The Journey Begins Challenge (2D) Entry: Janne Puonti

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141455870_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141455870_large.jpg)

Watch out for the newcomer! That's right, fresh off the registration process comes ... me.

I'm not sure if the milestone structure used here is an 'industry standard', but it's a bit different from how I personally work. Nevertheless, I guess this is what you'd call the "Line art" for my concept. I'm submitting this first instead of a "Concept sketch" because it's where I started the process and because what I'm going to submit next would be less fitting for the "Line art" moniker than that of a "Concept sketch".

Here goes.

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141457283_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141457283_large.jpg)

Here's the step following my initial line art - something that probably fits the "Concept sketch" milestone since it's sketchy and all that.

You can see the straightforward thinking process I'm going through here: the contest asks for a vast background setting behind an up-close character and that's exactly what I have planned (at this point anyway). No thought-provoking take on the human condition, no deep philosophical truths; just a whole lot of woods and some little guy / guys / gal / gals / mixed group trying to get through it.

Things realized at this stage:

1) That IS a lot of trees to draw

2) The mountain's way too close. If that's the destination, we'll be done by lunchtime. So much for the "epic" part of the journey

For those idly curious about my methods, this picture is being worked on in Photoshop. At this stage there's only a handful of layers but knowing me, that'll grow to several handfuls in no time.

[R-K]

1) you need to paint just a couple of trees. The rest of them you just indicate.

2) Try to find a hook to your piece so that it's not just few people going to a nearby mountain. Think of a story and try to tell it in your image, then your image will portray an epic journey because of the context story.

[Puonti]

Hi Ranath! Thank you for your feedback :)

The tree comment was actually just a showcase of my bad humor ;) I figured I could write my updates with a tongue-in-cheek take.

The quip does have its roots in reality, though - I don't usually draw extensive backgrounds like what I have planned to do here, reason being that I have a bad habbit (one I've tried to work on) of getting stuck on minor, unimportant details. Details which, if you think of a vast forest like this, there could potentially be plenty of.

So yeah, there's going to be a lot of fudging with scattered brushes, atmosphere and light to create what "looks like" a forest, with more detail up front.

The second point you bring up is still semi-open. Although I did note that I didn't have any "thought-provoking imagery" planned for this piece, if I come up with something I'll use it. My comment was more related to not wanting to go for a "clever" approach like one great-looking concept I saw, where two kids were playing on the beach and what they were playing was mirrored in the clouds above (a ship and a castle). It's a clever way to make the picture "larger than life", but it's not what I had planned for this one :) You could say my goal is a more down-to-earth image (if still in the realm of fantasy), where what you see is what you get - without "projections" of what's up ahead or a look into the travellers' thoughts.

Having said that, I'm keeping my mind open for those "hooks" you mentioned while working on the scenery. The landscape is something I envisioned from the first pen stroke and I'm in all likelyhood going to stick with it till the very end (but who knows what'll happen before the contest draws to a close). What takes place in the environment is still open.

I guess this is a different approach than most seem to be taking. From looking at the threads here, I see a great deal of talented artists sketching several different ideas before settling for one. It's probably a great way to try and nail down an elusive idea through different takes, but unfortunately (?) I've never grown into that approach. I'm more of the "think of an idea and draw it" type; I might mull over an idea for a long while, but I don't tend to sketch those intermediate ideas.

Oh - I also think the mountain will play a much, much smaller role in the final image. As I noted in my previous update, it already seemed much too large after I added some color to the image. It'll be sized down for sure, but I'm also playing with the idea of getting rid of it altogether and turning the landscape into the bottom of a valley, with a canyon / gap where the mountain is now through which the rising sun can be seen.

This would be in line with the type of hints I've planned for depicting the journey - the river is the metaphorical "winding road" the traveller must take (up-stream, no less) on their journey; the gap in the far wall of the valley bowl with sun shining through it is the "light at the end of the tunnel" - a symbol of the goal the traveller is trying to reach (even if in reality the journey would take them beyond the valley). I've also been considering leaving out all signs of civilization from the background to reinforce the point that the traveller's heading away from the safety of home and into the great wildlands (aka. "the unknown").

Maybe these were the kind of hooks or metaphors you implied? :)

EDIT:

I think I had an epiphany just now, in the form of a story for the picture :) Pulling it off will require quite a bit of extra work (in the form of extra characters) and compared to what I usually draw, this thing was already a big project to begin with. We'll see how it goes.

