WiP - The Murder of the Unicorn (updated with new version)

[Andail]

This is a picture I've been working on every now and then during the last months. In periods I've been completely sick of it, then returned to it with renewed energy, well you know the routine. I'm not used to projects this big, as I'm typically happy with speedpainting for an hour or two, so this has been a massive workload for me. Spent hours and hours looking for references, and finding far too few I've been happy with. Re-done parts, erased parts, moved parts, etc etc.

This is a slightly reduced version; the original is over 1200 pixels high.


It's still far from finished, as you can maybe see; at least three of the characters aren't done at all (the little fairy is half-done so far...), there are things to polish basically everywhere in the picture.
The lighting, brightness and contrast are not adjusted, so there will plenty of areas with different contrast and intensity, and shading is not coherent throughout the piece.
The "magic" effect also needs plenty of work.

Basically the piece is depicting a storyteller reading a book that suddenly projects an image of what happens in the tale. The tale is about a unicorn being murdered.

I've stared myself completely blind at this, so there might be some flagrant errors that you can tell me about. C&C appreciated.

[Darth Mandarb]

I really like where this is headed!  This is, by far, my favorite of your works that I've seen!

The lighting effect, while maybe not 100% accurate, is very well achieved.

The magic effect is pretty nice as-is so any improvements will just be icing on the cake!

The elf kind of looks like you (the christmas elf-boy) was that intentional?

[passer-by]

I find all of it amazing but the white parts of the cloud in the middle of the painting. It seems  like something concrete, is it intentional? I would expect something more "dreamy" and less defined. Apart from that, I like it.

[S]

This is a really great-looking image. Very evocative, in that it seems to be part of (sevral) bigger tales with lots of interesting characters, etc. I have a couple of niggles:
-I agree that the magic effect needs some work. It makes little sense that it appears to be smoke, seeing as it comes out of a book. Something more whirly with little stars and sparkles.
-The elf on the right seems to stare off into space rather than into the book.
-The bloke about to murder the poor unicorn looks a wee bit too much like Conan.
-The picture features a unicorn. Unicorns are girly.

This one's going to turn out great! Keep up the good work and spend as long as you like. Post it again when it's at that "it's really finished but I keep making small adjustments stage"

[Matti]

Great image, Andail. Great atmosphere and immersion. Only thing a bit weird is that the guy to the left seems to be the only one who is surprised by the magic effect, while the others are calmly looking at the book. But that's perhaps just his character.

-The elf on the right seems to stare off into space rather than into the book.

Well it seems the elf is looking at the "magic smoke" comin out of the book which is okay I think.

[loominous]

Cool idea!

I really like the lower half (that storyteller reminds me of dr Snuggles - a big plus in my book) but I'm not crazy about the upper one.

In my crusade for low and close camera angle awareness, I quickly sketched up an alternate version, not because I think it fits better (really, I'm not saying it does -  I like the feel the higher angles give in the current one), but to illustrate what they can bring:

I should also say that I tried to accentuate some stuff that didn't read well (at least to me):

- That it was a unicorn. The contrast was on his unexciting back, which made me skip the rest of the animal, just assuming it was a horse, since the horn is sort of hidden in the values. The contrast in that uninteresting spot actually made me skip most of the upper image, and made me stay in the lower part which provided much more interesting stuff to look at.

- Same went for the knife, which I also missed, due to lack of contrast, which made me think that it was just a guy standing there, another thing that made me skip the upper part.

(I should add, I'm not very good at reading stuff, so take my impressions as a sort of worst case scenario. Or rather, I'm easily bored when it comes to art, so if I'm not lead into an interesting part of an image, I'll just move along assuming a bunch of stuff)



So here is the outline sketch. I gave the lower part an oval composition, and had the walls form lines going toward the center of this.

In the upper part I went close n low on the assassin, to:

I) Give it more depth. In the current version things are rather flat, with a very limited proportional distance between the horse n man.

II) Make it more dynamic, created by the difference in size n closeness, along with the diagonal the low angle form.

III) Makes it easier to read his face/pose, and perhaps more importantly, his knife (though it being at the edge of the image isn't ideal. Perhaps make him left handed).

IV) Give it more of a threatening look. The assassin now looks very large in comparison, and since we're looking up on him, he's made more threatening, and him looking "down" on the unicorn adds to this.


Some other stuff:

One boring thing in the original was that we had this unexciting profile view of the unicorn. In the edit I've rotated him more towards us, and bent his head a bit more to:

I) Make him more dynamic

II) Make him even more innocent/victim like, with a bent head almost ready for an attack.


Here's the edit with quick/ugly values, with exaggerated focus (pretty much lacking middle values, making it darker and harsher (the less friendly atmosphere it brings somewhat fits the upper part, but not the lower)):



And animated for comparison:



So what I tried to do with the values is to create focus on the parts that I thought mattered. In the upper one being:

I) The unicorn, and especially the horn. Beside making him bright, I placed it against a darker area, to really pop, including his horn.

