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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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.
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.
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.
