Grand Space Opera 2D Entry: Cliff Cramp

A few more adjustment. Let me know if you think any major changes should be made before I start another image. I would like to put this one to bed soon.

Add some explosions above...where the lasers hit the building so they don't look like reactors behind the ship.

.....and more debris too. anyway.... still in progress.... i know there's a lot more on the way! good luck Cliff!

There's something bothering me about this pic:
The big ships and the small fighters look very similar, that confuses the viewer because, at a first glance they are recognized as having the same size. But then it's seen that the fighters come out of the ship in the center...
Look at the beam that gets blocked by the center of attention ship. The source of the beam sems to be further away than the ship, but the beam decreases in thikness as it reaches the ship. This might not beeing bothering when you add more detail to the ship so that it's obvious this ship is enormeous but the beams of the ship still connect it immediatly to the foreground building with the people

Well, I think you have a problem there with depth and size but probably I'm worrying too much and the problem will be solved automatically when you add more detail.

I tucked the wing behind the building in order to give it more depth and scale. I also changed the blue rays positioning on the right to suggest depth also. I didn't really want to add an explosion in the upper right because I thought it might shift the focal point. I added some smoke instead.

i think theres too much blue in the background and the sky, the sky is still one color, you may just have not gotten to it yet, but dont just leave it flat.

as for the big ol' mothership, i thought it was a small ship very close as well. My suggestion is to knock down the contrast on it. Things far away have less contrast and take on the color of the air around it. so knock down the contrast, and i dare say add a little bit of blue, and it should take on the apperance of a missive ship in the distance.

i agree with codenothing that the contrast of the mother ship would make it look futher away and maybe moving it back in the horizon might heop as well i think it looks really good have fun with it and good luck

This is turning out great- the sense of chaos is very much there, and I like the battle effects.
Personally, I like the color tones in the sky and ships, I dont think there needs to be more contrast.
Also, great work on the composition, it really keeps your attention at every point.

In addition to what CodeNothing said, I think that you could exaggerate the perspective on thise twin laser beams more to make the ship look larger and/or further away. right now the bams are nearly parallel, but you could experiment with taking the left beam and lowering its target, maybe use a vanishing point somewhere on-screen as a guideline. Another thing might be to make its lower windows smaller - with them so large, they make the ship look smaller. Either way, the piece is coming along well! Great feeling of chaos so far!

best of luck,

-mike

Another update, I'm starting to put detail in the main battleship and in the buildings on the right. Thanks for all the input gang.

Walrus; I see your point, I'll work on that after some detailing of some of the image. I should know better on the perspective, but that one was a real goof.

Good idea to put the wing behind the building, BUT...

Now you have to crank up the details of the buildings in the midground to the amount of the ship and also the contrast. Or you lower the contrast on the ship, so it falls optical behind that building.
The Detailthing is a huge NO,NO...

Yeah Tommy, I know what you're saying. When I said detail, I meant modifying it a bit. I dropped the contrast from the last one post to this in the ship. I won't add anyone contrast to the ship. I will add more detail and contrast to the buildings though to try a bring them forward. I seem to be pushing and pulling at this one far more than usual which isn't a good sign. Thanks for keeping my on the straight.

Hi Sideache, I made the mistake of not having checked out your thread until now. I wish I had! Your pic has a real classic feel to it, something very 'golden age of SF' about it. The style, angle, theme and colours remind me of the pics that used to inspire me as a kid, which is a pleasure to see. As to crits, not sure really. I agree with the recent comments regarding the perspective of the beams. As to differentiating the smaller fighters from the main craft, maybe give 'em a set of coloured stripes on the leading edges of their wings, or decals even? I wish that the main beams and explosions could be brighter somehow, it's as if they are about the same brightness as some elements of architecture. The way to get this would be to step down the levels of the rest of the pic, but I'm worried it might spoil the look. Might be worth experimenting with though. One last thought, to make the main ship seem further away it might be worth lightening its darkest darks a little more with the ambient colour and perhaps emphasising the contrast of the foreground elements.

All in all, it's wonderful, it's immediately one of my favourites in the challenge. Way to go.

wow! Great concept, I love the city, ship and the colors! Everything matches so well =) awesome job!!