Cool concept and nice ethereal style!
Q
The Journey Begins Challenge (2D) Entry: Torsten Wolber
artvandeley
#162
Centurionit,Ohitsallama: Thanks guys. Very much appreciated 
Ramitxon, no prob, feels even better to know i convinced you …haha. Thanks for nice comment.
Beelow, you´re absolutley right. I should´ve checked the levels before posting. Part of the problem is that this server seems to have a bit of a problem with profiles. I hope this time it works better.
Anyhow, good point. Thanks a lot.
walrus
#163
This is looking fantastic, Torsten! I don’t want to jinx you by saying I expect you to be a winner, because I have a knack for being totally wrong in my guesses, but if I were a judge, you’d be on the top.
The only thing I’d like to note is that with each successive post, your colors seem to get less and less saturated. I mean, compare this latest with the color comp from post #28. Not that it’s a problem, they’re both valid choices. As a personal preference, I like the more saturated colors. (But you’ve seen my work, this should come as no surprise! ) But my first thought when seeing your latest thumbnail was, “Hey, where’s all the reds in the bottom go?” (A few posts earlier, it was “Where’d all the blues in the sky go?”)
Anyhow, don’t mind me, it’s still a gorgeous piece, and my top paragraph still holds…
Take care and good luck with whatever final touches you have left!
-mike
artvandeley
#164
Hi Mike, thanks for your constructive criticism. It´s always something special to hear from you.
As for the colors: Yeah , i know. Like i said the post before i´m having troubles to communicate the right colors and levels since my profiles don´t work on the CG-Server. On the first images i just had to push stauration by 10 points, but in this state it´s not that easy and most of the time i´m too lazy/busy to care about.
The easiest workaround should be to post inline with embedded sRGB, so the next images will be not officially added to my submissions.
Except the final image of course…doh…
This should show what i´m working on right now. And, hey: i reintroduced a little bit of blue too.
walrus
#165
Well, it’s always nice to have something vaguely useful to add instead of “That just looks beautiful!”
but for now…
That just looks beautiful!
-mike
alxcote
#166
Man, this is a killer piece! I realley like it.
Here’s a few suggestions. To me the best part of your image at this point are the characters… i think they’re perfect the way they are imo. What i could see needing a little change are the foreground elements and the tree roots leading to the cut. I’ll explain a little.
On the left edge of your picture you have the side of a rock/wood bark sticking out and cutting the light. Well when i was following the line of it down to the leaves my eye got stuck because I always thought it was further then the bushes. Reason why is i think the way the lighting is done on those ricks gives the impression it’s way far… but when you look at the plants they seems alot closer to me. I’d just suggest to make the plants overlap the rock and not the opposite.
On the right side, I just think the plants/leaves are reaching out a little too much. Even if I think you placed them that way to accentuate the point of interest, it’s too close from the characters. (that’s just my tiny little opinion here hehe)
And then the last thing I could see improving are the big tree roots… honestly they seem too flat. As in they don’t have any depth. I would add some values/highlights on the tips of the roots coming out at us and leave the trunk a little darker… in any case make it blend in and give a nice illusion of depth. Right now without the huge ammount of details it would look plain dark and plat. And as much as you want to leave it out dark to bring out the characters, it’s not worth losing the depth of your image I think. Like i said just a little more light green “moss” perhaps growing there and slowly fading into the darker end of the trunk.
But this is just some suggestions, other may argue with them. I told you already, I think this is a really nice piece of work as it is.
alx
ilusiondigital
#167
The magical essence of the adventures of zak and crysta, very beautiful and lot of hard work
Congrats
n-dee
#168
this work ist just great! I really like it. Your Characters are so individual.
It really looks “fantastic” to me.
system
#169
looks good men so far, but i noticed something in the image file size. how come you can upload
a 2.28mb such that big file size? when i upload my image here, the posting required say’z “IMAGE FILE” should be Image (150kb limit)? i think its unfair to us small artists here.huhuhu we cant post such a huge file images:shrug:
warpy
#171
hey,
this could use a bit more detail to it, i realy think that the whole journey idea is very basic, you dont leave the viewer something to imagine the leader of the tribe leading them in the forest. i think it was used so many times, you might consider adding a twist or something to spice things up…
now i dont realy see where is that light emitting from… its as if they have their own small light source, but i guess that can be a judgemeant call.
i actually realy like this piece, so no offence on the crit, it might be a tinsy bit harsh. cheers.
Nickillus
#172
Loving the way this is progressing.
Really well thought out and being beautifully executed.
Great paiterly feel.
All the best,
Nick
system
#174
cool idea, nice characters, colors and technique are really good, only thing which looks strange is that dark stone/root on the left side, but that’s just my personal feeling.
otre
#176
Really cool image. one of my fav’s for this contest. Doesn’t seem like there’s much to do now. If I could point at something, maybe it’s that the highlight on the center characters seem a bit too “burnt”? But that’s the only thing that comes to mind.
Good luck in the voting
adonihs
#177
otre said exactly what I was thinking, great image…but that overall highligh is very strong for something non metallic. other than that, great piece
artvandeley
#179
Ove and Daniel: Thanks, was kinda unsure about that. Helped a lot
kevin: Thanks.
Squibbit: Hehe, what a surprise.Been enjoying your thread quite a lot btw.
mant-Raz: Hm, i guess what you mean is supposed to be a bug with ants on it.
Apparently not as well painted as you said 
Nick,Marlon,Victor: Thanks a bunch, appreciate it.
Nards: Really don´t know what you mean. I uploaded a 150 kb-File like everybody else does. Maybe ´cause i´m working on a mac?
Andreas, that´s fantastic you like it. Thank you!
warpy, although i´m not your opinion in most the things you pointed out, your comment really helped me to look at it from a different angle. Thanks. Really, i mean it!
Alexandre, wow, what a useful advice. As you can ( hopefully) see, i kept some of your suggestions in mind. Mercy beaucoup!
So, this is how the image looks right now. Posted inline, to show the accurate colors. I must say i´m quite surprised (and flattered) to have that amount of views on my thread. Thanks again everyone for dropping by.
ashiataka
#180
The composition,light,all the figures,colours everything is really great.The consept is very fantastic too.You’re one of my best.Good luck.