WIP: KREOLA - Lincoln Renall

#21

thought it was time for a wip shot.
still a bit of experimentation happening at this stage, while playing about with textures etc. but made some progress. have done the first pass on this crazy craft that hangs from the trackā€¦idea is that each station is under an overpass, then tracks run vertical to the rim of the cliffs and down again at the next station/overpass.
craft will have a boiler on the top behind the drive beltā€¦the cabin may be redesigned a bit too before i do some lighting work on it. trying to get a blend of steampunk/scifi, which is kinda tricky.
havent done much with the mid ground yet, but probably will be more buildings behind to the left and rightā€¦will try and keep the main cliff face and complex on top as a focal point, with light hitting there hard.
also was contemplating adding some ripples on water in low foreground, as thought the craft has some cables just skimming the waterā€¦but that probably will fall under anim/effects so may be a bad idea.
anyway - welcome any crits or suggestions, as im nearly at the stage where i will stop noodling with textures and start painting/polishing.

www.conceptdude.com

#22

Yeah sweet!! Thatā€™s looking awesome, love the foreground being dark and opening out into the light. And the overhanging beam thing, itā€™s a really cool, seedy, grungy feel :smiley:

#23

Wow! Thatā€™s really cool composition!

#24

This is looking really interesting, and congratulations on taking the brief in a different direction and placing the view at the bottom of the canyon.

I see you have a tram too! hahaā€¦

Itā€™s a good look, and the industrial elements are working well. I like the darkness of the foreground, itā€™s a really nice composition. Makes me feel like Iā€™m in a drain tunnel or something, looking out on a new unexplored world.

Best
James

#25

Hio Lincoln,

The gears and the train cart on the left is great! Very unique, doing great so far. Congrats on the WIP of the week as well (from last week but it just popped up today)!!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153336448310109&set=a.10150236256400109.461531.16448385108&type=1&relevant_count=1&ref=nf

#26

What a great composition and use of elements, Iā€™m looking forward to see this final ! step 2: make it look real :wink:

good luck !

#27

Well, finally back from a week off-the-gridā€¦officially have painting withdrawals, so back into it tonight.
thanks for all the kind wordsā€¦great to see this challenge has become a really positive experience - plenty of constructive crits and ideas across all the posts.
as Jaime says - time to make it look real - - - starting with polish passes nowā€¦man that deadline has crept up on me!
back to it for now - thanks again guys.

#28

progress update:
have flipped horizontally as it visually felt better to me after much indecision.
started laying in the mid ground buildings and a small amount of the tech such as water wheels and pipes delivering water upwardsā€¦
for now i have left the foreground masked out totally while sorting out the mid and far areas. considering changing the craft colors when i paint the foreground up - as i want as much seperation between that and mid ground building as possibleā€¦probably going to be a blue paint job with pin stripes, but will see how that looks - thinking blue to draw from the sky tones.
welcome any suggestionsā€¦probably be a few days before i get back to this one, as other commitmentsā€¦so im pretty sure i will be working on this right till the end .

#29

Wow, this will be mind blowing!! And already isā€¦

For some reason i liked the flipped version better, but this is great too.
This way right now the tram draws more attention, weakening the background at the same time. But thatĀ“s o.k., if thatĀ“s what you had in mind. ItĀ“s up to you of course.

One thing though: the tram creates a tangent line with the picture frame.( Sorry, donĀ“t know how to frame this in englishā€¦) so you should either push it back in or outside.

Wonderful progress!!

#30

Maybe itā€™s the colours, maybe the lighting, not sure, but this overall looks very cartoony. Maybe the lack of shadows?

Although itā€™s a nice design and sketched out well, Iā€™m not getting a sense of photo realism yet, but I guess there is still 12 days left, so plenty of time for that.

#31

Your palette looks established and feels strong. Really want to see it photoreal!

#32

thanks all:

artvā€¦ - yeah i know what you mean, im totally torn on which way to flipā€¦for now im thinking the current way as i want the tram to be a first readā€¦but if im unhappy with how it looks rendered out, may flip it and at least that way the environment will be more visually dominant.

jamesā€¦ - pretty fair comment i thinkā€¦its kind of in the twilight zone between illustrative and photoreal at the moment, im hoping to add more realism to the foreground and close mid ground - with it fading into the distanceā€¦will see how it goes. will keep the shadows in mind, and be trying to pump those up somewhat near the end

seema - thanks, yep, im hoping to get it polished in timeā€¦i think photoshop needs a ā€œphotorealā€ filter, ah that would be grand ā€¦LOL

#33

Wellā€¦ it looks like I have three favorite entries now :). Great work!

Regards
Jonatan

#34

Dear Lincoln,
This concept is beautiful. One good way to get some texture crunch quality out of it would be using the Overlay blend mode and applying lots of detail quickly to the painting. Another trick would be to de-saturate it and give it a bit of a more down to earth look.
Hope to see you push this through.
Milan

#35

thanks for that Milan - just starting to get into the overlay fun now. Definitely am leaning towards the desaturation approach, and im planning to grunge it up just a little bit, but not too over the top.
cheers

#36

heres a shot of some of the foreground elements - currently polishing this area up and refining the craft design in particular, adding stuff like reflections in windows and the boiler on the roof, also starting to push the side lighting and core/cast shadows - havent polished the gantry crane arm yet, and the tracks are still over-saturated.

#37

just another progress shot.
polishing continues, have just started working on the mid/back ground

#38

Hio Lincoln.

Just a few last comments on this, beware of your black levels, as the distant BG seems very forward in value, try adding bit more haze or atmosphere to help out, and have a little more definition in the sky. Good luck!

#39

thanks for that tip - quite right, needed tweaking.

made a few changes tonight, and have had to call it finished as times running out, and some other work is currently screaming for attentionā€¦
heres a smaller version of the final entry submittedā€¦theres still a few areas that ideally I would have liked to polish more - mainly in the background rocks etc.

probably in hindsight i could have done some 3d elements as an underlay(currently its all 2D), which would have definitely helped with achieving higher realism, I guess thats whats so good about these challenges, best way to learn I think.
Overall im pretty happy with it - plus it was a fun challenge. good luck to all.

#40

Looks great!

I really loved your approach from the very beginning.
ItĀ“s not exactly " fotoreal" i would say, still , coming from an illustration background myself, this was always the most inspiring entry in this challenge for me.

Thanks for sharing.