Field big bots - critique please!

[moonshake]

Hi,
I´ve made a few little touches to the image.
Added some details to buildings on the background, worked more on the explosion, refined a few things on the ships, etc.
As I said before, I´m not sure about the composition, what more can I add to the image to make it richer and add some sense to the explosion (like a tank throwing missiles to the bots, I don´t know...) I wonder too, how can I improve background colours to get the piece less dark and muddy and show it more fresh and vivid.
Please, any help? ...c´mon don´t be shy!

(http://imageshack.us]/)http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6981/fieldandships2jw4.jpg

[CybrGfx]

This shows some promise, but at present, you don't have enough thought put into it for much in the way of suggestions, but I'll tell you what I see that doesn't work for me, visually.

The legs of the 'bots are impractical. They look like knife blades. With that much weight, these things would sink into the ground with every step. They'd make great lawn rototillers, though...
The lighting is terrible. What time of day/night is this occuring? If night, then why is the city and ground in front of it SO illuminated, and what is the light source illuminating it? Why is the illumination from the blue orbs SO poor? If the blue spots on the ground are any indication, you'd be better off with a pocket flashlight, than trying to manuver these giant rototillers across the terrain with that one, lone, limited headlight...
Common sense would dictate that if I was living in a city under attack by giant chef's knife robots, I'd be shooting the ones closest to the city, and not worrying about the most distant one...
Basic Composition ~ You've centered the largest robot on your canvas, and centered your horizon line to cut the canvas in half horizontally, so there is not much interest from that point. You have no visual reason, clues, nor direction for the viewer's eye to travel around the canvas. It's pretty much all plopped in the center, so the viewer looks at it, and goes, "that's nice...next!"
I think you are at a stopping point for this particular piece, as in, "lay it down, and move on."
If you like the concept, take some time, and write down the important considerations, such as lighting, scenario, technical details, and understand in YOUR mind WHY you are painting any detail as you are. What IS the reasoning behind those knife blade legs? What does the blue headlight do? For this piece, it seems like a glorified doodle, with no real planning or thought behind it, it just kind of happened as you were drawing the field. Regardless the background of this piece, you should now be able to clearly see why good art seldom comes off the top of your head. A concept is a thought, and conceptual art needs to have some thought behind it.

~C

[moonshake]

Hey CybrGfx, thanks for your accurate words, really appreciate it.

Took me a few hours but I´ve made a new approach to the piece that I like more than the first composition. Worked on the bots and changed the grass field to a devastated/burned ground near the city. Also drawed a few soldiers with radios / weapons and a missile tank to battle the bots.
Please, tell me what you think!
Cheers

http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/4320/fieldandships3dv0.jpg (http://imageshack.us/)

[moonshake]

After a few hours of playing with the piece I´ve arrived to this.
I need advice about the general composition ( focal point, where to place objects in the scene), big bot body design/detailing and weapons, etc.

As always, your critique is welcomed.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/1976/fieldandships4tb3.jpg

[moonshake]

Any help with the main bot / tips for general composition ?
Thanx

[CybrGfx]

The coloring is quite dynamic, but the background is going to be problematic.

As you have it now, you've essentially bisected your canvas, with the skyline of the city cutting almost directly across the middle.
The black sky loses most of your main subject, with only the blue eye and a few "window lights" on the body showing.

The feet would still sink into the ground from the weight. These are not insects, they are man-made, hence they would be much heavier than insects, and you wouldn't even see insects with legs that long and massive. Nature is much better at balancing that sort of thing...

The two lone trees in the BG on the right look as flat a paper plates with branches splaying out sideways from the trunk.

There is no real focus to this piece, and the guys help the viewer identify with it, but it still really doesn't make much sense. Why are the guys with flame throwers burning the ground? It looks like a stream of lava running across the work. Humans wouldn't be standing there. The perspective is terribly wonky, with the flamethrower guy being about 15 feet tall based on the perspective of the robot's legs, and the size of it, based upon the off-road tank vehicle on the RH side...

A complex piece like this has a lot of considerations to make it effective. Perspective, proportions, values, flow, balance, emphasis, pattern, etc. Until you learn more and practice more, you won't be able to "tweak" your pieces past a certain point. You've pretty much reached that point with this piece. Any further tweaks would require a massive re-think about your background, foreground, perspective, and so on.

I'd get rid of that city in the background, the buildings are way too big for this piece, and instead place a MUCH shorter, burning city in the distance, and then move on to the next piece.

~C

[moonshake]

Hey CybrGfx thanks again man.
You´re right about the background, I´m having a hard time with it trying to make it ¨convincing¨.
Yeah, the feets will sink into the ground, but I can´t imagine that creature/machine with wider feets, I don´t know.
I agree about the guy with the flame thrower, also with the ¨big¨ buildings.
Gonna work more and see what´s happening

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