The name for the picture, should I go with the idea I just had, will probably be "Emissaries". The idea involves a few selected individuals (forest elves, most likely) meeting up with a group of dragons, who are to take them to a faraway land where they'll further the species' relations as emissaries of their kin.

I got a pretty good mental image of the situation and parties involved; here's to hoping I'll be able to draw it, too :) Otherwise I'll have to think of something simpler.

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141545239_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141545239_large.jpg)

I decided to crop this WIP update since I've been mostly working on the central part of the image - outside of these boundaries you can pretty much imagine the previous update, just with similar atmospheric depth applied as well as improved river color. Other improvements should be pretty obvious: I've brushed in some of the massive forest and added lighting and atmospheric cues.

As the contest's instructions suggested, atmospheric depth adds a great deal into any outdoor image. Since the picture depicts early morning (the sun in the upper right corner of the crop is part-way past the horizon) it seemed only fitting to make the effect even more pronounced. Living in the countryside has also given me plenty of opportunities to experience early morning fog around waterbodies and as such it was only natural to add some of that in.

Lighting-wise, the positioning of the single sun is pretty much what sets the rules: forest on the right side of the river (at comparable depth) seems darker than the left side, since we see more of the shadow side of the trees there (and any sloping of the ground affects how much light the tops of the trees catch). Some of you might have also noticed the cetral right-side forest casting a shadow into the fog over the river. I really like light (and by extension shadows). It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside :)

The fog obscures some of the things I've done with the river, but I think it's worth mentioning since I went through a wide range of river and lake photographs to get a feeling for how water should look in these conditions (it's a whole different issue how well I have / will capture that - remember that this is still a WIP shot).

The most important points I made note of were:

1) The higher above the water you are, the fewer reflections of the surrounding landscape you see. Towards the right edge of the image you can see a purple'ish band - this is a thin reflection of the landscape above it, and it completely vanishes as you move upstream. This is exactly because of our high position above the waterbody.

2) Water reflects the sky. We all know this - I did, too - but I was having a great deal of difficulty deciding wether the water should be dark or light. I decided on light, darkening towards the viewer, because despite being in the "shadow" of the forests around it (the sun is still very low and as such most of the river ends up in a shadow) the landscape does not block the light being reflected down from the sky. This gives the river an orange tint the closer it gets to the horizon, and a darker blue tint as it approaches the viewer. The one thing the landscape's shadows DO hide is that "bridge of light" you can sometimes see in photos of the sun rising over water. In this particular picture there will probably be no "sparkling" sun-lit water, as the conditions don't allow for it.

That's it for now - more to come later! :)

[Squibbit]

welcome dude, very nice start there



.

[Pufferfish]

Good to see you here :).. and what comes to your start.. looks very good. I really like the mood you have in your last update. Tranquility at its finest.

Waiting for more :beer:

[Puonti]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Thus far I'm pretty pleased with the progress too - I really like how the forest's turning out. It's the foreground and characters that I'm worried about, since those will require much more detail and definition than the background. And since the background's been done in a semi-realistic way, the rest of the picture will have to follow that style.

It'll be interesting for sure :)

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141660366_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141660366_large.jpg)

Another crop of the central area of the image, showing unfinished forest mass still lacking light, shadows, fogging and atmospheric depth.

As I get closer to the viewer I obviously need to add more detail; compared to the forest beyond, the newly added blue mass features faint signs of scattered cone-shaped evergreens and rounder trees of some unknown variety. Lack of proper lighting and atmospheric effects makes it look very uninteresting, but I wanted to include a snapshot of this stage for comparison purposes. Consider this the "before" shot and keep an eye out for the "after" shot :)

Other new features include the walls of the valley, replacing the lone mountain. At this point the walls are simply flat orange shapes, but I wanted to get "used to" having them there before actually starting work on them. The river has also been touched up - I'm not sure if this can be called a "rapid" yet and it's definitely not a waterfall, but it's a little something to break up the otherwise rather uniform body of water. More foaming, waves and pretty chaos to be added later.

[Duracel]

[...] I have a bad habbit (one I've tried to work on) of getting stuck on minor, unimportant details.[...]

Your bad habit already got you this time. I would suggest to zoom out again and paint over all those details - come back later to them in time.
I.e. your primary sketch looks just tilted to the right; this isn't working until you put some element in it, which works the other way like a plane moving to the left.
Wait for those forrestdetails until you think "wow, this thumbnail rocks! No big changes in value and color anymore; its almost finished except detailing".

