I did this background for the last background blitz and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions of how to improve it.
I tried to give the whole thing a victorian, industrialist vibe with the active area being the platform next to the train.
any and all help is appreciated
(http://i.imgur.com/nQms5.png)
Sorry, but I can't help. :P
But I want to say:
I love your technique and how you did the light reflections. :D
If it would be possible to animate the steam - this would be great.
The main problem here, as I see it, is that the perspective foreshortening on the floor tiles is almost non-existent (or even reversed). It kinda looks good like that, it gives the picture more of an individual style, but if you want to render it slightly more realistically, then you need to doo something like this (it's a bit messy, but I hope you'll get my point)
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1146652/sookie_train.jpg)
Other than that - it's a great atmospheric background, and the victorian vibe is there aplenty. :)
No crits really, it looks really nice.
- hope you have that steam drawn in a separate layer, cause i'td look weird if it just stands still
- don't know how suitable (or rather how usable) it is for a background, the perspective is really pronounced so all I see is: you can come into scene from the left, talk to the engine driver, go into the phone booth or go down the platform into another scene, that's about it, if this is fine by you and what you need, then ok
- while this lighitng is atmospheric, you might want to put more lights in the scene (don't have to be lightsources per say, just add a bit more detail, like on the far rgiht and far left parts of the picture), this is just a suggestion, not really necessary
If the others hadn't said "steam", I wouldn't have known what that was. To me I see a giant black spot on the front of the engine followed by some weird marbling effect that, like was mentioned, when standing still looks a bit weird. Also even though it's really dark, I can kind of see that part of the train's front edge slants from top to bottom, which doesn't look correct. That dark spot in the front really confuses me though, why is it getting some light and then all of a sudden there's a giant black spot?