I suck at trees, and I suck at outdoors, so here's my attempt at both!

[Technocrat]

Having had a little more practice, I'm taking another stab at outdoor scenes. Namely, this balcony poking out from the side of a skyskraper (it's supposed to be curved, no need to worry about that).



What I'm most concerned about it trying to give the impression of the sheer height above ground of this balcony. I decided to make the ground dark because it's sunset, but also because every attempt I make at lit roads looks like crap.

My thanks in advance!

[Big GC]

Im with you on drawing backgrounds ATM.
So my advice would prob be shite, but to show the extreme height I would drop your horizon line way lower so that the distant background was predominantly sky

[ThreeOhFour]

Another way of showing great height is to show other things off in the distance and make them quite small.

With regards to the tree, I find it a little odd that it gets thicker further away from the roots (this is the opposite of how I draw trees) and for such a wide set of branches I would also usually draw a wider set of roots. With trees I generally try to make sure that the wider the branches are, the wider I show roots to indicate that the tree can support this weight (particularly when the weight is not balanced symmetrically, as is the case with this tree).

I did a quick sketch:



Other than this, nice background!

[Calin Leafshade]

My comment on the BG would really be with the colours used.

It's a pink/red sunset and yet the grass is pure green and the metally/stoney bit is pure grey?

There doesnt seem to be a secondary lightsource to offset the effects of the sun so those areas should really be heavily coloured.

paintover:

[Iliya]

My comment on the BG would really be with the colours used...

Completely agree with Calin. This makes the scene more authentic.

[Dualnames]

Wayy too red on Calin's thingie. A better mapping of the lightsource taking Calin's valid point of some red would be the way to go. I really like it Technocrat!

[abstauber]

Sorry, no paintover to offer

If you want to create the illusion of height:

- add more elements as a measure (like the distant buildings, Ben added)
- use reflecting materials like glass and metal
- add more skyscrapers of the same type and use them as a guide for the viewer
- the shoreline/sky can still be shown as a reflection on the other buildings
- 3 point bird's eye view perspective
- at dawn, shadows are very long
- set point of view from a different balcony in the foreground

Hope this helps

[Monsieur OUXX]

I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY like the background.
Like those tones, like those shadings.

[Ilyich]

Few things to consider:
- Since the air is not completely transparent, the contrast of the objects always changes according to their distance from the viewer. Things that are close to us have a high contrast, and things on the horizon appear almost flat and monotone.
- Relation between light and shadows is one of the key elements of any outdoor scene. Get it right - and you get the mood right.

And an edit to illustrate these points:


Hope this helps. It's a really nice background, good luck!

[Technocrat]

Wow, so much good advice! Especially for the height things! And I wouldn't have thought to use the red tinge originally myself, I'll give that a go too.

Looks like Episode 2 is going to look shinier!

[BatWitch]

It looks like you have a lot of good advice already.

the only thing that really bothered me was how bright green the grass was (as if it was in a sunny cloudless day) despite the setting sun.



And a few other things... I wonder if it's noticeable.

[Ali]

Try using aerial perspective (a faint blue wash on more distant areas) to create separation between the foreground balcony and the landscape.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I haven't seen anyone commenting on this, so am I the only one who thinks the leaves on that tree make it look like it's a poor jpg cutout that you see from inexperienced photo editing; usually from a kid?

I realize it's supposed to be one of those trees with the little pink leaves, but it's definitely throwing my brain for a trip. I'd like to say ditch the leaves and just go for branches, mostly because I wouldn't know how to get those leaves to look good.

And yes, definitely some depth as ben has shown just to make it look like it's not 2 feet above the grass, unless it is.

[Sughly]

I noticed a bit of a perspective thing going on in terms of not being able to properly show the height of the balcony in respect to the background. To me it seems like the players perspective on the balcony is quite straight on, making the balcony width appear thinner. The background however seems like there's a higher top down perspective going on. I'm not sure if this picture helps outline what I mean...



What I think helps (and excuse my reaaaally bad cloning efforts! Just looking for perspective here), I took the horizon and dropped it to the lower third, and then took the outline of the shore and just squashed it down, keeping with the more front on perspective of the bacony...



Looking at that now actually the horizon could be dropped even more. The more it's dropped and more that shoreline is 'squashed', the higher up I think the balcony will appear...

As for the leaves, I think Ryan Timothy is right, but I'm no good at this kind of pixel art and would not be brave enough to try anything myself. I would suggest drawing thicker leaves though, because it seems to be a static juble rather than anything solid there. Again, I'm no good at this kind of drawing though, so could be wrong on that one 

[InCreator]

* make branches A LOT thinner.
* leaves don't grow on tree trunk. Some of the branches are almost as thick as trunk! I don't think those would have leaves on it.
* Make more leaves, and a bit larger leaves
* Make leaf(blossom?) brunches fatter
* Try to reposition center of gravity on a tree back to a bit more believable position (redraw tree to be more upright). Trees are supported by roots and might be like this without falling over, but I find current one still a bit extreme

Otherwise, I like!

[Tuomas]

About the tree a bit. I assume it's a cherry tree because of the leaves. It's rather easy to google a few sample pictures of such trees and notice, that the trunk is rather thing and straight in comparison to the branch-area. I'd expect the tree to be rather small and thin, especially when it's not on ground but standing in an artificial garden with few land under it. The left side irritates my eyes, the branches are just too thick.

[Iliya]

Thats why I chose to make a sci-fi game, because when your game is sci-fi you don't have to explain why the trunk is small, and why the leaves a bigger

This is not a cherry tree, this is kushka-kushka tree

[theo]

well. lol. I just realized you've already finished this picture. Oh well, don't hate me now but I just totally tore your old image apart.  :



I started making a paint-over with some simple points I wanted you to have a look at but somewhere in the process I forgot I was working on someone else's image and just kept on experimenting, thus I'm afraid I may have strayed faaaaar from your original concept. Also, sorry for the smudginess, I painted it on your lowres canvas and doubled its scale now for showing purposes.

A quick rundown of what major points I have addressed:

* There was no depth, I added fog.
* Lighting was not coherent, I repainted it, all the time thinking about my main and ambient light sources.
* Ground was boring, I added city lights to get scale into the scene as well as a secondary light source.
* The windows reflected a color that by no means seemed to exist in your sky. I repainted them to reflect the sky.
* Compositionally your bent building and tree were both causing a mess, I repainted them to get better flow.
* The whole composition felt awkwardly flat. I skewed everything into perspective to make it more dynamic.

Again, I realize this was taken a bit too far here, but perhaps some of the points and how I have addressed them will teach you or someone around here something. Thanks for making me sit down and paint for a couple of hours. I needed that.  

Very much looking forward to part two of technobabylon. Best of luck!

[Chicky]

Theo, you nutter! How is that supposed to help him? 

[Calin Leafshade]

Best paintover ever.