An exercise in texture overlays and, I suppose, in composition. This is from a month ago, so I’d probably use masks more if I was doing it today. I’m going through a kind of crisis in the acceptable extent of the use of textures vs. brushes, and my work kind of reflects this right now.
The work was rejected from showcase. The only reasons that spring to mind are general lack of drama or anatomy.
Absolutely any crit you feel generous enough to give!
Please feel free to be brutal, though.
I can’t speak for the judges that rejected it (I haven’t done any judging lately–too busy with teaching the workshop), but if I had to guess, I would say maybe it’s because of:
-You missed a great opportunity to create a much more compelling composition by having the children be the silhouette shape that is contrasted against the sky, instead of a nondescript cylindrical brick structure.
-The arrangement of your composition feels like you just missed the most optimal spots for placing the main focal points (such as the crossing points in rule-of-thirds, or the center of the spiral in a golden ratio).
-The children and the mech creature seems to be disparate elements that don’t connect with each other–not even their line-of-sight. The boy does not look like he’s looking at the mech creature–his head is tilted too high and a bit too much to our side. You can simply move the mech to match the line-of-sight of the boy to fix this, so you don’t have to redo the boy. You’d have to extend the canvas on the bottom though.
-The younger kid looks like it’s based on some random photo reference instead of carefully planned and integrated into this narrative and composition from the very beginning. I suspect the boy might be the same–you use some reference that had nothing to do with your narrative, instead of actually planning your visual storytelling from the start and shooting your own references that perfectly match your narrative’s needs.
Thanks, I think you’re bang on.
I do tend to go for weird compositions to try and get a sense of immediacy - you know, like its a casual photo or something. But it probably doesn’t work if the fundamental skills aren’t there. Like using reference properly.
Back to the drawing board!
Thanks a lot mate- you’re true to your word, I do appreciate the time.
Up high.
Agree with Lunatic.
Also, you seem to be doing some sort of three point perspective or fisheye lens thing. Here are a few things that strikes me about that: http://sta.sh/02euygszj311
You managed to get the office buildings and the tall chimney to almost meet up, but not the lower brick structure: http://sta.sh/01z121e5scpd
According to my own perspective theory that I just made up, the horizon should follow the curvature of a circle centered on the topmost perspective point. 
http://sta.sh/02bs5vfsdw3b
It’s probably not quite correct, but it solves the leaning buildings thing.
I tried to get the seawall perspective lines to meet up on the horizon. I didn’t quite manage, but I hope it illustrates the idea: http://sta.sh/04rfhzw6taw
To make it more interesting, the seawall could be curved to follow the brick building: http://sta.sh/02b5s7stk2ul
This also has some perspective issues, but should suffice to illustrate the idea.
Another thing: Is the robot backing down into the water? If not, there shouldn’t be any splash at his leg.
If it is coming out of the water, there should be rivulets and drops of water.
Why is the white thingies on the robot’s arms sitting on the upper arm on one side and the lower arm on the other side?
Wow, I really wasn’t expecting this amount of feedback: It’s very much appreciated, and I’m taking it all on board.
I knew I was playing hard and fast with the perspective.
And I was going for a fisheye thing, but the third link (Bleke) is a real eye-opener, so much better than mine. Pretty much what i should have done. Just stick to the rules, you say.
I tend to bend the rules of perspective as planes aren’t always parallel in urban environments, but if this causes a bad read in the image, you’re saying it might be better to master the rules first? Obviously my messing with persp. just jumped out to the objective eye, and the corrected perspective really did introduce a stable medium for all the other elements. It even improved the sight line problems. Oh no, that was you too. Eh, maybe I shouldn’t have included this in my 2d-design-for-environments application this week…
The curved sea wall - nice, very nice. Just complementing the other curves, and drawing elements together… yes … I see what you did there. Its amazing how you lose a read on an image after you’ve spent a while on it.
The kids were supposed to be on a ledge a couple of feet above the sea wall, which would have made everything beyond them larger in scale than the final image has them… and yeah, the kid has steered the robot into the water (hilarious) … and the robot asymmetry was conscious. But I guess this doesn’t matter if it reads as a mistake.
Taking the time to actually illustrate the point was incredibly helpful, it really drives it home.
OK, no more playing with perspective rules: I’ll concentrate on integrating all the elements (and my figures).
Thanks a lot guys, you’ve given me some much-needed feedback and made my day.
Glad you liked it. It was a good learning experience for me too.
As my old teacher in typography used to say; “You may brake the rules a) if you know that you are doing it, and b) you know why you are doing it.”
There’s no need to bend the rules to draw planes that aren’t parallell, as can be seen on page 59 and forward in this book: http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/Andrew%20Loomis%20-%20Successful%20Drawing.pdf
Playing foul with the rules can also be amazingly awesome.
That is some excellent perspective reference.
And MCE will always be de man - I’m a sculptor by trade, and I’m trying to work in tesselations. Buts that’s another forum…
Once more, Thank You Sir.
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