Looking for guidance
#1
Heya guys, I'm most of the way done with this, but i feel a bit stuck, and I'm not sure what it is. Plus I have no idea how to render the damned leaves correctly... (amongst other problems that are littered in the piece)
Any help is appreciated!
EDIT: can't get the image to show, so here's an Imgur link: http://i.imgur.com/Fg9UWT9.jpg
(sorry about that)
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#2
This is nicely painted and a clean render so good work on that.

For me I find the lighting a little bit inconsistent. The shadows on the balustrades indicate a light source in front of us and quite low to the horizon. The highlights on all the architecture and the guards suggest a light source behind us and relatively high in the sky. There is a lot of ambient light as well which seems to be coming from everywhere and nowhere.....guess it could be smog of some sort, but the shadows should still be consistent.
Anyway you might be able to get away with it because it doesn't look too off.

The composition is symmetric and balanced well, but you have this strange reverse effect happening, where the focal point (the tree and dome) has the least contrast and lightest values. My eye is drawn to the dark and detailed figures and architecture, even though I know I should be looking up at the tree. I can't actually say it doesn't work, but it is a little bit opposite to what you might expect.

The tree in the distance has some issues:
- The scale of the vegetal phototextures you used are way to big given the size of the tree and you also are somewhat attempting to show individual leaves instead of thinking about the overall 3D forms involved in the tree canopy. This makes the tree look particularly flat.
- I think in the first instance you should think about showing these larger forms of the leaves clumped together in large areas of shadow and light only. if needs be you can then indicate individual leaves with some texture in chosen areas.

Other than that I guess this place seems to be a bit devoid of life and dynamic movement, even though it has people and plants and a city in it. The composition, while working is very static. I think using more dynamic cloud forms and some more dynamic lighting could help this.

The palette is very monochromatic. Not a bad thing really. Just some elements of complementary colours in well chosen areas, such as the tree which is the focal point, might help add some vibrancy and help draw focus even more.

Because the render is so clean, it might benefit from some grime and texture in areas, especially in the buildings exposed to the elements.

The figures could do with a bit of perspective work in some of the forms. Eg the helmets look a bit flattened, and the torso's not as rounded around their forms as should be.


*edit tried to do a quick paintover. So rusty! I didn't attempt to fix the lighting overall, but tried to adjust palette and add some dynamic lighting, as well as simplify the tree. Didn't really nail anything, but hope it gives you some ideas.




Hope that is useful!

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#3
Thanks, this is really helpful!
I tried making this painting through doing greyscale and painting color into it, but I'm inexperienced at that, so it did come out a little more monochromatic than I had intended. I had intended to try to keep the value range on the tree small to make it look far away, but that sort of backfired and didn't work, oh well ha ha.
Here's the more finished version I did yesterday, definitely fixes some problems ( but not all :/ )

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#4
cool man, it's all a learning process :) I think it is heaps better, and you had the right instinct to push the scale of the tree with haze, just it didn't help the comp. Atm I still feel the canopy of the tree and the tree trunk itself is too flat, given the uber 3Dness of the rest of the painting.

It's definitely a light and shadow contrast issue but I'm not sure you'll be able to fix the inconsistent light sources and make it work with the amount of render in the painting there already. Maybe just store up the knowledge for the next paint.

I'd still like to see more life. flags or pennants flying in the wind. Kites flying, leaves, birds, steam rising, lights. Basically anything to add life to this. At the moment it is a nicely painted sterile image. Add some character and life to it if you want it to sing. Often the last 5% makes the painting work and brings it together.

Good luck!

 YouTube free learnin! | DeviantArt | Old Folio | Insta
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