Beside this, i like the simplicity of this concept. Just an epic landscapes. :)

[Puonti]

Hi Duracel, and thanks for your feedback!

The problem I see is that it's going to take a long while for me to get over my "bad habbit". I've always been particular to things like super-clean lineart (or digital ink when I started doing CG), smooth shading and clean colors. If I'd have to name a material my "regular" style has resembled for the last several years, it'd be "plastic". It probably comes as no surprise that these past years I've mostly been drawing with Flash, which is suited for an entirely different form of art than what I'm working on here. Already in this piece (and some others I've recently done) I've tried to put less emphasis on tweaking things to perfection and more time into working on textures instead (and light / atmosphere, which I really love to work with).

Because of this penchant for maintaining "tweakability" (is that even a word?) and emphasis on producing "clean" pictures I've never grown used to the method I think you referred to, where the artist uses very large brushes at first and then gradually adds more detail. Stjepan Šejić's thread is a great example of this method:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=322959

I don't know Stjepan's workflow, but I'd *imagine* he uses very few layers, drawing details right over the rough base. This is another facet of my problem - I'm a layer junkie ;) I think my piece already has around a hundred layers, simply because I want to keep various textures and effects separate. A perfect example of this is the fog - it's spread over some 10-15 layers, where each layer contains different aspects of the fog: darker fog in shadows, lighter sun-lit fog, fog that creeps up the forests' edges and so forth.

This, too, boils down to my history of "tweaking" everything. If I had my picture on just one or two layers, I'd be limiting my chances of making adjustments to things like lighting or atmosphere at a later time without having to touch or completely re-do the underlying "texture". My previous update is a good example of this: the blue textured forest mass is on a handful of layers, while lighting and atmospheric effects will be added on layers above it.

I think the reason why I adapted to this approach instead of the "onion-like" method - where you draw everything in low detal at first, get the colors and values right, then add details - was because I got introduced to CG at a point where I hadn't tried traditional painting yet (in fact, I still haven't save for a few haphazard brushstrokes). If I had tried traditional painting first I would probably have extended that style to CG, but instead CG offered me chance to make my "tweaking pencil style" even more "flexible" since I could separate portions of the picture on different layers, unlike when working with pen and paper.

Anyway... I'm not even sure if this is of any interest to you or the others, but it seemed appropriate to explain where I'm coming from :) It might help everyone understand why my style's not going to change overnight. I'm sure the method you mentioned has its benefits but until I can get rid of my excessive taste for layers and masks I can't see how it would work out.

Now then, about the image: you mentioned that the picture doesn't work because it's tilted to the right and is missing an element moving to the left.

My question is, is it a big problem if the final image won't have that "left moving object"? I know there are some kind of "rules" in photography for example, where you want to either stick to a straight horizon (or some other large element) or then over-do the tilt so much that it becomes an "artistic touch". But since this is the first time I'm participating in the contest here, I don't know how big a deal this is in final judging. Do the judges really deck points for drawing a tilted image lacking counter-motion? I realize that composition is one part of the whole picture, but how big of a part is it in this contest?

The reason why I originally decided to draw the image at an angle was simple: if you check the entries page for this contest, what do you see? Straight horizons everywhere. Hence, a tilted image would stand out from the rest. If it's a big enough issue to affect my chances in the contest, however, I'll obviously need to alter the story for my picture so that instead of showing the delegation meeting the dragons on the ground, they've already met and can now be seen soaring over the landscape.

Thanks again for your thought-provoking message! I much rather have this discussion now than a week from deadline :D

By the way, do you have a WIP thread in this contest I could check out?

[Duracel]

I have one!
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=323196
beside this you can view my art on www.duracel.de/gallery/


First of all to the "tilt".
A horizintal horizon doesn't hurt anyone, but a tilted one makes problems, it looks "wrong" to us, except there is a clear reason for this. Its not a question of artistic licence, you have to follow the rules, later you can play with 'em.
In composition no matter if the horizon is tilted or not, the "overall image" have to be balanced; if the horizon is tilted, you need some forces in the other direction. Think of it as nothing but physik! Anything else would look wrong and hurt the eyes of the beholder; you can go this way, if this goes with your intention, but i guess in this case you make a mistake to keep it as it is. It doesn't work for getting "positiv" attention.
To the judgement ... well, it'll look wrong and your painting suffer from this fact. How much is hard to say exactly.
Just try to avoid such a thing which is just working for the effekt itself.
In the end, all decisions making sense are the one best working and best looking.

