cave

[tjmsaint]

Hey. Was working on this painting in a cave and it started heading in slightly different directions. I guess I just want to know if its working at all? Or if I should continue on one version or the other.

[Marcky Marq]

Both of these are a bit messy and dont read cave to me. I dont know where I am supposed to be looking. My eye is drawn to the White light in the background and the red light on the corners and i dont know what I am looking at.

The piece lacks direction and my eyes just dance aroudn the page giving me a headache because once again I am not being directed everywhere. Check out this site http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/C...ition_tutorial

Like I said this doesnt really state "Cave" to me it feels more like some man made structure like the mines of moria which is cavernous and vast but not really a cave, I dont know which one you are aiming for but that was just my opinions.

Hope this helps

[kylelatino]

If I were to pick a direction to take for this, I would add a few people. I don't really get that sense of scale that I get from an actual cave. The easiest way of giving us a sense of scale is to add people at different depths in the painting.

Also, the details and shapes look more like wet trees. Cave look more like drip castles than rocks as we see them on the surface.

Finally,unless this is a panel for a Myst style game, I would never have a path jutting out from the center of the piece, and straight up into the scene. It would actually read better without that path, but keeping the black boulders.

But I love the colors and the mood and the contrast! It's a very striking scene, and I'm a little jealous of the feel you've already got going here! Keep the browns out of it, and go with what you have in the bottom image! It's shaping up very nicely!



I added the Batman to illustrate the point. Just a little focal point, and a sense of scale would work marvels on this piece!

[Marcky Marq]

I added the Batman to illustrate the point. Just a little focal point, and a sense of scale would work marvels on this piece!

You mean DC's to this piece right? Marvel would be Ironman

[tjmsaint]

Hey thanks for the advice Marcky I think I need to work on my focal point and my composition so that link helps. I was going for more of a mine/ giant cavern thing also sorry for the weak description. I also appreciate the paintover Kyle! That helped a lot. I did some changes so I'm posting the update. I need to clean it up some and and figure a few things out with it but I think its headed in the right direction now. Anymore feedback would be great though!

[tjmsaint]

Hey an update on the Underground Cavern. I also added 1 more image I'm working on and getting stuck in.

[Mr. Corlan]

I'm not sure I'm at a level to criticize these myself, but I can offer you a whole other opinion! I would say the latest update on the cave piece is a step backward. And I also think you need the browns. The colors in the first image of this thread had the best colors. Those warm colors in the foreground were perfect. They really helped bring that section forward, so you didn't have to rely solely on value, and those subtle yellows served as a roughly complementary "key" for the whole piece. Of course now you've moved the reds more toward orange, so it all changes . . .

But, the point is, I think it could benefit a lot from some judicious use of color.

The second painting has focal point issues too. The center foreground spikes are very attention-grabbing, and there's nothing especially interesting about them to warrant that. Just decide what you want it to be about, maybe make up some back story. And it's nice to have a few different points of interest, not just one. The spiky half-arch things on the left are a great focal point - be it primary or secondary. The flying critters could be another, or maybe the lightning in the distant right could get more prominent. And then there's the figure of course. But he doesn't -have- to be the main focal point. Maybe he's a surprise - you're looking around at all this cool stuff and then, boom!, "oh, wow, there's a guy there, coming out of the darkness."

Last thing, I haven't seen all your other work, but watch out for using the same color palette and value structure repeatedly.

[tjmsaint]

Thanks Corlan for the in-depth critique. Going backwards is never good:::smacks face::: By the way I checked out your work and its well really good! Anyways Ill get back into them and work on the 2nd in particular and try to work out a strong focal point. The first maybe Ill try to combine the first image colors and some of the look with the last and see what I can come up with.