Future Chronicle - Background - C & C

[What a loser.]

Future Chronicle - Background - C & C[/size]

Created with:

• Photoshop CS (a.ka. Photoshop 8 )
  
• 6 x 4 Inch Tablet
  
• Pencil & Rubber (Concept Sketch)

Summary:
What I tried to accomplish was a sunset feeling, but I fear I don't know what are the right colours to be used. I am also not very happy with the current 'emptyness' I find it a bit hard to draw good looking bushes, some flowers, plants...

Could someone help me with a paint over or a seperate image with some drawn elements to fill this background up and make it look more natural.

Personally I think the hut & tree look really good and I am also very happy with the water. All comments & paint overs are welcome.


Thanks You,
-Alias

[RocketBoy]

I like the style!

I love the way there's a bit of blur to the mountains in the back and then how you use sharp strokes for the foreground elements! Really add depth to the picture.

Comments:
- Try using warmer colors (reds, oranges and yellows for example) to get that sunset feel on the mountains and highlights on the hut and tree.
- Maybe your hut & tree (and doghouse ??) shouldn't be in the center; that way you would leave plenty of room for another element that would fill out the space more naturally (another tree?)

I'll try to do a quick paintover later on!

[What a loser.]

I like the style!

I love the way there's a bit of blur to the mountains in the back and then how you use sharp strokes for the foreground elements! Really add depth to the picture.

Thank you, much apprechiated.

Comments:
- Try using warmer colors (reds, oranges and yellows for example) to get that sunset feel on the mountains and highlights on the hut and tree.
- Maybe your hut & tree (and doghouse ??) shouldn't be in the center; that way you would leave plenty of room for another element that would fill out the space more naturally (another tree?)

- I tried to use some oranges but it didnt come out too well, maybe you could show me in your paint over later.

-I'm not worried about room, the onyl thing I'm worried about is the spce around the hut, I wanted to ad some bushes and vegetation but I cant seem to draw them correctly.

I'll try to do a quick paintover later on!

Thank you, I look forward to it. 

[RocketBoy]

Here is a paintover of what I meant in my previous post.



At sunset, things tends to loose their colors and shift toward reds and oranges. That is why the grass and the mountains are now more monochromatic (in one shade). I added bushes, but really I just took the top of your tree to make those! I think you should keep the same style for any other vegetation you want to put in, except if you have something specific in mind (like reeds maybe?)

Anyhow, this is a JPG version and if you want a PNG (745Kb), let me know, I could probably email it to you.

Hope this helps!

[What a loser.]

Hello, thanks for the pain over, but I just finished my own edit. Tell me what you guys think. Everyone please feel free to post your thoughts, they are all great apprechiated. I added the new sky, a nice glow on the hills, water... etc. And more shading.

[RoboPenguin]

Fantastic job on the origional Alias!
RockeyBoy: Great job on the paintover, gives the pic alot more atmosphere and the foliage makes it less empty.

The tree seems kinda odd to me somehow, as if its a bush stuck to the back of a real tree thats been stripped. Maybe try adding some more branches underneath where the leafy part starts or raising the leafy part to where the branches fork out from.

Also, I think the roof on the little hut is lop-sided. I'm intruiged as to what that could be for though.


Edit:Nice work with your own edit Alias. Again, the pic has more atmosphere. I think it could use some bushes though.

[What a loser.]

Yes, I will add more bushes on my next edit.  Thank you. 

[Fizzii]

Great work Alias! I really like the colours of the sky

A few things I will point out as well:

- Try to avoid using the burn tool - it seems that you've used it on the hut and tree anyway... if you didn't, then make sure that the shadowed areas of the hut and tree are less saturated than the areas in light; because shadowed areas don't have so much light, therefore they can't have so much colour either.
- Since it's low light, there will be some reflected light from the grounds and atmosphere onto the shadowed parts of the tree/houses etc.
- Even though the light source is from behind the mountains, reflections don't reflect flat onto the surface of the water - the water reflects like a mirror, so the reflections should be vertically underneath the real object (eg. tree reflection should be vertically under the tree, and about the same distance from the edge of the water as the real tree is)

- Water should probably be a lot darker, as it is a reflection of the sky.
- The bottom of the hut should be more curved compared to the top of the hut. The only area where the side view of a rounded object would appear straight is when it matches up exactly on the horizon line.
- Grass colours would startÃ,  taking on the colours of the atmosphere. So, there should be some pinks too.
- Tree foliage - I would expect more clumps of foliage, instead of just one mass... there's bits sticking out towards the viewer too, so you'd have to consider that otherwise it looks flat. (try and think 3d). Personally, I find the shape a bit too neat, but that's my opinion

Quick paintover showing some of this:

(Some of the detail got washed out, my bad)
Ã, 
Looking forward to seeing your next edit

[RoboPenguin]

I think you've diffinatly improved the tree foliage Fizzi, it looks alot more realistic. The trunk however, I realy liked before, it looked stylish. Ithink maybe you over-blurred it. :/

Just my honest opinion though.

[InCreator]

I liked the edit, but the hut doesn't look too realistic, so I highlighted/adjusted bri/contrast a little to match sunset more.

[Andail]

This is a very educational thread, seing as the background undergoes huge improvements for every post. Good job, all of you.
A few more points:
* The composition is very naivistic, so to speak, with central objects lined up and isolated. Especially the original version looked like cut out paper models laid on the background.
* The objects need to be more attached to and blended into eachother and the background.
* The gradients on the hut/tree (in the last version) are superfluous. When the lightsource is from behind, the part that we see will turn out pretty flat.
* There is no colour perspective right now. Try lowering the saturation in the background, and add some bright blue to it. Also, mind that in the distance, you'll see less details in the textures.
* Highligts/shadows don't work well. For a more dramatic effect, let them work more together, and be more careful with the highlights.

Edit:
paint-over:


the paint-over is rather sloppy, with rough paintstrokes and little attention to detail. I didn't change the composition, since that would be too big a modification of the background. The only major change is how the hills run behind the tree. In the original versions, the shapes were very similar (peak behind peak behind peak) which was a bit annoying for the eyes).

[Khris]

Absolutely great bg, the paintovers are awesome, too.
But still, the reflection isn't correct.

The water shows too much of the reflection.

Here's a sideview of the scene:


You can see that only the top of the hut should be visible, same goes for the tree.

[Fizzii]

The water shows too much of the reflection.

You can see that only the top of the hut should be visible, same goes for the tree.

heh, good point That does depend on where the horizon (eye level) is though, which I wasn't sure of... if the eye level is above the hut (which it probably is, looking at it again) then another point to make is that the hut should also be a lot more curved in that case to fit the perspective.

Definitely some good points made in this thread :)Ã, 

[What a loser.]

What about my original reflections, do they look better?

[Khris]

Not really, the tree's reflection in the original is wrong.

How much of the hut and tree is seen depends mostly on how steep the ground is.
Try to mentally(?) mirror the hut, tree and ground 3-dimensionally at the waterline.

[Andail]

Khrismuc has a good point, although it strikes me as an exaggeration that only the top of the three would be visible; at least some of the trunk would be visible too.

Alias; your problem with the relfection is that you have drawn it as if it were a shadow cast by the sun, and not a reflection.

[What a loser.]

Geez, I didn't know I was doing so many things wrong.