To your "personal background".
Well, i have no analog background either. I started with photomanipulations and something too ... and there was a time i also used a lot of layers. Today i use a minimum of layers and i merge different layers as early as possible. Its good for the workflow and good to concentrate on the important parts of an image.
Don't take care too much of useless layers just to have the possibility to go back - most time you won't. Make a change only if you're sure it helps the picture and if it does you don't need to go back.
Too many layers are a bad habit, too, and you only need them for special purposes but in generel use for everything.

And don't hang on something called "style", thats useless, except somebody is good paying for it yet or you are working on a larger project as a whole comic or a game. Try to expand your knowhow an learn what you like and a style will appear and may change, but you don't have to concentrate on it.

[Puonti]

It seems I've been to your thread at some point - I remember seeing that picture earlier. I'll see if I can offer any advice on it, although I seriously doubt it ;)

And thanks again for your thoughts on the horizon issue! I've already put my thinking cap on and am working on a way around the problem (in my mind anyway, if not on the digital canvas yet). It'll mean drastic changes to what I had planned for the foreground but fortunately that part of the picture is still in sketch state.

As for the layers, I do actually find them beneficial. There's been plenty of times when I've wanted to change something around and it's been a relatively painless process thanks to layers. That's exactly why it'll take time to get over it - if I *didn't* get any added benefit from using loads of them, it'd be much simpler to drop them :)

But, all in good time. This project will be a small step towards that goal.

I'll post an update in a moment. It might be a few days until another update as I feel like I'm coming down with something :/

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141748848_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141748848_large.jpg)

Here's the "after" shot I spoke of earlier. The blue mass of a forest has now been lit and atmospheric effects have been added, turning what used to be a blob of texture into something resembling a forest. There's even a bit of dull green color in there, as the atmosphere between that part of the forest and the viewer doesn't "block" it as completely as further back. More work will be required on this and other "textured" parts of the forest at a later time, but for now it is good enough (this is the part where I try not to get stuck on one area for too long :) ).

The rather large difference in detail between the two closest "slices" of forest visible in the crop might seem unsettling right now, but this is simply because you can't see how the forest on the left gradually changes into the less detailed one in the upper left corner. Once I close the "gap" between those two areas and work on the detail level of the forest on the far right edge of the crop it should look better. And really, what you're seeing in these crops is just a small part of the background - obviously in the final image viewer focus will primarily be on other things.

...hopefully not on how god awful the foreground looks :D (knock on wood)

Other things worth noting are the fog on the foreground and the shadow cast by the sloping forest on the right. You can see hints of this shadow in the far bend of the river, then see it crossing over the tip of the forest closer to us and finally floating on the fog above the river towards the bottom left corner of the image.

Although the fog covers most of it, there are actually two shadow lines there - one following the water's surface, and one slightly above it, on the layer of fog. This is, to my understanding, how it should be, as the fog allows some of the light to pass through and create a faint line between light and shadow on the water beneath it, while also showing the same light / shadow border on itself.

[CryingHorn]

OMG that looks so beautiful. Keep it up and good luck!

[MVDB]

Amazing coloring job!

*subscribes* :thumbsup:

waiting for more..

[Puonti]

Thank you for your encouragement, guys!

I've been a bit under the weather for the past few days but I'm steadily on my way to recovery. I should have another update available if not today, then tomorrow. Staring at the monitor all day when you're sick is not a good idea.

[Naisart]

Just wanted to say that this looks really great!, no critique at this point.

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141932416_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1141932416_large.jpg)

Since the last few WIP shots have been small crops of the progress made thus far, I thought it was only proper to show the "bigger picture" for a change.

Improvements since the previous crop include the beginnings of the mountains on the left, more defined shape of the small island in the river and a bit of work on the sun's glow. Oh, there's also a bit of cloudscape in the background, but at this point I'm not even sure if that's the kind of cloud formation I want there. Just like with the orange mountain range, it's there more to give me time to consider how I like it as I work on the image.

The part of the mountain wall you see now is actually my second take on it - the first one didn't please me and I promptly scrapped it. Even in its unfinished stated this one looks far better, trust me :) One thing you might notice when looking at it is the forest's shadow, which is much more blue than anything else in the picture. I have two reasons for this:

1) I figure rock reflects light far better than plants do, and as such the blue light being reflected down from the dark sky tints the shadow on the rock more than it does on the grass / forest (although there, too, you can see a bit of purple for this very same reason).

