This is really shaping up to be awesome. I really like the human soldiers in the foreground.
Uplift Universe - Image Entry: Donglu Yu
MartinNielsen
#43
Hey. Good stuff for sure 
I like those dolphins as well. Good dynamics in their movement.
jeromoo
#45
Hi Donglu, this is an interesting concept! I feel like as if the aliens are trying to beam the dolphins into their ships. Are the figures dancing around the dolphins one of the aliens? I am wondering why the humans want to attack the aliens. They don’t seem hostile here, except the humans themselves? Is it because the humans do not understand what is happening and are attacking out of fear of the unknown?
Perhaps the design of the ship could reflect a similar design like a dolphin, which is why the aliens wanted to communicate or uplift the dolphin. They feel some kind of similarities between the two species. Just my thoughts.
All the best and have fun!
Jack: Really had fun to discuss the concept of this piece with you today!
LightSoverign: Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts of the painting with me, gave me lot of sparkles for coming up with a storyline for this visual play.
Jonathan: Thank you for coming and your support! I am still working with a canvas of 2900 x 1300 px which is half of the final size. At the current stage, I still don’t want to be caught up with too much details yet, so trying to keep the working space small.
Gopez: Thanks for approving the changes that I made for the foreground!
Ataulfo: Thanks for mentioning about the light, I was working on it during the weekend, guess it is worth it.
Martin: I am pretty happy with the dolphins too, my initial thoughts were to have about 30 of them with a smaller size, but finally I decided to just take few and really work on the pose.
DaVee: Thanks for coming! Good luck to you for this challenge!
I had a very constructive conversation with Jack Zhang, and decided to do some facial studies for this piece in order to enhance the storytelling elements, i.e. the nymphs being shocked because of witnessing the dolphins getting captured by the alien ariship. I took time to study Steven Hägg-Ståhlberg’s wonderful artwork Abduction for this purpose.
Here is the link for Steven’s painting:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=137&t=444358
Jeromoo: Thank you for giving me all those precious feedbacks about my work!
I had my initial concept inspired by David Brins Uplift Universe. However, I didnt pick a specific scene from the novel. Instead, I selected few concepts from this series to come up with this image. The Neo-Dolphins are the uplifted species belonging to the human race. The alien is capturing those dolphins for the purpose of spying on human race to learn more about the Uplifting knowledge. The human soldiers are trying to counterattack the rivalries. The nymphs belong to the sea, being shocked and disturbed by such incident. I am using those figures to add more emotional tone to this piece.
Now that you have mentioned, I also find that the alienship and the dolphins do actually share some kind of similarities. You are right, maybe this fact can be another reason to explain aliens curiosity for those neo-dolphins.
Thanks again for the input and have lot of fun with your entry too!
JoPu
#49
Hi:wavey:,
Nice color and environtment atmosphere, very inspiring.:bowdown:
Good luck with the challenge
I find I did enough study of composition and color until now, so started to paint details seriously.
HornlessUnicorn
#52
Hi Donglu! It’s coming along nicely. Love the dolphins!
You’ve chosen quite a challenge - water. Don’t forget to think it all through, how light passes through it and how water reflects light how it bounces off etc.
Keep it up, great work!
Dimitrij.
Gopez
#56
One word: AWESOME!
I likd it from the start but this just keeps getting better. Keep it up.
Jopu: Thanks for coming!
Scala: Thank you for the support!
HornlessUnicorn: Dimitrij, so glad that you liked the update. you are aboslutely right about water, I really have to study them carefully.
MartinNielsen: Thank you!!!
Jack: I have the feeling that I will struggle hard with the water.
LightSovereign: Marley, your words are truely appreciated!
Gopez: Thank you for the encouragement!
I kept working on the water. Always have the feeling that I didn’t put enough effort to explore the potential of custom brushes in Photoshop, so after I read a great tutorial written by Linda Bergkvist (http://www.furiae.com/popup.php?text=brushtutorial), I decided to do some experimentation with the brushes while progressing with my painting, here is some details of the water at 100% resolution.