Cliff City

**laterDays** · June 5th, 2007, 05:04 AM

Hi Guys, I've been working on this for a while. Having a little trouble with it, but I dont know how to improve it. Thanks for taking a look.

The bottom one is a slightly larger version. It is about 1/2 the size of the original which is pretty big. This was my first large landscape so I didn't know how large I should make the file.

**Zimzibar** · June 5th, 2007, 06:31 AM

Wow, nice so far! One thing that gets me when i look at it is how dark it is all over the right hand side. Maybe add some of the lightness of the sky on the left, to the sky on the upper right? Might unify it more, and help that beauty of a tower stand out

**YVerloc** · June 5th, 2007, 10:29 AM

Wow! What a gorgeous picture! Awesome mood...totally awesome.

I did a super quick overpaint by way of explaining the few tiny problems I see. The water doesn't have the right sheen or scale, and the coastline seems to be in a weird perspective. I tried to flatten the coastline out a bit and give it a tad more atmospheric depth. I also couldn't resist adding an in-parralax far side to the glass windows in the tower, to give it at least some thickness.

Killer piece. I can't wait to see more from you.

**WODZGN** · June 5th, 2007, 10:38 AM

The only problem for me is the diagonals pointing to the left. The main buiding has a midsection pointing to the left, the cloud formation forms a diagonal pointing to the left, pointing to this black dot on the edge of the painting. Intentional? Maybe create some point of interest on the far lower right corner... that's where my eye is going when i try to balance everything out. Aside from that....Looks very good!

**Anthis** · June 5th, 2007, 12:00 PM

Really like where this is going. A few issues though:
The sky on the left is really bright, especially compared to the rest of the pic, also, it seems to have little to no effect on the land and buildings. I'm still not sure how he did it, but I think YVerloc did a great job at the water.
Extension on the left side of the building looks unfinished, and is not the same as on the right (might be intentional though).
Also, it was only when I saw the person in the window that I realized the building was actually quite close, not sure if more people feel that way.
I like especially the details on the big building, and your sky, keep it up!

**laterDays** · June 5th, 2007, 12:22 PM

Thanks for the great critiques and encouragement, I have a good idea what to fix now. Also, awesome paintover YVerloc, the coast area looks so realistic there! By the way, Anthis, that isn't supposed to be a person in the window, so I'll get to making sure it doesn't look like one right away.

**brianhamner** · June 5th, 2007, 04:43 PM

I like this alot. I might be able to help you out though. Much as I consider cropping to be the enemy, you really have alot of space where nothing is happening. That detracts from the overall. Also, the eye isnt led through the image because you need a dark value in the top left corner. What I did was crop it and move that thing that looks like a ship over into the left corner. I really think it needs more of the left side. I like the lights in the bottom, I think they could be brighter and there could be more of them. Hope you can use some of this.

**KtCruit 57** · June 5th, 2007, 07:07 PM

at the bottom those are... houses? buildings? Hard to tell. Maybe clarify some of them and definately Brighten up the sky not JUST in that top-left corner.
Otherwise, the clouds and the floating tower-thing are really cool, keep it up!

**laterDays** · June 8th, 2007, 04:33 AM

Wassup guys, here is an update with changes. I tried my best with the water sheen and tried to add some interest in the bottom right hand corner. I put a tree there. What do you think? Should I keep it? The first image i will show has the tree, the second one shows the image without it. I ended up not cropping the image just because I want to keep the image closer to my original mental image. It was a good suggestion though. Also I tried to add a little more light to the right side of the image. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

**jubjubjedi** · June 8th, 2007, 05:02 AM

Looks good! Though I must say that I like the cropping that Brianhamner did. The center of the round stained glass window on the main building is looking like a target/cross hairs to me, so either put it directly in the middle or move it further to one side. You can also have floating buildings in the background around the sunset as well to emphasize the distance. As for the foreground, maybe some shapes that lead your eye to the focus of the image, which to me is the balcony to the left of the round stained glass window.

**laterDays** · June 8th, 2007, 03:51 PM

K i think Im going to stick with this last one. I think it is time for me to move on and stop worrying about this image. I recropped the image, but I still maintained a lot of black and got rid of the tree because I really want to keep the image simple. I think i'll just take the rest of the stuff I learned and apply it to the next image I make. Thanks all. (BTW: if you see any glaring mistakes in this new image, please tell me!)

**YVerloc** · June 8th, 2007, 05:25 PM

Nice. I love this picture.

**cmoreland** · June 8th, 2007, 11:30 PM

I like the brushes, did you make them yourself? Or is that a trade secret?

**Crazymic** · June 9th, 2007, 12:48 AM

This piece is awesome. I really like the color choices and the overall vibe.

-MO

**laterDays** · June 9th, 2007, 01:58 AM

Thanks guys, that really means a lot to me.

By the way, cmoreland, I used Painter X paper textures for the stuff, not brushes.

**Gina Salvador** · July 8th, 2007, 02:30 PM

It looks great! It makes me want to go there! lol... my only suggestion is try to brighten the lights on the little village below? That way ur eye will go all the way around and around in your piece! Because your village below needs to be seen also! It looks so cool!