Jonah and the Fish

[Ferretking186]

Alright, here is an update. I have been focus really only on the fish, trying to flush it out. Please tell me what you think. I've been watching Bobby Chiu's youtube walk-throughs to learn more about how to paint digitally. they have been a great help!

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_7.jpg

[JianKang]

Great to see this piece! It is definitely a wonderful start to a very appealing artwork! The only thing that I can notice is that the jaw of the monster fish does not seem strong enough. There are perhaps two possible solutions, in my opinion:

a) you could make the head of the monster smaller and its mouth opens even more, in which case the monster would look like an snake. This way, your monster will be more capable of "swallowing".

b) make the monster's neck stronger and put more mussle to its jaw. In this case, your monster will be more capable of "chewing" and tearing its food apart.

Keep on the awsome work!

[Ferretking186]

Hey thanks, JianKang! I'll play around with that and see what I can do to beef it up a bit.

[Ferretking186]

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9.jpg
Alright, after being out of town for a week I finally got back to this. Here is what I've done so far. I tried to adjust the mouth as you mentioned. I also dropped the lower jaw, I feel it gives it a bit scarier quality. I flipped it feeling it helped with the motion of the fish, and Added the back lighting from the lightning to help give a stronger negative shape between the fish and the guy. Please tell me what you all think and what else I should work on! Thanks!

[Kitterfly]

It looks fantastic!
Looks much better flipped this way round. Maybe add some little fish somewhere in the water?

Looking good!

B x

[Ferretking186]

Oh I like that idea. I also was thinking of maybe making the water somewhat rocky. Not sure if it'll work or not. What do you think?

[Ferretking186]

Played around with the sky and some lighting.

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9_1.jpg

[Draigr]

Need lots and lots of contrast. And you need to work on your water colouring, definitely with defining the difference between the above sea and under sea areas.

[Ferretking186]

Alright, I tried to work with what you suggested, though I must admit I am having a hard time figuring out how. here is what I have so far.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9_2.jpg

[Draigr]

Good, it's improving. You still really need to work on the colouring and clouds though. As well as the details. There is a marked difference between rain wracked waters and underwater calm.
The lightning should be a bit more bluish and you've got a lot of trouble with the perspective. It's impossible to tell where the sea begins and where it ends.

The main problem is the choice of colours. A stormy sea is dark and foamy. There's lots of contrast between blacks, deep blues and whites. There's the dark brown of the ship, highlighted by the reflections of water on it's timbers. There's the roiling waters, dark and deep, and the boiling clouds, black, grey and light by incandescant lightning.

You really need to convey that, which will take a lot of work with details and even more work with colour choices.

Good luck!

Oh, and get some references. They always help.

[Ferretking186]

Draigr, Thank you so much for your comments! I've been really trying to apply them and I feel it's improved the image ten fold! Please tell me what you think, and what I need to continue to work on, or areas where I have completely missed the mark. Thanks again!
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9_3.jpg

[Draigr]

Ahh, it's great to see improvements. Now the picture is looking so much better than before, but there are still a fair few things that need to be fixed up:

- While the lighting on the water is good, the clouds aren't nearly quite as good. You'll want to do a bit of cloud study and rework the whole sky section. Also, lightning is somewhat blue, check pictures of it for reference.

- You need a horizon line. Part of the reason the sky doesn't look right is because it looks like it's a vertical picture plane. Think of the sky as a horizontal one stretching into the distance.

- The dividing line between the lower water and upper water needs to be flattened. Otherwise the perspective looks kinda wonky. Although the choice of half in, half out is a particularly difficult one to place.

- You need to work on colour, shadow and colour details. Particularly with the ship, the waves, the clouds especially, and Jonah himself. The fish could do with a fair bit of work too.
Essentially, you need to really get that detail in.

- It might be nice to see the sails torn and the mast broken or something. Plus barrels and other ship goods that have been dumped.

- Those waves in the centre look like rocks, with their rigid lines and colours. However, the colouring seems to imply waves or rocks, so you might want to clarify that a little bit. Incidentally, if they're rocks, it means that underneath the water there is an iceberg or a mountain, since this is deep sea.

All in all. You still have a lot of work to do, but this is really turning out to be an excellent piece! Keep it up!

[Ferretking186]

Again, thank you so much for your help! Here is what I have so far, completely redid the clouds, and started work on the ship more. And also tried to work with that water line as you mentioned. I'll be trying to work with the other things you said tomorrow most likely.

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9_4.jpg

[Ferretking186]

Back from 2 weeks away, here is a small update.
http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm89/ferretking186/Jonah1_9_5.jpg

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