Sci-fi city

#21

A possible new layout:

With some lighting - too saturated for my liking right now but interesting

It’s been a while but finally I managed to make some progress! The main thing is that I’ve switched over from mental ray to Vray (love it). What do people think so far? I’m slightly more content with the composition and the sense of scale is closer to what I’d originally had in mind. There still needs to be some extra work done on the textures, colour variation and quite a lot of atmosphere stuff will be pulled of in Photoshop. Thoughts are very welcome, cheers!

#22

Well done Mike… I am really loving the progress of this project. Keep going!

#23

Very good progress indeed. Happy to see updates on this piece. Keep it up!

#24

i would try to keep the tower “vertical”

regards

thomas

#25

I’d advise against having the top of the tower exit the frame, as you have in your last update. It actually draws the eye out of the image; rather compose your image to include the top of the structure with some headroom above it. Including some space like that will give the city some visual breathing room, removing tension from the composition and creating a more comfortable context for the city’s silhouette.

I’d also suggest a lighting scheme that picks highlights the shapes of each building within the sprawl at the base of the tower, otherwise it’s a bit to our much of an unreadable jumble. You might also want to realign the buildings of the sprawl a little, so that instead of creating lines that cut across the frame, they lead the eye towards the tower. So, essentially, try aligning them in a way that they radiate outwards from the centre.

#26

The reason I had the tower going out the image was because I thought the massive size of the building could be shown by it being ‘too big to fit in the image’. I heard the director Gareth Edwards talking about his film Godzilla and he used this trick quite frequently. That said, you’re right. It does need some breathing room above the tower, I quickly painted in the sky gradient above the tower and it works well. A colleague at work suggested that I have the tower under construction like the famous Death Star – this might suggest that the tower is going to be huge, someday.

Your lighting suggestion is rather good too. Thank you for your suggestions, it’s very much appreciated!

#27

I think the idea of having buildings exit frame to show scale is a clever one, but perhaps one that works better in motion pictures than still ones, and also works better with the landscape orientation of film, compared with the portrait orientation of this image. I think your idea of having the tower under construction is cool - it’ll give an interesting story element to the image, which is always a good thing to have.

#28

I’m almost finished. Maybe 98% done!

The thing I’m debating is whether or not to put a planet in the sky. It helps to balance the image and draws the eye up which is important but probably looks clichéd. A sketch:

I’ll add some more details before calling it done. How’s it looking?

#29

Looks like techno-Babel :slight_smile:

#30

I think it looks pretty cool now. I’d add a couple of flying machines for the atmosphere.

#31

details is very good right now

#32

Cheers guys. I’ve completed the image, it can be seen in my portfolio. It’s basically the same image I posted on the previous page, I decided to not go with the planet.

Thanks for all the advice, it was very helpful indeed!

#33

looks awesome!! Why didn’t I see this thread before? Oh the man hours this must have taken

#34

Yep… I thought about it also. But in the end it turned out great.

#35

This piece reminds me of Stefan Morrell’s work. Very nice.

#36

I love it! Very well done.

I think it’s a good thing that you got rid of the planet.