I am working on a picture of an Ankh Morpork street scene for my brother using Paul Kidby's character designs that my brother likes. It's been great practice for doing environments and thinking about colour, values, lighting, composition etc etc. But I wanted to just run it past you guys to see if anything stands out that I should change.
Great piece, and fun easters eggs to Pratchett's characters.
On a side note, the streets seems a little too empty/cleans, especially considering Ankh Morpork.
BTW, why didn't you paint the foots of the luggage? It's supposed to have like a very big bunch of legs and feet?
It definitely brings up the feel of Ankh Morpork. Almost like a discworld point and click game. The perspective distortion is a little confusing tbh. The extreme distortion of the mid buildings aren't seen in the foreground or applied with respect to perspective. It actually doesn't harm the piece too much, but it is odd.
I find there is no real attention or thought given to focal points. It seems like all the elements ofinterest are placed around the edge of the image and they are all chararcters, so the environment is taking second fiddle.
I liked the atmo perspective to the left of the image in the first image..added more depth and feel of atmosphere to it. You didn't need to add more detail to those buildings either because again it draws focus to the edges of the canvas.
Definitely more grit and texture needed as well, to give it a sense of being lived in. Hope that helps
Thanks so much guys :) that all helps immensely! I am getting to the point where I was just going to give up and go back to it later but I think I'll push through and work on what you mentioned.
Alchimi - I'm having fun with the easter eggs but I'm getting fatigued putting so many on there that I left out any other people I'd planned to put in.
Monkeybread - I'm glad it feels like Discworld, the beginnings of this started back in my college days and I studied in Wrexham not far from Chester. The main building is a sketch I did on the main street of the tudor buildings and my brother liked it so much he wanted me to put some Ankh Morpork characters in, specifically Rincewind and the Guards etc. The original drawing (below) is loads more quirky and now you've mentioned that it looks confusing I can see that I've started to straighten things that were wonky before and added to the charm of it. Now with straight bits and wonky bits it doesn't fit together. I've attached the steps I worked on so you can see the progress. I think somewhere I've lost my way and over painted it. As for the focal points I wanted the building to be the focus and the characters added extras. I think I might have to go back a few steps. Grit and texture too, I always do things too smooth, I need work on that too.. thanks
Thanks to the great suggestions I've had another go at finishing it...I think I'm close, there's some fine detail stuff I have to do now on the characters and flagstones and do some highlights here and there to lead the eye around a bit better then I reckon I'm done...
Yeah, definitely a lot better, but man I gotta say I love the quirkiness of the original sketch. I know you're probably too sick of this to do any more on it, but if it was all done in that sepia scratchy style I think it would be a way more interesting piece in my opinion. The vitality of the sketch really has been lost in the rendering.
For the future If I were you I'd totally play with that sketch style even for finished pieces. Richard Schmid who wrote Alla Prima says the hardest part of any piece is knowing when to stop. :)
Thanks Monkeybread :) me too, me too! I just wanted to paint this til it felt finished and it never seemed to, lol..maybe I should put strict time limits on myself, this began last September..hmm :s
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So, this is the finished piece, overworked but it's been a good learning curve, thanks so much for the help :)
