[Anthony]

Hey guys, the step by step of this is in the Work In Progress forum. I think this could be my most successful "from scratch" painting to date - no drawing, no reference really, not a set extension, etc. Critiques are always extremely welcome, as are any comments from anyone at all. Even the most humble beginner has something valuable to say! I know, I have plenty to say


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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

[Matthew]

And the Continuence.....

Hello again, I just love this pic. I hope that you are still gonna use it for the flyby animation and if so I would like to see that one too.
ahhh, what a detail....in fact, I am gonna use it as my wallpaper, hope it�s ok.

see you
Matthew

[antx]

Okay, then I will start: Cool!!!
There is only one thing that bothers me a bit. The edges from the rocks to the sky could be more clean/sharp. There you still see the paining progress. It�s not much but enough that I noticed. Otherwise: damn great texture and light.

edit: damn Matthew. You seem to live here in this forum....

[jasonN]

Hey anthony, great pic! I love the values in this pic and the colours. You've really gotten all the details down well! My only crit is that the image could do with a bit more depth.
The edges of the rocks further behind the bridge, while they are slightly softer than the edges of the bridge, maybe you could emphasise this softness to give a greater sense of depth?
The two rocks which stick out at the top left which are desaturated look good and give that depth, but if you follow them down the image, the saturation levels gradually rise and this sort of plays a trick on your eyes because the top part of that rock looks far away while it's base looks closer. Maybe desaturate the orange?

Anyway, don't take my crits too seriously, it's just what stuck out to me, I'm no pro at this. It's a really good painting and I love the texture work.
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[Anthony]

Hey fellas, thanks for the great replies!

Matthew - Sure, use it all ya like :] I'll post whatever animation comes out of it. I already successfully test-composited a character into the scene, so that won't be a problem.

Antx - Thanks! I agreed, and sharpened the edges a bit. Mucho Gracias!

JasonN - Hey Jason, thanks for the critique! I agree about the left rock formation, its a little confusing, and actually I don't think its as well rendered as the others(more haphazard, random). But I'll probably do a depth of field effect in the composite, so that should help the depth somewhat - also just having motion blue and 3d elements in the scene will help. What one aspect of my skillset fails on another will hopefully be able to pick up the pieces!
_________________
-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

[AndyT]

I love it now.
The first versions were not as pleasant to look at.
I guess because the left and the right sides were seperated and competed for attention (don't know how to say that in proper English )

But now it really looks a little like Scott Robertson's suff!
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http://www.conceptworld.org

[Max]

Hehe, that was funny.
As I first saw this pic I only saw THIS part of it because my screen resulotion is not quite big.
Looks like a normal landscape...
Well i though, man that's a nice pic.
Then I scrooled down and WOW
What a surprise!!!! hehe

Very well done!

[Anthony]

AndyT - Thanks man! Its a great honor being compared with Scott, he's such an incredible artist :

Max Kulich - Haha, that is funny, I'm glad you liked the whole thing
_________________
-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

[spooge demon]

Hi Anthony,

Try to think why you are seeing what you are seeing, what things are going on that result in the shapes and values that you see. Don't worry about edges or color yet, shape and value. That is 90 percent of it.

When you are out wasting time somewhere, lets say waiting in the doctors office, look into the corner of the room. Stare at it for 10 minutes, all the while trying to think what are the factors that go into what you are seeing. If there is no light, all is black, but since you can see something the light is coming from somewhere. So find it, remember it. How many sources are there? are they point sources or diffuse? Are they warm or cool, relative strengths, etc. Can you account for every shape and value that you see? Don't give up until you can.



Then go home and try to reproduce the scene from memory. Do this a while and you will get better at remembering what you see and developing what a teacher of mine called the "well of unconscious cerebration" (buzzword for visual memory). I barely got a C in his class, tough dude.

It is like reproducing a color from memory. THe HSB model is great for this. What value, what color, what intensity. Break things down into parts that you can understand. This is really important for eventually working from your head.

In your canyon scene, you have three basic light sources, a strong point source at right angles to the viewer (sun) diffuse overhead (sky, and very strong) and the reflected light from the light canyon walls. One subtle point that is often missed is the soft shadowing of the walls on each other from both the sky and reflected light.

Get yourself some white boxes and reproduce this scene and do the above excercise. Same lighting, greatly simplified subject. Then you can see the effect of the different light sources without the distraction of the heavy forms and textures and local colors.

And the drawing is a little wonky. Eye level too low, see too much of the top of the bridge (it's well above eye level)

[kochun]

Sigh; how lucky are you guys to get people like SPOOGE DEMON (is that your real name? ) to be critiquing your stuff.

If they only had a board like this for music.

[Anthony]

Hey Spooge,
That's a wonderful critique, and great advice. I said it to Ron/Fred and I'll say it again - you guys are the instruction us non-schoolers never got; its like giving a kid glasses so he can see the chalk board.

I can see where I went wrong in the first stage of this image - by working with scribbly lines I may have gotten some decent colors, and the basic form, but I lost the ability to use edges to my advantage later on(because they were already defined). So less scribble at first, keep with the small initial canvas so I can see what I'm doing, but focus on value and mass/form before color and edges. I think I understand(as always it'll take a bit before I learn to apply what I've learned). Thanks very much, I appreciate these critiques more than just about anything.

Edit - did a quick fix on this pic, don't have time to mess at the moment(will soon though!)

_________________
-Anthony
Carpe Carpem
http://www.anthonyfransella.com

[-HoodZ-]

[Soak]

hm Anthony,perspective is wrong