removed due to extreme suckage
You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the amount of time I’ve put into the clouds so far. I’d like some really honest crits on them…please don’t worry about hurting my feelings, I know they suck!
The Journey Begins Challenge (2D) Entry: Theresa Ryan
paperclip
#601
jeromoo
#603
oh no! you have ruined the sky by making it too busy. you don’t have to paint every inches of the sky, you know! some part can be left clean and flat. I’ll go home and try to do a paintover for you as an example. Wait for my reply!
Mu11
#604
Hi clippy,
back to business again - that’s good…
I would like to point out another thing, apart from the clouds (not an expert on clouds, but then again, I am not an expert on anything in this…):
Do you plan on including more visual hints on the distance in your painting? Your use of perspective and composition serve that purpose very well, but you should also desaturate and blur the things which are distant.
Desaturation: because of atmospheric perspective which takes away the hue’s saturation especially near the horizon line. It also helps to make a viewer easily focus on the high saturation areas of your paintings.
Blurring: Distance takes away contrast and hard edges. Also helps to make the viewer focus on high contrast areas with defined edges.
Maybe this could help with your cloud edges, too. Keep their edges saturated and sharp where the rays hit them, otherwise desaturate and blur their edges/appearance to push them back in depth…
:shrug:
again, not an expert. You are doing fine.
And you live in Ireland.
Does it get any better?..
paperclip
#605
I’m scrapping the sky altogether and starting again. It just looks too awful- too messy and hard to read.
Llynna
#608
gives many many hugs to theresa i exactly know how you feel hon… i think its like i felt this morning too. i wanted to quit the challenge at all cause nothing seemed in place and wrong…
but dont give up, finish it, do the thing YOU want it to be. dont let you get distracted too much by us.
hopefully speak to you later
jeromoo
#610
Hi there Theresa, I did a very very rough paintover. In your painting, the main lighting seems to come from the very front (our position), so I put some sunlight reflection on those people in the foreground. I’ve resized the main characters to improve the depth as well. I soften the tone in the background for the same purpose. The clouds are lighted with warm colour tone as with the people to compliment the cool dark tone elsewhere. The trees now have more branches that ‘flow’ to the ship. Sorry if I don’t make any sense here because I’m feeling sleepy at the moment.
This is just a mild suggestion to give you some ideas for your next update!
Gotta sleep now… zzzzzz
paperclip
#611
Thanks so much Jerome for your pointers, as you can see here I implemented a lot of them, it really makes a huge difference. :hug:
EdP-Art
#612
Theresa and Jerome… how do any of stand a chance?
It’s looking good Theresa. The ship needs to be toned down, it seems too bright for the dark clouds around it. I hope you’re going to put your previous people back in. I love the girl, she reminds me of the picture of the girl on the old £1 note. You’re probably a bit too young for that.
Keep it up Theresa and thanks for dropping by my pic. Which Soul do you like?
*Ed
…and it was a lovely sunnd day today too.
EdP-Art
#614
I’m not sure about the God Rays, they are a bit faint for the vote for Queen.
I like what your doing to the ship. Don’t forget your bridges / walkways from the building.
It’s coming along nicely.
*Ed
Mu11
#615
oh!
completely different atmosphere. Great sense of lightness/hovering around the ship now!
Much much much better now!
Go, Theresa!
system
#616
Hiya Therry!
Long time no see 
I’ve missed you! Your piece is looking wonderful, of all the things you’ve done I think this one seems to me to have the most striking colour-scheme - it all fits together very well.
Sorry if it’s already been said as your thread is huge 
but the only thing throwing me a little is the ship looks pretty stationary. I think maybe if you played with blur-some artistic streaky thingies on the back it could really add some motion.
Great stuff
walrus
#617
Hey, Theresa, you’ve really made a lot of changes in the past many days. It’s looking good. I really like the new sky and the colors. The ship truly stands out and looks great right now. Got a few thoughts for you, though…
- Did they all miss the boat? It now looks like it’s already left the dock and is leaving without them. Guess it’s not about their Journey, huh? If the boat hasn’t left yet, what about a gangplank or walkway to anchor the ship to the building?
- It looks like the god-rays are coming from dark clouds. The whole sky is now cloudy and overcast, so right now it looks like they’re just in there for the sake of being there. (You wouldn’t do that? Don’t worry, God-Ray club lets anyone in, god-rays or no. don’t put them in just for our sake.) I originally suggested them when you had a huge break in the clouds from which the light was coming. If you really wanted them to work now, you could use many more breaks in these clouds, maybe a large glimpse of open sky in the upper right…?
- The people: If they ain’t broke, don’t fix them. Maybe some individual faces needed work, but not all of them. There you go, making life harder on yourself than it needs to be again. Are you going to make them all look like Jerome and me and everyone now? Just kidding… But I liked the faces before. They were all focused on the ship (or the ramp to it.) And then the faces looking forward were broken up by one face looking back, not at the camera necessarily but to talk to someone. It fit really well. Now they all look like they’re going to be turned towards the camera, which breaks the 4th wall more, and might ruin the feel of moving forwards that they had before.
Anyhow, that’s all I got. Hope you don’t mind the notes. Good luck and keep your chin up!
-mike
Quills
#619
Hey there - Liking the composition. To increase the depth of field and help extend the distance the people must walk and emphasise how far away the ship is, the colouring of the cliff / ship area tot he horizon could be a little more ‘faded’, with the characters up front staying strong? Will look forward to following where your ship floats off to! Good stuff,
Q
jeromoo
#620
Hey there Theresa, you are welcome! Glad to see you finally able to proceed! Walrus’ notes are good ones, so please look into them as well. Maybe you like to have one more ship a few distance away from the main ship, waiting for its turn at the station. It could be more faded out as not to take attention away from the main ship. The purpose is to fill up the bare part of the sky, but it is truly not necessary.
Keep pushing on, and see you on MSN!