I'm intending that this painting show this rock-titan as absoultely huge, but since he's supposed to be mostly neutral colored, as are the rocks (maybe a pale warm hues and some browns between them) The majority of color on him should come from the lighting, (early evening, yellow directional light from sun, red-orange ambient light from sky)
!However! Getting the palette right for this is just a nightmare, I don't really know what to do to color him that he won't look like his local color is red-orange, rather than being a red-lit grey object. I'm also struggling with fine line between atmospheric perspective and regular-weak-values, but I think I can get there.
(edit: updated image)
Any help is appreciated!
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Hi Matt! I like the idea!
I recently struggled with a similar issue. What worked for me was searching photos with the colors and materials I had in mind. My image was ambiented in a forest, so it's not the same you are looking for, but anyway you can see the result here if you are interested:
http://pnavarroarts.wordpress.com/2014/1...ing-party/
Anyway, my advice: always gather references before you start painting. It forces you to take decisions at an early stage and saves time later.
Hi there Matt,
I did a quick paintover of your piece, hoping to help you with some of the issues you brought up...
I think pushing the atmospheric perspective in the face will help reinforce the idea that he's giant, so giant that his face is so far away it's hard to even see. I did a wash of lighter color over the face and a little heavier in some of the shadows that I thought needed to be dialed down. Pretty much just pushing what you already had.
Also, right now your piece is mainly grey so it's blending together a lot for me. I did a wash over the sky in orange with and overlay layer to give the sky some color, that way the gray creature will stand out more against the colorful BG as a whole. I hinted at some of those colors in the shadows as well to push the atmospheric perspective, and I softened the edges of the creatures body while sharpening the edges around the head to help push focus towards the face. I brightened the creature's eye and put a bright light around his head as well to try and help add focus.
Another thing I tried, I lowered the cliff on the left so you now have a diagonal line going right through the creatures head, which helps frame the head, again adding focus.
I recommend adding some crumbling rocks, especially where his hand is grabbing the mountain, it'll show off the power of your beasty. I also think adding a hint of where the tail connects to the hind quarters will help too.
Just wanted to throw a bunch of ideas your way. Feel free to take or dismiss anything I've said. I think you have some pretty nice groundwork for a piece here. At this point I think it's all about finding the little bits and pieces here and there to push it even further.
Hope this helps, and good luck!
I'm kinda late to the party here and this is more of a compositional suggestion i guess. I just did a quick paintover lowering the mountains a little to make the big guy appear bigger, adding a little fellow to get more of a sense of scale, but I think he could me made even smaller. Darkening up certain areas of the picture to make it pop more, making the foot bigger and the head and hand a bit smaller again to add a bit of depth. Just some suggestions, I'm pretty new to composition myself but hopefully I could be of some assistance.