Alright, so I was told my portfolio needs variety and that there are no real landscapes aside from a few inks. I figured, let's kill two birds with one stone, and hence, my final project/possible portfolio piece.
I'm really looking for some ideas to make this more dramatic, like all my pieces lack. Anyway, I'll through up a work in progress up to my last piece and hopefully, with all your help, I might start to understand landscapes a bit.
Interesting looking piece. You say you want to make the image more dramatic, off the top of my head I would say you need to work on the lighting.
Perhaps add some open flames from braziers.
I see that you already have a little group moving across the bridge, however, it is very hard to make out. This is mainly because all the edges of your image are very soft and blurred out. When you continue the image, make sure to harden the edges in the mid-ground to really capture your viewer's eyes. You could give this little group torches to carry, which would center the attention of the viewer a bit more.
Lighting is generally a very good way to add drama to a piece, however, since you're focusing on this being a landscape you want to make sure that what you end up adding in doesn't take away too much from what you initially intended to show. Make sure it enhances the scene.
Also keep in mind that if you add light sources, those light sources WILL grab attention, especially when contrasted against such a dark scene as your final image shows. i.e. the very bright red you've chosen for the doorway which is currently jumping up and down for attention.
You could think about raising the buildings in the background to a height where they closely reach the top. This would make the city feel much larger and 'towering'. Doing a quick sketch of this should be enough to tell you whether it will work or not.
To sum up: in my experience (which isn't a lot mind you), environment pieces are all about light/colour and depth. Your light helps tell the story and directs your attention alongside colours (complimentary can be very effective).
The best thing about landscapes is that it takes very little effort to get an idea across, so if you're confused about whether something will work just add another layer and block in some shapes and colours and you'll quickly get an idea of whether it will work or not.
Hope this helps. Sorry about the wall of text but I am not used to giving critiques so this may be a bit confusing, if so I am sorry for that! Good luck with your piece =)
Thanks! This is great advice, now, to figure out how to implement it! I've been having trouble with the hard and soft edges in Photoshop. Every time I put in a hard edge it looks bad. I sharpened the bridge up and it looks stiff and unnatural to me so I went back and softened some of the edges. Maybe it's just because it was the only thing sharp and everything else was soft.
I keep hearing everyone say they finished a painting in 2-4 hours and I'm now 4 hours into this and it still looks like I just started. *sigh*
Hehe, I know what you mean. My images still take ages, even my sketches!
I think it's just down to overall knowledge really. Am sure our speed will pick up once we get more comfortable with Photoshop and art in general! At least I hope so, if not I'll have to make sure I find very patient clients in the future! ^^
If you want to practice the hard and soft edges I suggest just sitting down and trying to do some quick studies on various environment photos. Just find simple ones with very little going on, but a clear definition between soft and hard edges like say a desert scene with hard rocks jutting around the scene and just try to emulate the overall 'feeling' and depth of the image in your own style.
Reference images are always good to work from or just have handy for inspiration or clarification =)
Best of luck with it! Would love to see it as it progresses ^^
Sorry, I kind of forgot about this thread. It's been busy lately. Anyway, taking the advice of you and others, I decided to push the original concept a bit more, people also seemed to like it more saying it didn't seem as distorted. However, I never was able to get to finishing the color pushing it as far as the last one.
