Thumbnails for spooky hospital

[Wardy]

Hey beautiful daggers,
these are for a hospital on a quarantined island for an infection. im going for a 'north brother island' feel (smallpox quarantined island), so i need it to be creepy and old style hospital.
personally my favourite is 4, then 2, but i dont know if perhaps 2 is too far away to get any real detail?
any thoughts would be awesome, cheers all.

[Psychotime]

Depends on the mood you want.

If you want mysterious, I'd go with 2 or 4.

If you want imposing, I'd go with a low angle shot, maybe take 5 and make the perspective more extreme.



4 is my favorite, though.

[mdbauman]

I'm thinking 4 because of the dynamic angle and because you can get some of the surrounding environment in there. I think 3 would work nicely too as long as you get some dying shrubs or grass or whatever in there because that seems like an important part of your concept.

[DanDussault]

combine 1 with 4 to get the space around the hospital.

[Elmst]

I like the angel of 4. I would keep going with the thumbnails, think foreground, middle ground, back ground. I would really push these three and see if you can't creat an even more dynamic composition.
I have the same problem with my thumbnails as you are having here, your camera angel is the same on every thumbnail, monkeybread gets me on that all the time, I am at a point know we're I think of him as I do my thumbnails "did I change up my camera angels?"

Excited to see more.

[Wardy]

Thanks a lot for the feedback guys, i think i will go for a combination of 1 and 4, so that the hospital is close enough to detail but also getting some surroundings too, as dan suggested.
I completely agree Elmst, but it was so hard to get anything original! i was thinking of an aerial one, but that just doesnt give the information i need, so really it was head on, from the left/right or worms eye view :( Very hard, but will develop 1/4 a bit more and see what I can do.
Cheers all, you're awesome :)

[Amit Dutta]

Lol Elmst. I'm flattered.

I think 1 with a bit of foreground added as in 4 could work nicely. 5 could make a really nice imposing concept piece of the facade. 2 is less successful compositionally.

One thing I'd keep in mind when developing the thumb is to remember to overlap your elements. Foreground things should overlap midground and background things. So the tree shouldn't just be stark against the sky and framing the hospital. Midground should overlap background. Elements within one depth layer should overlap other elements in the same layer. If you only do this in 3 steps it can get really cut-out looking, but if you continually think about adding overlapping layers even in small areas, this will help add depth to the piece. The trick is to be subtle, not blatant with it, as even a little bit works.

Check out John Atkinson Grimshaw...his stuff might be useful for this piece.

[Wardy]

Ok thanks, i think you are definitely right, though i like the dynamic angle of 4.
Yeh good point, will see if i can have a few things that go gradually into the distance and bridge the gaps between the layers., maybe things like tree trunks to make it more gradual. good point.

John has some nice stuff- how do you think his style could be applied though? ie, what aspect of his work do you thnk would work well with this?
cheers ;)

[Wardy]

Its the best part of the day- update time!
So my jellybeans, this is where i am so far, would love any feedback on what you think. The lighting from the lamps by the entrance and the spotlight is really sketched in but will render soon. Just wondering if you guys think that this is working so far or whether i should change anything before i over render ;)
Cheers all!

[Psychotime]

Seems like it's going in the right direction. The moon is distracting, though.

[Amit Dutta]

John has some nice stuff- how do you think his style could be applied though? ie, what aspect of his work do you thnk would work well with this?
cheers ;)

Oh I just meant, sparse wintery trees, big empty looking manor houses, great use of atmospheric perspective and depth, limited palette etc etc the question should be what couldn't be applied! :)

You've changed up your value system with this update from what the thumbs were suggesting so I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. One thing that can trip you up is to think that because something is at night and in the dark, that everything needs to be dark including the sky. The dark to bright value rule for depth still holds so before rendering, adjust your values so you get the read...right now everythign is pretty dark. Full moons light up the entire landscape quite a lot. But rather than a paintover check out Mr Grimshaw in action for moonlit scenes.








Also think about implementing some of the other suggestions I made about overlapping elements. Put stuff in front of the manor, branches, walls etc....this adds depth and interest. I'm not sure what the deal is with the spot light, but it will draw a lot of focus so make sure it doesn't detract from your comp.

