dark forest bg

[Problem]

Hello,

The last time I posted a background, I wasn't satisfied with the trees, so I practised a lot. This is a background showing a forest at night. It's even hi-res this time.
Any ideas how to improve it?

[jason]

I like it so far (especially the texture on the trees).
Right now, the trees are lined up in 3 near-perfect rows. So, I was thinking one thing you could do is maybe put the trees at different y-values. Plus, it would be easy to try if they're on different layers.

[lo_res_man]

also, is it just me or is that picture REALLY dark.
i dont know aboutt you but if this is night,( as i assume it is) it's still to dark. i find knight looks better if you darken things moderatly, and leech some colours and make it kind of blue. look at  melle island  at knight to see what i mean.

[stuh505]

as a frequenter of the forest, your martha stewart black forest really stands out to me.  The ground is greenish...is that grass?  forest grass is rare and doesn't look like that.  where is the groundskeeper who picked up all the dead leaves, brush?  did this forest grow with cultivation over a soccer field?  the ground is never level.  Who trimmed all of the trees?  trees don't know that people like them to have only limbs on the upper 80% so that we can walk around them...and they don't grow that way, people cut trees like that for city blocks.  Pixel spray for the leaves is not a good idea.  I think you'd be better off filling in an area with a solid shade of green than using pixel spray...but drawing leaves is a bit complex so I'm not going to give you all my suggestions here.

So my biggest suggestion to you is to get a photograph of what a real forest looks like and try to look at that while you work.

[fertoff_as_guest]

Looks ok I guess...
But:
-This "forest at night" looks as if you just darkened  o put a black layer infront  the picture....Try making what lo_res_man says. Use blue, and highlight some areas to create that "moon light" efect.
-The trunks look very nice.
-Try making better leaves.
-Try adding some rocks to the path, or make it more irregular.But not too much, cause after all, its a path.

Bye

[Problem]

Okay, thank you for the suggestions.
You're right, it looks way too regular, and the trees still look too lifeless. I'll try to make it more blue, like you said, and make the trees look more naturally.
I always have problems with the leaves. I don't think filled areas look any better than pixelspray (I already tried that ). Oh, and I'd really like to have some ideas how to paint leaves, so if you have any suggestions, stuh505, i'd like to hear them. I'm not afraid of trying complex things. Maybe someone knows where to find a tutorial about painting leaves, I already searched, but all I found was the well known pixelspray.

[stuh505]

Well here's a suggestion that won't produce professional results but can produce pretty nice looking results quickly, which I use a lot -- I make a custom brush in the shape of a leaf, then splatter that around pretty densely....and use a lighter and darker version to give it some dimension.

[Moox]

It looks alot like one of those final fantasy style battle scenes. I like the color scheme alot but for an adventure you should try to give the room some purpose

[BlackMan890]

here is a small update i did:



maybe too many leaves?

[DodgeR]

upside - the texture and handling of the leaves is really good and reads well, same with the tree trunks - good job

downside - the blue in the background is a very strong colour, usually at night colour is washed out and generally more grey, a lighter blue/grey would help define the trunks from behind and stop your eye being drawn immediately to that striking blue.

The ground definately looks better in the new edit

[Haddas]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v86/Haddas/Critiscism%20objects/dark_modified.png

I changed some things. Upped the contrast a lot, minor highlight changes

[picazzo]

just a few ideas...

leaves on the ground are too bright. They're of a brighter green than the tree's, and that's wrong, since they're dead leaves.

A nice trick to enhance the picture, would be to add shadows, mushrooms and rougher terrain near the bottom of the trees. IMHO.

[Problem]

Thank you, you've got some good ideas.
I won't make another edit, as this thing was just a practise background. Instead I'll try to draw some similar bg's that look more natural.

Goél: Your idea is good, but i think the leaves are too big compared to the trees, and too bright.

[BlackMan890]

no problem i added the leaves as another layer, andd i must have set the Layer Stettings somehow wrong just to give you an idea of how it can look like (also those leaves weren't handdrawn, it is included in Paint Shop Pro (it's a tool that paints objects ))