2) The shadow is more blue than that on the small rock slab beneath the sun, because colors around the sun look warmer thanks to its glow.

The island isn't much more than a quick shape and some quick trees right now. I might add more drops to the river and make it more rapid-like, which is why I don't want to detail the island just yet.

While I've been in bedrest I've given Duracel's feedback on the tilt issue some thought and I think I have an idea for the foreground. I'll sketch those ideas next and run them by you guys, because the foreground will dictate how much of the bottom left and right corner of the image I'll have to detail. No need to draw the river all the way to the bottom left corner if that area's going to be blocked by foreground objects, after all :)

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142003337_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142003337_large.jpg)

Here we have a rough sketch of my idea for the foreground. To counter the tilt in the image the dragon on the foreground has been drawn soaring downwards and to the left. The large purple area in the bottom left corner of the image is the dragon's tail, which I wanted to draw in this fashion in hopes of making the picture more dynamic; to show how the dragon has just swooped past the viewer before banking to the left. The characters on the dragon's back are pretty large right now compared to the creature, so I might shrink them slightly if I proceed with this idea (but not too much, since the idea was to have the characters up close).

The castle / fortress / city below was added to emphasize the fact that the characters are just about to embark on their journey (as the contest title says, "The Journey BEGINS"). The guards waving to them from the nearby tower reinforce this idea, and to minimize the chance of mistaking their waving for a "Welcome" wave instead of a "Farewell" wave, I've drawn another dragon with passengers down below to show that the group is indeed leaving the structure behind instead of arriving there. I couldn't very well draw the guards waving banners saying "Bye bye", now could I? :)

And as you can tell, the structures are still far from finished - the simple, tall tower further away is not supposed to look like a smoke stack ;) For this WIP shot, however, this level of detail was enough to showcase the idea.

[Puonti]

There are a few things in the latest update I'd especially like feedback on (although any feedback is welcome):

1) The dragon is intentionally "sunken" into the corner of the image, to emphasize the down-and-right motion it is trying to combat as it banks left; the fact that the viewer can't quite keep up with its motion and also to keep the passengers close to the viewer - if the dragon was drawn fully, they'd be much smaller. What I'd like to know, though, is if the dragon is too far in the corner? Does it look weird that such a large portion of the dragon is left outside of the image?

2) By extension, does the idea of drawing the tail in the bottom left corner seem weird? If I hadn't explained it, would you have realized what was going on in the picture?

3) The buildings below have been drawn according to vertical guides I've used for drawing the background (basically lines which show which way is "up" in different parts of the tilted image). Still, I'd like to know if the buildings seem out of perspective to those who haven't seen the vertical guides? (note that the buildings are not supposed to be aligned with the small island in the background)

[Cyberone]

i was wondering where this one was going....very nice indeed...

to you questions..

1) i think that its fine...sorta give it a nice feel...i wouldnt worry about it too much...if anything i would just think a little about the right wing..its going to be hard to draw it and make it understandable...but if ya can do it it should look neat :)

2) buildings look fine...sort of a slightly pushed perspective but thhat often makes for a much more interesting image...

keep it up!
i wanna see more :)

[Puonti]

Thanks for your feedback Cyberone! I was wondering where this was going, too :D Glad to hear it's heading in the right direction.

I didn't actually foresee problems with the right wing and I'm not sure if I can see it even now. I'd imagine people to know that dragons have wings, even if they're not fully shown? Or maybe I misunderstood the problem you noticed? :)

Glad to hear the architecture doesn't look badly skewed. A bit of push is alright, considering the angle of the image (not only vertically tilted, but horizontally too).

Anyone else feel like chipping in? :)

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142156940_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142156940_large.jpg)

Here we have a full-size crop of the first foreground structure I started detailing. One revelation this work brought up was the fact that if the tower closer to the viewer is of the same design as the forward tower we see here, it is roughly 50% too small. This means that when I start working on the other tower I'll need to enlarge it considerably or simply decide that it's smaller in size - which wouldn't be far-fetched considering that the tower you see here is the one that faces the rising sun and as such might very well have a special meaning and different design.

The top portion of the tower in this crop has already been drawn with proper brick texture, while other parts of it are in various stages of work (the wider base for example is still missing horizontal brick lines and the vertical ones are still unfinished). Other obviously unfinished parts include the arches on the other side of the wide base and anything's that still in sketch state. The small island you can see in the background has also not been worked on and still sports the "quickie trees" I mentioned earlier.

