light to the right and have the hill as a silhouette against maybe brighter sky? You need to tighten the detailing , but I'm sure you working on this. Well, hope it helps. Good luck mate

[silarvalla]

Hey! haven't done an EOW in ages,
so not sure if I'll get mine done in time (I'm moving this weekend) but i love doing open ended challenges! and this one was so fun.
I went with a sorta techno-ruin in the jungle that has irradiated the water or something. Just rudimentary colors down and figuring out the glow effects (fun!)

I'll try and put together a final before the deadline
but its pretty hectic around here!
I'm packing up my studio tomorrow etc..
I'm loving the entries so far, some really really incredible work
standouts for me so far are:
bara- great overall feel really atmospheric and organic, great glow effect
corrick- love love the color & layout, strong concept too.
zephyri- love the palette, layout and overall feel, like gouache or pastels (it has a ff7 feel to it too, a good thing!)
great work from everyone!

[Ruri]

[zephyri]

Some great lookin entries here. Not had anywhere near as much chance to work on mine as health issues have flared,which sucks, but going to try and finish regardless! My most up to date version is at the bottom.

few cris/comments:

Ruri: A really unusual take on the topic, definitely making it your own.. I do love the colour variations, would love to see what it looked like with maybe a subtle shift in greys on each chunk of rock.

Silarvalla: ff7 is a good vibe to have (not played it myself, but I know it has great nostalgia value) Really liking the way yours is shaping up! Been debating this with my own, but maybe a different colour to turquoisey blue for the liquid would work too.. you could go more along the violet lines with the greenery you've got thus far.

Syle: Heheh as I say different colour water, you've done so! Some forground elements like the rock-type shapes you have might help give some more epic scale and provide an interesting frame for the focal piece.

Kwshutt: Not a bad start, you have some nice colour combos going... I'd say you might find it easier to start with some flat shapes and play with your values getting lighter or darker towards the horizon. not exactly the same, but I did this piece with mushrooms just recently, might help explain it better.. starting with just simple shapes, then using those to build up your forms. http://samhogg.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/zangarmarsh.html

Yatzenty: Lovely looking piece, and i think it feels darker than Avatar, more like something you'd get in a creepy fantasy game where you're never quite sure what might leap out from the trees! (naked lady aside!) Really like the violet egding to the water, and the subtle way you've lit the darker parts. You could try some glowing foliage of a slightly different colour to the water to get some variation, but it's works pretty well as is.

KDillon: Lovely colour scheme, I adore that pastelly pink in the background. I kind of feel like the origin of the water in the tree should look like something (do I spy arms?) but I can't quite work out what it is. Makes me wish the canvas were a touch taller so you could make a focus point of that, along with the people. Sparkles on the water are really nicely done too.

Hekatoncheir: Loving your interpration of the river. Very original! Only thing that feels odd to me thus far is that the mid ground rock in the centre seems to have darker shadows than the rock closer to us on the right, which kinda screws with the illusion of depth for me a bit. Also the straightish lines to the liquid running under the rock is a bit confusing... are they channels carved into the rock, or is it supposed to be following the rock's surface?

Dkmaster: I think your values/tones could use a little more work.. if you convert that image to greyscale, the background is almost as dark as the foreground which means it feels like there's not as much distance as there should be. The shadows on the tree are as dark as the shadows right up fron in the steps. Also the glow from the river only seems to be affecting the tree, and not the structure on the left - I'd expect to see some light reflecting off that and the rocks. I might also move the cave a little more to the right so it's not so close to the tree, give it some room, so we can see it!

Antipersonnel: Love the colours and the dynamics lines in the piece. Be careful where you place the edging glow on the rocks on the left... it looks a little odd where there's a strong glow, then the rock edge seems to carry past that... makes me wonder why the very edge isn't affected by the glow too. You might also want to try giving the river a harder edge closer to us, if it's bedded in rock.

Android411: ooh, liking the more abandoned feel this has, and the energy beam is a lovely idea. Nice composition thus far too, and I like all the layers you've got in the environment. Will wait to see more, before i add anything else. I also loved your first concept too.

derekdedgell: Nice start! I'll wait till there's a little more to it before I add any more, but i like the idea for a galactic river!

Mhugo: Another of my faves this round. Adore that creepy colour palette and the sense of darkness enclosed you have around the glow of the river. I wonder if making your lab-guy a little smaller you might increase the epic feel the rest of the environment has (I could imagine those trees being huge and the river wide).

Harmageddon: the crit on page 2 nailed it with the perspective... the tree trunks don't really seem to get that much smaller compared to the perspective grid you've drawn. The plants on the side of the river seem to stay the same size too, which only spoils the illusion more. And don't be afriad to go most dark towards the edges near the horizon, as if there were too many trees to even see the light. Also the greeness of the grass makes me wonder why all the trees have no foliage too.

Pixeltuner: I'd love to see the epic viewpoint of your second concept worked with the feel of the world of your first. That would be awesome!

Corrick, yours is getting my vote for sure thus far, though there's a couple of wips that are giving it a run for it's money. I think I prefered it without the extreme angled trees (they almost get more focus because they're a bit of a departure to what I'm used to). And your crit was fair... I tend to render out all the forms before going back in and doing effects like steam and whatnot, so I hopefully should have that mistyness back in with later editions.

[najtkriss]

My entry
River cave with some kind of shrine where they worship, well, river.

[Kino_PuA]

^ o.O Holy !

[CassandreBolan]

First of all, so many AMAZING entries, I'm looking forward to be beaten by all of you I am going to try to be a regular at these contests, so I can get some much-needed practice in on my weak subjects. I'm trying to school myself. Crits are appreciated.

So, backstory. Well, I wanted to base mine off Monet's garden at Giverny (can't help it-i'm a fine art major). So many art-lovers pilgrimage there every year that I think there is a certain sacredness and spiritualness that has grown around this garden and it's famous water lilies. I used many photos as references but also thew in bits of my own from various japanese gardens. I pushed the fantasy element a bit by including some small magic koi fish.
(p.s. the lilies are coming, don't worry. it's just my first WIP)

[AdrianNagorski]

trying to think outside the box, a speedy around 3 hours, thus far.
i really actually wanted to go fantasy with this topic
where a meat wagon of corpses are dumped
into the river and the spirits of the dead are floating in the water creating the glow, but i cant
get the composition figured out to well.

[Harmageddon]

Wow, thanks for the excellent critiques guys!
My hats off to Alex.Zelenski, Dscreet, Corrick and zephyri. Alex for pointing the perspective out in the first place and Dscreet for your paintover: it makes it much clearer to me. Thanks so much!

I've had a very busy week with all kinds of other stuff in between, so I had no time to work on the piece, but I will try and incorporate all of your advice and get it done before the deadline.

Great stuff all around, I'll comment and crit later.

[Pixeltuner]

So, took the first one for a spin again. Freshened it up a little, widened the canvas and added a bit of foreground. That tree is bothering me though, I'm not sure if it should be there or just a big piece of rock.