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! haha…
It’s a good look, and the industrial elements are working well. I like the darkness of the foreground, it’s a really nice composition. Makes me feel like I’m in a drain tunnel or something, looking out on a new unexplored world.
Best
James
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)!!
What a great composition and use of elements, I’m looking forward to see this final ! step 2: make it look real 
good luck !
Well, finally back from a week off-the-grid…officially have painting withdrawals, so back into it tonight.
thanks for all the kind words…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 now…man that deadline has crept up on me!
back to it for now - thanks again guys.
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 upwards…
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 possible…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 suggestions…probably be a few days before i get back to this one, as other commitments…so im pretty sure i will be working on this right till the end .
Wow, this will be mind blowing!! And already is…
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 that´s o.k., if that´s what you had in mind. It´s up to you of course.
One thing though: the tram creates a tangent line with the picture frame.( Sorry, don´t know how to frame this in english…) so you should either push it back in or outside.
Wonderful progress!!
Maybe it’s the colours, maybe the lighting, not sure, but this overall looks very cartoony. Maybe the lack of shadows?
Although it’s a nice design and sketched out well, I’m not getting a sense of photo realism yet, but I guess there is still 12 days left, so plenty of time for that.
thanks all:
artv… - yeah i know what you mean, im totally torn on which way to flip…for now im thinking the current way as i want the tram to be a first read…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.
james… - pretty fair comment i think…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 distance…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 time…i think photoshop needs a “photoreal” filter, ah that would be grand …LOL
Well… it looks like I have three favorite entries now :). Great work!
Regards
Jonatan
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
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
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.
just another progress shot.
polishing continues, have just started working on the mid/back ground
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!
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 attention…
heres a smaller version of the final entry submitted…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.
Looks great!
I really loved your approach from the very beginning.
It´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.
Really lovely image, great composition, nice lighting. Works better as an illustration than a matte painting, but that’s okay, it’s also a great piece of work for the portfolio…well done!
Best
James
Still love the mood you captured here, with the low camera angle hidden under some part of the city and the foreground carriage. Awesome image, good luck!!
thanks guys 
been a great challenge i think - some great entries from you guys, the judging should be interesting.
i might have post-challenge depression now…what to do - - hmmmmm
maybe ill go brush up on my Maya for the next challenge.
cheers again
Lincoln