WIP - Photoshop Crystal Painting

[Katie Cruit]

Hey guys. I would like some advice on this painting I'm doing in Photoshop. It's in it's very early stages, just trying to get the values/lighting right. Obviously the people aren't proportional so don't need advice on that.

It's suppose to be a scene in the middle of the desert at night where excavators are observing a strange crystal the size of a skyscraper. The selling point is the whole crystal, and the main light sources are the moon and the two spot lights.

Any advice on lighting/composition/proportion/perspective? I don't want to get halfway through the painting and realize the composition doesn't work or something.

Thanks!

[William Scott]

Hey Katie, I'm not much of an expert myself (so don't take my "critique" to heart)

Im not really getting the feeling of the Crystal being very Large in scale, it looks like its about the size of the people in the foreground, the car helps, but there is more that could be done to show a difference in scale. You should try making little thumbnails with different compositions and see which one displays what your trying to get across the best.

[nodeerskulls]

I agree with Sonisu.

The crystal doesn't seem to appear very grand, perhaps it's becausI of the shape - the bigger the thing, the more crystal parts it should have. it's doubtful that such a big crystallisation/formation would have so little branches and so little parts, due to the way they are formed in general

here are a few examples of larger crystals





photos from http://iasos.com/crystals/


and i don't think it's inclination is doing anything in particular for your composition. maybe make it inclined on the other side, to follow the line of the foreground character's hand?

[Star Eater]

I would strongly suggest getting hold of a real crystal or an object
with many reflective surfaces and do studies of that. Painting crystal
convincingly can be quiet a challenge. I discovered this myself recently.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1334351732

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...1&d=1334355779

[Velocity Kendall]

Youre looking down on the crystal.
To make things seem grand, put the camera low and force it to look up at them.
Think about your point of view when you approach a cathedral vs an ants nest.

[Katie Cruit]

Thank you guys! I tried to take everyone's advice into this next sketch. I changed it to an upward angle, added more small crystal around it, and added more little people to illustrate the distance between the two onlookers and the crystal. Any more advice?
Note: I only did values to make the picture easy to read, so I don't need advice on lighting/shadows just yet. I know it's off. Just on composition,proportion, and perspective.

(I also added a smaller picture to see the entire pic better)

Thanks

[mRomano]

That's much better, but now your crystals are rectangular boxes facing the same way. The bottom of the crystals is good, now do that throughout the whole thing. Vanishing points wont be the same for the whole crystal

Also, if you remove the black outlines, can you still even tell what the drawing is? You need to separate your values more

[Katie Cruit]

Well, I decided I didn't like how empty the picture seemed, so I redid the design again, but I kind of went back to the first one... I think the mountains and the tress make it less empty and more interesting, plus there isn't a person looking at it, since I thought he was kind of distracting from the crystal. Is this one better than the second one?

I would like some advice purely on composition and perspective again (I know the lighting is wayyyy off). Thanks!

[nodeerskulls]

i just saw this on tumblr and thought it might be of a little use/inspiration to you!


it's by Friedrich Hechelmann

[arenhaus]

I'd suggest you plan your perspective. None of your sketches show much attention to the horizon and relative position of things; you should at least do a quick check that there IS a perspective, or you'll end up with a rather disjointed painting.