Seeking ligth and shadows critique

[oxiso]

Seeking ligth and shadows critique

[DoubleThink]

Hey man.

Your lighting is pretty good if you're going for an illustration based on the animal, as seen in like history books.
I think if you're going to make it more of an illustration you need to play with the trees some more.

I did a paintover for you(I basically copied the original, made it darker and then erased stuff here and there). I feel this is more like a still from Jurrasic Park. Again, it depends what you're going for.

As for the lighting, here's 3 more examples by Pascal Campion. (He knows his light!)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Bg9VzHNyfMQ/TG...-1760B.jpg
http://pascalcampion.com/images/work/2234B.jpg
and this one is really applicable to your situation:
http://www.123inspiration.com/wp-content...ion-16.jpg

Hope that helps!

cheers

[Tygerson]

Really great dinosaur and environment! I like the misty atmosphere.

Sorry, nothing to do with your actual question, but it kinda feels like the dinosaur is tucked a bit too far to the right. Like either the image needs cropping, or he needs to be bigger such that maybe his head falls on a "rule of thirds" line. The head is just so expressive and engaging, it feels like it needs special placement.

[Amit Dutta]

Just talking about lighting, the light source seems to be behind dinodude, the shadowing and highlighting pf him should match this directionality. An example is the highlights on his legs and feet..they are on the side that should be in shadow. Also it's hard to tell, because I'm on a tablet but I think, some complementary colours in the shadows would help a bit.

[oxiso]

Thanks everyone for your advice

[nickzornart]

I'm noticing a couple of things: the background looks like it's very hazy, almost foggy, but the trees in the fore and midground on the right, as well as dinodude, have very sharp shadows, with the light very obviously coming from the right as well (except for dinodude's thorax area, that looks like the light is coming from directly above). If it's foggy, there won't be those sharp shadows. If there are those shadows, then the sky should be pretty clear, with nothing diffusing the light through the atmosphere. Also, if the light is coming from the right with that much intensity, I would think that there would be more of a shadow moving off from the dinosaur to the left.

Also, the tree directly behind dinodude's head looks to be in about the same value range as the tree at the left edge, which is on the opposite bank of the river. This messes with the eye.

All in all it's a good start though.