At this point the structure looks very clean and polished, but even so I'm likely not going to make the castle very "dirty" and "worn" at any point although some extra detailing will be required to break the clinical "hospital-look". This is, after all, supposed to be a high-fantasy castle, one that stays in good condition year around thanks to magic ;)Likely details-to-be-added include some minor chaos in the brickwork and potentially vines or growth of some other type.

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142361680_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142361680_large.jpg)

The vines I mentioned in my previous update are starting to take shape here. I decided to work on them for a bit to see if they'd sufficiently break up the clinical look of the tower wall and I think they will indeed do the trick once finished. The brick texture has become far less obvious and simply adds texture to the tower wall now. One problem with the vines is that they have to come from somewhere... they can't just pop up around the tower wall (unless they're magical vines, but that'd be too easy). I might add some kind of circular container filled with dirt at the base (on top of the slanted roof), from where the vine grows upwards. Will have to work on that ;)

Aside from the vines very little has changed - I widened the shadowed area on the slimmer part of the tower as it was lit "beyond the bend" by the sun. The roof was also darkened and it looks better now in my opinion. The right side of it (near the border of light) might need some tuning as there's a dark band there right now, but all in good time.

[Cyberone]

looking very nice :)
cant wait to see it a bit dirty :) it is often a vey hard part...

its really comming along well :)

[Puonti]

You're right - making things look dirty or used is tough. That stage might be a bit further away, though, as now that I've had a chance to sample some texturing and play with the architecture, I'm probably going to lay down some more of the latter next.

Unfortunately I've been a bit stressed with work lately, resulting in (painful) muscle tension that needs to be taken care of first. I'll return as soon as I have more to show, though :)

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142785038_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1142785038_large.jpg)

Part of the rough sketch of the castle's geometry has now given way to more a more detailed design. My understanding is that this kind of geometry work is pretty common even in 2D art, but where I've seen many artists use 3D software to lay down simple shapes over which to paint, this has all been done in 2D (Photoshop 7, to be more precise).

This means errors in perspective are possible, as unlike 3D software I'm a human and can make mistakes ;) Still, I'm pretty pleased, even with the round shapes which are very hard to fit into perspective properly.

At this stage the colors of the different geometry blocks do not necessarely reflect their lighting. The more important goal has been to distinguish different areas; some simply because they face different directions (like the crenelation), others because they'll feature different texture / construction at a later stage (such as the arches).

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1143051000_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1143051000_large.jpg)

In the previous WIP shot you saw the castle's geometry starting to take shape (literally), but lighting and textures were still missing. Today's update adds proper lighting, shadows and even a bit of texture into the mix.

I can't say I've ever built a medieval castle myself (who has?) but I've tried to use some common sense when laying down the rock blocks: bigger blocks at the bottom to support the weight of structures on top of them, made of smaller blocks and in the case of the upper portion of the tower, bricks.

I also managed to locate a tremendously helpful website, called "Glossary of Medieval Art and Architecture" (http://www.pitt.edu/~medart/menuglossary/INDEX.HTM), which describes a great deal of features found in medieval architecture, in both words and pictures. These as well as photos of real castles have helped me add a few nice details into the picture, which I would have not thought of otherwise. Personally I think they fit in very well even if this is a magical castle in a fantasy setting.

[Puonti]

As you might have guessed from the lack of updates, things outside of this competition have been keeping me busier than I would like, so progress here has slowed down to a crawl. The picture is still moving forward, just much slower.

In the meanwhile there is another issue I would like to get feedback on. I recently noticed that the LCD screen I use at home is much darker than the one I have at work - they're the same display save for my home model being pivotable, so the difference in light level must result from the fact that one's over three years old and the other has only been in use for less than two. Most of my work on this picture has been done on my home computer so the picture's light level has no doubt been affected by the dimmer display.

What I'd like to ask you guys is:

Overall, does the image look "too pale" on your computer? There are only two things which are "pure black" in the image - the two (darkest) small windows on top of the arches at the base of the far tower - but overall the image SHOULD have a strong presence of dark shades (mostly on the foreground). It should absolutely not look "pale" or "desaturated".

For example, the darkest part of the red metal roof at the base of the far tower should be very dark - it should not look distinctively grey to the human eye (which it does on my work computer).

To make this task easier, I'm providing you with two images: the first one is the picture as it's been thus far and the way it looks good on my home computer. The second one has been altered with curves on my work computer to approximate how it would look on my home computer (roughly).

