I'm glad to post this at last. I hope there will be many entries and it will present an opportunity for people to gain some skills and have fun.
The first challenge is:
(08-12-2012, 09:30 AM)JonHop Wrote: An environment on a foreign planet that contains organic life form and a structure built by the life that lives there .
Feel free to post your WIPs and final work in here. My suggestion is to use spoiler tags for WIPs so they wouldn take to much space (so we didn't have to scroll the hell down to see new work each time we visit this thread) or possibly keep work in one post (just edit).
Feel free to give critique, make paintovers and ask questions. The purpose of this challenge is to learn and polish your skills, so don't hasitate.
To break the ice, I am posting these two quick ideas - A dusty planet with plated structures and funky creatures and a plant planet with plant creatures. Also, I will post progress and everything related to this challenge here(in this very post). Suggestions and are welcome, peace out.
Edit 1, Aug 27 Ill go with the plants, I like them too. Flo, tnx man, those are nice ideas and suggestions. I will change the comp a lot.
So, here is an example of a life form. They move rarely, (so they are not completely sessile, Flo, sorry to disappoint :) ) and I am too tired to write down all the stuff they do, Ill do it in the next post
**image removed** Edit 2, Aug 29 I removed the character from above, since he is present in this post (right hand corner). Here you have some explanation, mostly about structures' purpose. I will probably wrap it up this weekend, with the comp and all. I forgot to mention in the text - yellow mushroomlike panels collect sunlight and the swirling pathway is part of the interior. Cheers
Edit 3, Sept 02 I didn't have much time these days actually, so I didn't finish it yet. I will, and I will post it when I am done. Here is the sketch****sketch deleted**** Edit 3, Sept 04 posted another phase****phase 2 deleted****Edit 3, Sept 07 Got some more time to work on this, wasn't happy with the comp, but I gotta wrap it up soon. Still gotta lot to do.
My explanation for this would be:
the creatures that live on this planet use the flying devices in order to spread their young, much like dandelions. they have silk glands in their mandibles and with gas, which is a by-product of their diet, they can produce hard-skinned bubbles. those are packed together with their eggs onto stones, which they glue together also with their silky goo.
sometimes they hop on the vehicle to leave their island in order to find more food, or a mate, etc.
thanks for the input everybody :)
worked some more on the sea and the edges. also made some colors more saturated and added more texture.
@panda: i really like those colors.
Cheers,
Flo
Please help me getting better by checking out mysketchbook
Good work, Flo. The Floating Island one is very cute and well done, but it looks more like an surreal thing that would happen on earth. And its more or less done. If I were you, I would finish that island as is, and explore the first one more, change scales a bit, play with the planes and aerial perspective, I really like the movement of floating lashing top left thingy. Or you can change the Island to look more odd :P
I've updated my post with Edit 1, Aug 27, sorry if the picture is too large, next ones will be smaller.
@ Ici, yeah I prefer the plant type one also, that one looks the best.
@ Flo, I think the first one would be more suited to this challenge and taking a second look if that one was finished to the same as the island I think it would be the better piece out of the two.
Here's my initial 4 sketches, they're done very quickly. I think no 1 is the style I'll go with, a planet mostly covered with water apart from the very large rocks. I'll refine the idea and it won't look like the sketch but I'll use that for the basis of the style.
*Update, here it is, ok got the line drawing and the base colours in roughly, any crits are welcome, will carry on refining it tomorrow :)*
*Update 30th Aug - Ok so I started refining the image a bit more, trying to add more scale to it, and trying to make it a bit less earth like. Adding in crystals which grow like plant life on this planet, which the creatures use to build their bridges, weapons etc from. Gonna take out the boat, doesn't fit with the topic and gonna create a big structure the aliens have built using the crystal I think, maybe lol.
@ Ici and flo Thanks for the feedback guys, gonna try and make it less like earth :).
Also both your designs are coming together very nicely, looking forward to seeing the finished pieces.
*UPDATE 1/9/12 - Ok, well I worked on my image some before I saw Flo's comment and paintover, planned to put some sort of planet in the distance also. But you fixed up the perspective really well, thanks for the paint over. I wasn't trying to make it steep that was the top of the rock, just I'm not real great with perspective, this is my first real attempt at trying to make a finished enviro piece, so I really appreciate the feedback and help from you flo and iCi :). I'll upload what I have so far before having to implement the changes to create the perspective I was going for, that flo showed me how it should be.
* Ok added the so far before the changes I gotta make now.
Oooh i like it Flo, youre pulling it off nicely. The first one turned out very good. The entry is very interesting, though I demand explanations :P Go go go!
JonHop, I would consider adding more strange, alien features to your piece since it looks too much earthlike. Suprise me! Also, turn your image b&w and check your values (stronger near, lighter far) :)
JonHop, just raise the water level it will fix it. Flo, that is a nice explanation and a nice piece that shows off the design pretty good. If you ever come back to it, go with some stronger colors, especially the crab dude. Good job. Post a new comment when you update and give feedback, this is a mess :)
Missed the deadline but glad I worked on this. Still looks unfinished so I'll call it a WIP for now.
Crit and suggestions welcome.
@iCi: Really like your colors. I prefer the composition of your original plant planet sketch, because in your Sept 02 update, the creature on the left and the plant structure(?) on the right are competing and its harder to see where the focal point should be. I would suggest increasing or decreasing the size of either.
@Flo: Nice textures you have going. The green mass on the upper left corner and the water seem like they need some more definition.
@JonHop: I like the shadows you have so far. You may want to consider upping the contrast on them. Also, the island in the middle should be casting a shadow.
Maybe we can give this more time, since only Flo finished, and there are only 4 entries. You are right, panda, though first one doesn't show off the creature or the buildings - it shows off the flower. I will think about it more.
Piotr, I can suggest introducing some foreground elements for depth and scale. It can go where the 'wip :(' stands . Some harder brushes on the smudgy part of the island wouldn't harm. Btw, nice job :)
panda, turn it black and white and see what more you can do with values there, also, I know that's an early sketch, but I'm not figuring out what you want to show off and what is the scale of that thing.
I also hope Ill finish mine as well, the work is killing me, there's an update.
![[Image: 1copyrsz.jpg]](http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/4862/1copyrsz.jpg)