[Jezebel]

Here's an image I'm doing for my brother, I've had a really hard time working on it. I really wanted to achieve the whole oil paint look and I've never tried it before, so this didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked it to. I would appreciate any comments.




God I'm embarrassed to post this thing... but I figured I'd rather get the forum's opinion before I show my brother. Rip it up please.

Please please

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

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[ForgottenDavey]

Don't be emberraced. Be proud, you've got some really good color and design techniques going here. It looks to me like a style I would like to see more.

[Solitaire]

Foxes or wolves in the foreground ?

damnit, the screen here at school sucks; so don't mind if my comment comes later when returned .....

[Jezebel]

wolfie :>

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

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[Solitaire]

Now it's looking much better - Do you use a PC? Well at school, were we use Macs the picci didn't looked that good as it looks now (my PC @ home) ...

[Jezebel]

PC of course! =)

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]

[Jezebel]

I updated the image trying to take into consideration some of the things suggested to me (things outside of the forum included).




I tried to add in more detail and bring out some of the more important elements in the piece. At my brother's request, I also altered the colors which I think turned out pretty cool. What do you guys think?

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

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[This message has been edited by Jezebel (edited November 27, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Jezebel (edited November 27, 2000).]

[Striker]

Hey, this is a great start, I think with a little more refinement and maybe a few composition changes here and there it could turn out to be a really good pic that you will by no means be embarrassed to share with us..

The first thing that might need a little work is the closest tree on the right side of the pic.. it's a bit too stiff, awkward, and unnatural. The whole setting of the pic is leaning heavily towards the spooky side, so a stockier tree with twisting branches sprawling out and knotty roots sticking out of the ground might be a bit more appropriate.

The next thing is that there seems to be a wall of fog in the distance.. I dunno if you intended for the fog to be isolated back there.. but it might be a bit more natural and establish some more depth if you have some fog rolling in over the ground. It might help give some life and movement to the pic.

What exactly is creating the orange/red light in the background? Is it some sort of planet or perhaps the moon? Might want to try making its identity more apparent to the viewer so that they don't have to question what it is.

The objects in the big black area at the bottom left corner of the pic are kinda hard to distinguish as well. I can pick out the head of a wolf (though it looks more like a dog) and I also see a tail I think.. but thats about it.. The silhouettes are a nice style addition to the pic, but be careful with it, the large solid black can easily throw the ballance off in the composition of the pic.

Hope this helps..

[Jezebel]

The tree on the right was originally supposed to be twisted and gnarled but I don't know what happened there. ^_^

The creature on the left actually isn't a "wolf". It's closer in ressemblance to a werewolf - or at least a bipedal wolf-like thing. It's actually supposed to be this specific character standing there, looking out onto the landscape. He has a very long tail and he is wearing a cape. I supposed it's very hard to tell though judging by the responses thus far.

He's supposed to remain somewhat secretive and non-descript which is why I chose to make him a silouhette.

And the thing in the sky is a moon, a small mars-like moon.

*smiles*

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

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[Hazoc]

The mood is very nice and surrealistic. Maybe some little detail on foreground would be good...some grass or that stuff. Where did you get the idea of this "glow" lightning ?

[Jezebel]

I don't think the idea of "glow" lighting is original or anything, so it's not like it was an idea I had. It was more like I was inspired by something else. And believe or not, the image that sort of inspired me was the one that the guy supposedly copied from the Adobe photo file or whatever?
http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/007044.html

Whatever the deal with that was, I really don't care. But the image has that beautiful hazy effect to it, and after seeing that I found that I wanted to create a landscape with a similar effect - only darker.

This was my starting point with the image:
http://div.dyndns.org/beth/test.jpg

Based off that original idea I created a new image and tried to make the composition more interesting. I don't know if I've succeeded or not though

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]

[Hazoc]

I see...looks still nice. Try to add some small highlights as details.

[Jezebel]

Wow, it's crazy because I know when I wake up tomorrow morning to go to class that this image will be at the bottom of the page. And I really thought I did pretty good on this! Hehehe Shows what I know! ^_^

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]

[sacrelicious]

Yeah, that's a bummer, huh Jez.

Seriously though, I think you've done a great job, as well as incorporating everyone's suggestions excellently. I'm not in much of a place to critique, so I'll take the easy out and say "good job!"

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mmm... sacrelicious

[Solitaire]

hey the blueish works better than the previous green tones - cool.
Landscapes and backgrounds are my major weakpoint; maybe I should do one when there's time ...
.
.
.
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...bt first I have to finish my TG

[Sumaleth]

It's looking good, Jez, the blue definitely helped give it a feeling of realism.

Suggestions;

The foreground tree currently stands out as being 'not quite right' in the coloring and shading department. The blue tint in the scene has given a sense of depth and atmosphere, but to enhance that depth things closest to the viewer need to be less blue if they face the sunlight.

Now you've started to do this around the base of the tree and it works quite well, so I'd recommend continuing some of that green/brown theme up the tree (and that plant on the ground)- but only on the side facing the sun. The back side would probably still be as it is, and there would be a core shadow between the blue side and the colored side, at 90 degrees from where the sun is coming from (a good exercise in working out where all the elements are in 3D rather than just 2D on an image ).

I think it would also be nice to have some cast shadows coming from behind those branches and across the trunk, lined up with the position of the sun. At the moment there looks to be a secondary fill light somewhere over our left shoulder, but there's no explanation of it's existance in the image and so it doesn't "feel" right. (it cant be from the moon since the moon is in front of us, unless it's an alien planet but for that to work there would need to be something in the image that clearly tells us that this is an alien environment)

Speaking of the moon - I think the highlight would best be on the side facing the sun.

(Actually, I'm assuming thats the sun behind the dog's nose, veiled heavily by the fog?)

Another suggestion might be to add in more of those long clouds. At the moment theres just the one cloud group there which tends to made the image feel quite 2D. If you add a fainter one or two further away (and lower), and maybe one or two closer (off to the sides and higher), then that would help give the image a feeling of depth.

Anyway, keep working on it. Don't stop now.

Row.

[Jezebel]

Wow, I woke up and my post WASN'T on the second page! I'm so dang happy now ^_^

Thanks for the comments everyone. As soon as I get back from class I'm going to try to work on it some more.

I've been enjoying my work on this project because I feel like with everyone's comments and all my extra effort that it's been getting a lot better. It's exciting for me because recently I've been able to create several images without relying on photographs, which I've been quite guilty of doing in the past So basically I'm just saying I really appreciate every critique I get no matter how small it is. I really try and soak them in and improve my work with each one.

Thanks,
Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]