If you can look at these pictures and describe their difference on your monitor ("first one is too pale compared to the second one", "second one is too dark compared to the first one", "I like ..... more", etc, etc), I'd appreciate it. If I'm ever going to finish this image, I don't want to gimp my chances on the account of the image being badly discolored due to my monitor. I seriously doubt the judges have the time to take into count differences in monitors in their judgement :)

Here's the original:

http://www.puonti.net/stuff/tjb_original.jpg

Here's the altered version:

http://www.puonti.net/stuff/tjb_curves.jpg

EDIT:

If you copy / paste these images onto stacked layers in your favorite graphics program and flip between them, the difference should be easier to see.

[anzibon]

altered version looks a lot nicer on my screen.

if you are using photoshop, there is an app that comes with it called adobe gamma loader. this can help do a poor man's calibration on your monitor. usually the LCDs are in the ball park, but it doesn't hurt to try and get to a nice averaged display. obviously what people see on there end is totally out of your control.

anyway, love your work. no crits here other than your posts are a bit wordy. :D

cheers and have fun,
~B

[Puonti]

I use Photoshop, but it's version 7 (at home) and it didn't come with Adobe Gamma :( I was actually looking for it the other day when I realized it wasn't included. Besides, Adobe Gamma doesn't help if your LCD's backlight simply can't provide enough brightness :)

If the altered version looks better, as you pointed out, then it means that I must have been over-compensating for my monitor's darkness by using lighter colors which end up looking desaturated and / or pale on better (or just better lit) monitors.

Thanks for your feedback!

I'd still like to hear from others, too! You don't have to be as wordy as I am, either, as long as the comments are useful for fine-tuning the level of light in the image :)

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1143734547_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1143734547_large.jpg)

After working on the castle texturing a bit more and feeling confident about the way it was coming along, I decided to see if I could find inspiration for the foreground dragon. I was not at all happy with my first attempt - which looked way too neat and clean - so I started over. What you see here is the second attempt and unlike the first take which involved a great deal of using the lasso tool to define areas, this one was done almost entirely with brushes of different sizes.

The dragon you see here is also a complete opposite of what I tried at first. The dragon I scrapped was going to be of a very light color (gold / platinum most likely), but it ended up looking more like a plastic toy than a dragon. As you can see, my second attempt is going for a more leathery (bat-like, save for the lack of short fur) look. The spinal structure visible on the dragons back is still unfinished and I am not sure if I want to have it protrude quite that much (makes the creature look more like an undead dragon than a live one), but the colors are nice and don't look like plastic at all. In my opinion, anyway.

The dragon's neck is one thing I will likely change somewhere along the way. Right now it looks too short, even with foreshortening (?) taken into account. To me atleast the short neck makes the creature look more like a large gargoyle than a dragon. And although most of what we see of the dragon is in shadow, I might try to lighten up its side a bit as I continue working on the scales. It's plausible that they reflect a little bit of light bouncing down from the sky (and they're not made of leather anyway).

[Puonti]

Oh, and yes - the leather part of the dragon's right wing will be properly lit eventually (it's thin enough for the sun to light it up even when viewed from this side :)

Wether I'll do the same for the left wing will depend on how the new neck / head will turn out. Most likely they'll block the light, though.

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1144235736_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1144235736_large.jpg)

Another WIP shot of the foreground dragon and as you can see, I did indeed decide to tone down the "ribs" from my previous update. The dragon's spine has also been worked on and given proper structure. I'm not quite sure if the curve of the spine near the wings looks right, but for now it'll do. I've also added a bit of light to the dragon's right wing, as I think the leather there is thin enough to let sunlight show through. At a later stage I'll add in details such as veins to really bring the thing alive.

One thing that's been bothering me while working on the dragon are the passengers; for one, would they really be able to stay on top of the dragon without a saddle or some sort of harness to hold on to (people do ride horses without a saddle, so maybe?). They've also started to look a wee bit too large compared to their ride, so I might end up shrinking them slightly.

[webwings]

You have drawn an exciting POV...can't wait to see the sky finished...is looking beautiful.

[Puonti]

Thank you for taking a look! :)

I've been working on the dragon's scales during the past few days and I'm not yet sure when I'll tackle the sky. I'd really love to have a pretty cloudscape there, but I know for a fact that clouds are problematic for me :/ Here's to hoping I'll find inspiration!