Lastly this isn't directly relevant but the next is my favourite image of his showing atmospheric perspective and overlapping elements to really drive depth into the piece. Look how simple that building is!


Useful?

[Wardy]

Wow those are awesome, i see what you mean. Yeah I just couldnt get the lighter value colours to work for some reason, they looked too 'daytimey', so im still struggling with that.
Will see what I can do with the sky, and I agree psychotime, im not sure how im gonna get around that- probs just put the moon behind thin clouds. The end idea has developed so that this will be a holdout, so spotlights and barricades etc.
Will get some layers overlapping the others and work in some more interesting elements.

Cant see that last image monkey, could you try attaching again? The others were really helpful, i think i will try the effect achieved in the second photo for the sky, cheers!

[Amit Dutta]

Hmmm that last image shows up fine for me? I can't really upload from my tablet but maybe you could try another browser?The main differences between moonlight and sunlight are colour temperature and the fact that the luminance output and contrast in moonlight is generally lower. Also bright moonlight tends to throw a strong hue tint over everything more than sunlight does. Grimshaw doesn't paint the most accurate lighting in those images because a lot more of the local value of the landscapes are retained than you would see irl but they still end up looking like night scenes.

[Wardy]

update
what do we think about the fences? i want it to look abandoned and the fences will be part of a gate that will have a sign on it to say its a hospital.
cheers ;)

[darktiste]

ok why would you put light on a abandon hospital ... it not logic maybe put a silhouette at the door holding a light source instead that would look dramatic.

Secondo the sky color is fusing with the house color it to light go back to the original sky but with a darker moon or put cloud over it . Add a fog bank on the road to the house.

Add more vegetation if it abandon mother nature come back. So add tall grass and vine growing on the hospital etc.

[Wardy]

ah sorry i thought i had mentioned before, it will be a holdout in the game, so a few barricades, spotlights and lamps so they know where they are defending. Also invites the player into the house and provides a nice focal point.
I like the idea of a figure though!
Yeh i dont think the clouds worked on this, though its a good point by monkey that its all got rather dark. Will play around with it and see what happens. Thats one of my main problems- its all melting into one another, will tweak it a bit.
Thanks for the suggestions! Much appreciated.

[darktiste]

you can add wood plank to the window
spike or barb wire around the house
a renforced door
the place can be signaled with a distress fuse on the ground or fired in the air

[Wardy]

awesome ideas, i intend to flesh out the defence idea a bit more as soon as i have a decent foundation.
i really like the idea of a flare that would be a really nice piece of narrative
cheers!

[Amit Dutta]

I hate to say it but once again problems are cropping up because the planning work wasn't done up front where it should have been. If there are to be barricades and defenders and all this stuff crucial to show in the painting, these should have been factored into the thumbnail stage. That's the point of the thumbnail...to quickly test out a lot of almost fully formed ideas, not to test out lots of half ideas. Just food for thought for next time.
I like the idea of adding foreground entrance elements...I don't particularly think the way you have done it helps the comp out to to be especially better however. I don't want to really comment on the composition elements again really because in my view you don't have all the elements in there so it's a totally moveable feast. If it was me I'd even be considering doing more thumbs with all the elements in there before rendering this further or at least take this comp and do some really quick silhouette sketching over it with everything you intend to be there on the final piece, because, well otherwise you're not going to be doing the best you could be.
Either sky looks fine to me though I think the 2nd is painted better, all you need to do is tweak values to get a silhouette going for the building and maybe start bringing in some colour variation in the materials as well. Use the reference by analyzing why something works, not just copying rendering ideas. The one thing in common with almost all of the houses I posted was a strong silhouette. Anyway good luck with developing it whatever you choose to do! I like the idea of a flare being shot up and lighting the building to give it some action and create a bit of narrative:)

[Wardy]

Yeah i know... unfortunately the idea kind of developed as i was painting so you're definitely right i should have put all this down in the thumbnails. Screw it I think that I would be polishing a turd so to speak if i carried on with this, will do more thumbnails sketches (*head slams on desk*).
I think that the silhouette is defo the main thing that is making everything run into each other, and i need some colour variation. Cheers for the advice, will keep working ;)