Game of Thrones - help

[matthewactual]

Hi there,

I've been registered here for awhile, but haven't made much of a presence, partly because of time constraints with school, but mostly because I've been avoiding any kind of feedback. Kind of counter-productive, ain't it?

So this is a piece that has been taken me quite some time, and I feel I'm getting nowhere with. I'm happy with the character design and shape on it's own, but I'm not sure if it works so well with the environment (first time doing environments btw). I'd also like your thoughts on the colour scheme...low lighting leads it making looking flat.

It still needs a lot of work, but any help from this point onwards would be super appreciated!

Thanks a lot.

[pauloricardo]

Hi man....

seems to me that the proportions of the thing holding the head is not correct... check it... another point, the blue lights does not let clear if the thing is wearing the clothes or if he is naked...

for the guy holding the sword, I think he is Snow, you should make some rework in his arm holding the sword, it is very thin for someone who is wearing an armour and is strong... also, redraw the sword to it be complete in the scene... it makes part of the character, and should not be cut...

for the environment... you could make more branches in the threes above the main figures... if you create a darker effect around then, you can make a better contrast for the characters...

your idea is good, keep going to finish it

[Lightship69]

HI matey

I do know this story fairly well, both from the tv series with Sean Bean etc and from a book that I found ages ago called "the art of George R.R. Mattin's - A song of ice and fire"

do a google image search on the thast bit "a song of ice and fire" have a look at some of those images with the trees and you will notice sereral things that are missing from yours.

For example The guy holding the head "the white walker" dude he needs serious work he looks like he's been flayed alive (skin removed), and his anatomy needs some help. Also the glow you added seems to be coming out from his insides and the story just indicated blue scary eyes.

The trees are mostly dark trunks and seem to have light sources on two sides, there only needs to be one main source in this scene from the moon, There will be some bounce or reflcted light from all the ice and snow however which will brighten the scene considerably.
Going back to the trees you need more colour and light values and need to fade them away as they go back to give you some depth, you did this with the ones near the mountain. But then you went for loads of detal and a dark outline ontop of the mountain which brought it forward again.

Up the details on the rocks to bring them forwards in the picture depending upon where you want the eyes of the viewer to rest.

also the dire wolf behind who I assume to be "Jon Snow" needs a rethink anatomy wise too he is more of a fox shape at the moment.

Now dont feel too bad about all this, its all fixable realtively easily and should make for a good image when you are done.

have a look at this stiky too

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=219000

the first ten points are the ones that will help you when posting in here mate

all the best to you and I look forward to seeing the image come on

[matthewactual]

You guys are awesome. Thanks a lot.

pauloricardo - good points, I will look at the anatomy for sure.

you could make more branches in the threes above the main figures... if you create a darker effect around then, you can make a better contrast for the characters...

by "darker effect" do you mean silhouetted? More branches in the foreground, or on the existing trees so they're more than just upright logs?

Lightship69 - Cheers man, thanks. Good to have someone who's probably read more of the books than I have to make sure I'm faithful to it. I'm only halfway through the second, so I'm only basing my interpretation off of the short seen in the first episode/chapter. The rest I kind of made up. The "flayed alive" (haha) was supposed to be something like "bio-armour"...tough skin that protected him and had the ability to reform and move on its own. I imagined it glowing unnaturally, to justify why they called them "white walkers". I'll try for some actual armour/clothes this time. Maybe went a little too mythological for ol' G.R.R Martin

I didn't think about reflected light being a lightsource, good point!

[pauloricardo]

I think that just silhouettes are enough... Boris Vallejo sometimes use this resource out of the focal point of his paintings...

in the first plane, you painted some trees surrounding the "white walker", if you make some branches in these trees, hiding part of light behind him, you can make the ambient more dark, once the "white walker" has its own source of light, the reflex of it in the trunks could be enough to iluminate the behaviour... once the triangule of the focal point was resolved almost naturally, I think this solution can cause more contrast in your work and achieve also a good result

[Lightship69]

Hi matey

I think that the white walkers are supposed to be humans that have been taken over arn't they? or humanoid in form anyway so smoothe him out and give them blue grey skin and furs like a viking or something.

did you do the google thing? there are some good images out there that you can draw some inspiration from that could help with this, honestly mate have a look.