Please critique-Taming of the Davaul WIP

[spill]

My turn....

For me lighting and mood are absolutely perfect!

Love your illuminated orange and blue 'foliage' in the foreground.

Foreground rocks and top-right foliage feel left unfinished. They need a bit of detailing and maybe some darkening since, as you know, everything close to 'camera' is darker..

Tone down the illumination on the monster's bone staff blade top right side. I know it's supposed to be reflected light but I believe its a bit too much. Overall texture is very nice.

The cave ceiling rocks need a bit of 3D-ing they look a bit flat to me. Color looks nice.

The monster itself looks really cool. Maybe just darken a bit the side of the neck that is facing away from the light source.

Human looks good. Left hand a bit too large..

I absolutely LOVE your lighting on your VD-38 piece! As well as the gun design. Very nice!
I wish I could learn MAYA.....

Overall very nice work, very detailed with carefully rendered lighting and mood! Congrats!
Love to see more!

[Lomax]

The only thing I can think of might be some depth-blur in the background and foreground, to draw more attention to the characters -
http://www.nyeng.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/davaul_blurred.jpg

Otherwise, I'd say the piece is spot-on! :thumbsup:

[SpiritHunter]

Thanks for the extra eyes.

Spill--
Appreciate the compliments, they're a sign that I just might be doing something right. ;)

Good ideas on the foliage, rocks and blade.

As for the ceiling rocks, what I was going for were translucent flaps of torn skin (you were right in that they were 2D!). Maybe there is something more I could to indicate this material, such as putting in veins?

It does seem that the Davaul is close enough to the soldier to not have that haze in front of its neck, so I'll darken that.

She's actually holding the glove of her right hand in the left so she can touch the creature, but this is very hard to indicate as it's a very small-sized detail. I think I'll have to make the glove look less like a hand so that it doesn't confuse the silhouette.

Will post revisions soon.

Lomax--
Good job on the depth of field rendition, it feels realistic, especially the foreground.

:wise: You definitely pointed out the big, plaguing element of this painting which is that the characters are a bit overwhelmed by the surrounding detail. I am going to try to experiment with various amounts of Gaussian blur (and shape blur, for some interesting bokeh) to see how much detail I need to destroy before the characters stand out as much as they should without compromising the integrity of the world. This is going to be a rough balancing act...

If you have further suggestions as to that I am interested. Do you think I can at least get away with more of the background?

[Lomax]

From a photography standpoint, I think the background would still be focus. Once the subject is a certain distance away from the camera, things behind them wil generally stay in focus.

As far as erasing the details goes... that's why I love masks, but wish that blurring could be done as an adjustment layer. You'd be able to adjust the DOF to your liking, but all the original detail would be kept intact.

I painted two separate masks, one for the foreground and one for the background, then converted these to selections for the blur filter. In hindsight I'm sure the blur brush would've been quicker, but I tend to do things the hard way, first. :P

http://www.nyeng.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/davaul_masks.jpg

[SpiritHunter]

Yes, that would be a great feature. In fact, if they had an adjustment layer for any kind of filtering it would be nice, but then again maybe it's because of hardware limitations....imagine trying to radial blur on an adjustment layer-- it'd probably freeze up. I dunno, maybe we should go bug Adobe about this :)

Actually the blur brush does take more time, because you have to cover a lot of area a bit at a time, whereas with the masking you only have to draw the borders so I think you had the right idea. Once again your technical prowess astounds!:bowdown:

[Hecartha]

As promise, I am posting critique even if that won't change your life lol

The main issue that is annoying me is in the coloring. Even if you have done a good job, I can see like separated colored area. I mean there are a blue area, a red area and so on. If I over simplify your work, I am obtaining that (http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p76/hecartha/Advice%20and%20Paintover/Davaul-1-Red-Green-Blue-Yellow.jpg). It is very subtle, I hope you know what I am meaning. So it does not look too natural.

Another point is with the human character. The pose looks a bit static and it could be a lot more iconic.

Now the size of the scene could be enhanced if you pay more attention to any perspective hint. For now we are almost seeing the top of the creature neck but it should be better if we could see the opposite. In the same way, showing the palm of its hands could enforce the perspective. The roof of the cave could also do the job if you change it a little bit. The feet of the woman also, the spear of the creature, the anatomy details of the creature body...well, this image will be easier to understand what I am meaning I think
http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p76/hecartha/Advice%20and%20Paintover/Davaul-0.jpg

Last thing about composition. For now the bottom part looks a bit dark when viewing in thumb view and it does not help to read you image. Maybe an oblique line could help orientating eyes to the creature. Here a paintover (http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p76/hecartha/Advice%20and%20Paintover/Davaul-2.jpg)

[SpiritHunter]

Wow, Hecartha, I gotta hand it to ya. That's something else...it's impressionist-style Davaul.

Your color ideas just made this project more interesting, enough for me to rip out the carpet and try all of them. The looseness and such freedom of color in your paintover was enough to spark an overhaul attempt.

I completely agree that the color was placed into sectors in my first draft. It needed more distribution of color, but it's hard to do this without changing the style of the painting, which is somewhat more photo-real.

The original pose fit the situation, but was very utilitarian. She definitely needed a more romantic, stylized pose to bring it alive so that was a good idea.

In addition, your placement of the Davaul's horns and shingles definitely made him less 2D.

It's really nice to have a person with a completely different style show me a few things...I need to loosen up on the rigid rules that I have been accustomed to in creating photorealistic images, and try new things.

Your version has fresh, interesting colors, but do not all work in a realistic lighting situation. I am trying to create a new version that reconciles the two styles. I've been at it for a few hours, but unfortunately has me scratching my head.

It's not at a detailed stage yet, but what do you think?
http://i764.photobucket.com/albums/xx287/Spirit-Hunter/Davaulv2-draft3.jpg

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.