[Cyberone]

Ow You Were Worried About The Difference Of Screens....so....i Just Wanted To Say That It Looks Fine On Both Of Mine....the Newer And Better Svreen It Looks A Little Pale And Washed Out But I Like That....the Older Sony One Looks Dark ....i Like That Better...it Makes The Lights Stand Out Better.....


Again As People Said Before Try The Gammer Thing....it Seems You Had Prob With That....
If You Want Help Please Pm Me And Ill Try To Get You In The Right Direction...
Also I Can Play With Both My Monitors To Help You Test It If You Want...... :)

Anyway.....friend Cyb ):)

[Puonti]

Hi Simon!

Thanks for your feedback :) I was wondering - does the "improved" (darker) version look *too* dark on your Sony? For example, can you make out the criss-crossed details on the dragon's left side? The problem with my home monitor is that I can just barely see those, when my office monitor shows them clearly (which is why the background, which I worked solely on my home monitor, ended up looking washed-out on newer screens).

For the time being I've slightly increased the gamma on my home monitor, but ultimately I'll be looking for a new monitor and relegating my current one to secondary screen status.

[anzibon]

lookin great. next post can you give us one with the whole canvas?

also, maybe consider possitioning the other dragon (and maybe adding a couple more) so we get the idea that they're following him and that's the path they're taking. otherwise we don't know if they're leaving or arriving. this could easily be seen as the end of a journey.

lovin it so far,
~B

[warpy]

umm, looks like a 3d element in there..

[Puonti]

lookin great. next post can you give us one with the whole canvas?

Sure, I'll probably post both a "big picture" and a detail shot of the dragon's scales. The scales are giving me grey hair at the moment.. did them once already but I might re-do them altogether, as I'm having a hard time blending the "spine" with the rest of the dragon.

also, maybe consider possitioning the other dragon (and maybe adding a couple more) so we get the idea that they're following him and that's the path they're taking. otherwise we don't know if they're leaving or arriving. this could easily be seen as the end of a journey.

That was a concern of mine, too, and the reason why I originally added the second dragon. At this moment I'm concerned that I'll run out of time though (other things are keeping me busy unfortunately), so can't say for certain what I'm able to add to the picture. We'll see.

umm, looks like a 3d element in there..

There are absolutely no 3D elements in the picture - none have been used even for "getting the perspective right" which I've seen some 2D artists do (I don't own 3D software nor do I have much experience with them). Everything you see here as well as the stuff I've never shown in my WIP shots is 2D and done in Photoshop 7 and 8. Which element in the picture did you mistake for 3D?

In any case, I'll take your comment as a compliment and thank you for it! :) It's funny, actually... years and years back I was disqualified in a 2D art contest because the judges thought I had used 3D software to do my picture - even though I had submitted the mandatory WIP shots which showed how the image had progressed. I didn't have my original PSD file handy so I couldn't prove it to them, but they were admittedly impressed by the possibility that I had done everything in 2D.

[webwings]

it is quite dark on my monitor at work.

[Puonti]

Hi Jennifer,

If you look at the two images in this post:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showpost.php?p=3394330&postcount=31

Are they both dark or just the "newer" version? (the one below) Also, can you make out any of the details on the dragon's left flank in the latest WIP shot, or does it look like a big, dark area without detail?

Thanks!

[webwings]

One is darker thasn the other. I can see a little of the rib lines on my monitors on the i5 April post. It may be ok when you've finished the rest of the dragon.

[Puonti]

I certainly hope it'll look better once I finish detailing the scales :)

In other, less stellar news, I'm once again feeling like I'm coming down with something... I was planning to make use of our 4-day weekend and cover some ground with this project, so let's hope I'll feel better tomorrow.

If all goes well I'll have an update this weekend. If not, well.. that 40-something days left of the competition sure is starting to look awfully short :/

[Puonti]

http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1145202172_medium.jpg (http://features.cgsociety.org/challenge/entries/12/10447/10447_1145202172_large.jpg)

The scales of the foreground dragon have no doubt been the biggest hurdle I've faced in this project yet and I've literally done them three or four times over. At this point, it's time to conclude that tweaking the style / method further won't improve things noticably, but will eat up more of my precious time (and there's not "much" left of that in the contest, considering everything that's still unfinished).

So, here you have it! My latest take on the scales / skin of the foreground dragon. As you can see, there's still plenty to detail towards the bottom (as well as on the leading edges of the wings / shoulders), but I'm getting there. Slowly. Drawing these scales is a time-consuming job, but I think it's worth it. They look really bad when scaled down, but at full resolution like in this WIP shot, the detail hows nicely.

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