a dark forest

[stuh505]

a very mysterious part of the forest...how can I make it better?

[Evil]

Very nice. The mood comes off very strong. By looking at the size of the trees, I can tell it is an old forest. Yet all of the ground is trapled. I would make some tall grass, maybe some bushes and more twigs. The light source is very mysterious, and maybe thats what the character is looking for, but it couldnt hurt to make a really bright lite source area, and you wouldnt have to put an object shape.

[stuh505]

Well I'm glad that the mood and age come off very strong..this is supposed to be the very oldest part of the forest, that large tree came from the first seed that planted the forest.

The ground is not trampled from walking, it is merely supposed to be devoid of life.  This scene is taken in broad daylight.  The idea is that the canopy is so dense here that it is impossible for light to come through, which is why the trees do not have low hanging branches and there is absolutely no grass or undergrowth.  The greenish stuff on the ground is just supposed to be matted twigs and acorns etc, that have collected over the hundreds of years.  I made it green because all of the light in this image has a greenish hue and so it would look funny if it weren't...so it's not supposed to begrass if that's what you thought.

The light source in this scene will be from a character that will be holding a lantern...since it's not 3D I need to make the light static.

[Evil]

I still think there should be something around the base of the trees. Maybe just a few blades of grass. Twigs may still be a good idea.

[Ninjagirl]

Hello, Stuh!

This is a neat pic. You've captured a sense of mood - I'm not quite sure if old fits just yet, but maybe that will come with the context of the game that this pic is from. It is from a game, right?

I think I can imagine the forest look that you are going for here, but I think that part of the reason why you are not quite pulling it off yet is because you are missing a few details that make it seem incomplete. I think that if you aren't going to put anything on the forest floor, there needs to be suggestion of tree roots moving under the ground. I have been to foresty parts where there is no grass etc on the earth (or it is sparse) and you can always see a few roots. Trees don't usually just vanish into the earth.

When you paint/draw trees, or any shape, one way of giving them refinement is by rendering continuous lines on their surface amongst all the hairy short ones.

The tree in the foreground on the left, and the tree with the branch protruding from its trunk - especially that particular part of that tree - have been done very well!

Presently this image lacks cohesiveness/coherence as a total image, because there are several elements (ok maybe two) present but no continuity. At the moment they're all floating about there and not connecting.

This is a mechanical thing, but if this is a game image, for it to be coherent when a character moves through it, the character would probably have to disappear into full shadow whenever he/she moves into the dark bits.  The shadows are VERY VERY dark. (I also thing this might be one of the reasons why there is no continuity here. The dark parts are coming across more as splodges, than patches of shadow to me). It almost looks like a picture with the contrast turned too far down.

If you added more contrasting colours here and there in touches, and some hints of brown, this image would look a lot more refined. Also, if you added more colour etc, I think that you might be able to carry across the feeling that although it's very dark in here, it's actually day outside.

[Neutron]

very cool forest.  i think i might add some more small brush sticking out here and there.  maybe some fungus too.  some bracket fungi on the trees might look cool.

[stuh505]

ninja, good crit--you were right.  i think that the problem was i only had bright highlights and no shadow highlights.  i spent a lot of time redoing all of the trees.

definitely no grass.

did try to make more roots and stuff in the ground also....and the bracket fungi was a good idea.

[aussie]

What about some fog?