II) The assassin, and his blade.

In the lower one I focused the values around the lower oval, giving the background relatively little light, and thus minor focus. As I mentioned, I prefer the friendly tone of your lower part, but prefer this focus. The foreground characters in the original shared a bit too many tones/colours with the background in my opinion, making the focus suffer a bit.

Some other stuff:

The upper one now has a clear split in values, the left side being in darkness, hopefully adding to the foreboding feeling, and generally making the composition more interesting.

-

Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm not saying that the lower/closer angles work better, just wanted to show how they can affect the look. I think a mix of the two might be best in this case, where the lower one would keep the current angle, adding a sort of logic to the perspective, where we're looking up towards the upper part, and down on the lower part.

Oh, and I haven't considered stuff like cropping n placement that the new angles calls for. Just made as small modifications as necessary.


I agree with Darth that it's the best one I've seen from you so far, so well done!

Edit: spelling

[markbilly]

I agree wholeheartedly with loominous, however I think it would be possible to change the 'camera angle' of the top half, without altering the bottom half. I think getting the top changed is important, as this is will - like loominous has said - convey some of the themes about the assassin and the unicorn better...

I thought this would lighten your work load a little, as you have obviously spend countless hours on it already!

[InCreator]

I do not agree with loominous. Partly.

First-

It's good idea to "zoom" on storyteller/readers. They look not important enough and I kind of missed them in first view. Like, what, there's some people there? Move on. But main point of the image is telling a story. So they could be more in focus and larger. Considering the detail and amount of time/effort you put into them, you probably hate people suggesting something like this. But that's simply a "good idea" and not anything critical to fix.

But-

I don't like the idea of zooming in on the hunter. Right now, tiny and hidden in a shadow, leaning against giant tree and looking at much bigger unicorn, it's kind of harmonic, expressing his stealth and that tiny knife and beast atleast his own size and so on. There's a battle coming, and
I find that the "feeling" works very well. Man against something mystical and nature and ... well, emotions can't be described very well. But it should be quite simple to replicate what I feel reading my text.

Or let's try opposite side of this. Right now, the man and the unicorn seem equal opponents, or since unicorn blends with surrounding nature (being more part of it than man is), man is facing something great. But when man is larger, closer, and there's less of this gigantic tree seen, how do I put this?
Simply, I see a big bastard trying to hurt a little unicorn. With a big knife.
To hell with 3D-perception and realism. Man closer = man bigger. This is still first emotion that comes. This changes overall feeling alot. So I disagree with bigger hunter idea. It's fairy-taleish image right now. Zooming would ruin it, for me atleast.

For crits, I suggest much heavier contrast for bottom part of the image, make room darker (and also dark-shaded parts of people) to give book a bit more "power". Also, it would make window light more interesting, and you need this, because your shadows on window look really cool, and to be honest, IMO much more realistic than anything else on bottom part.

Also, upper part of image is still kind of boring. I mean, man and beast are a bit too detailed compared to everything else. Also, it - heh - looks like unicorn is licking some green goo and not eating grass. To improve this, well, make some grass.

Is that... a river? then seriously cut down on bumps. Water tends to be straight and reflect stuff. High contrasts are good, but this also means less interpolation between colors. I mean, less shading, light spots are light and dark ones dark. There's nothing or very little between. If it IS a river, that is.

I find window and flower -- strange, eh -- the best parts of this image. Both seem to be unimportant, but add alot of feeling to the both parts of the image. I like it.

Overall, I find this image fantastic, and no word of mine contained anything negative behind it. I really love art like this, and it's excellent even as it is (minus unfinished man and ?cow).

EDIT: I got wondering, do I really see a cow on the lower right?

[loominous]

I do not agree with loominous.

As I've merely presented an alternative which I haven't really endorsed, I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with.

I quickly sketched up an alternate version, not because I think it fits better (really, I'm not saying it does -  I like the feel the higher angles give in the current one), but to illustrate what they can bring

-

I had planned on doing a value/colour comment like this in the bb workshop thread, but the opportunity never arose, so I might as well do it here:



Not sure if putting citation marks around 'Bad' acts as enough of a disclaimer that this isn't a rule, just something that makes stuff look more "movie"/fantasy/(Rembrandt portrait) like.

The idea is to sort of selectively emulate fog, which tends to add atmosphere, and to also get rid of unwarranted contrast in areas that just doesn't make sense, or is rarely considered attractive.

What makes fog attractive (one presumes) is that it gets rid of sharp contrast (value and colour wise), and creates hazy highlights, which together gives a dreamy feel. I haven't added any real haze in this version, and it can easily look a bit cheap (college soft photo cheap).

Anyway, since we don't want to actually add fog, which would look weird in most situations, we selectively add the effect of fog to areas that we want to wash out, that would otherwise just steal focus from the important bits.



An animated version for comparison:


Larger size

In this edit, which shouldn't be seen as a representative of the idea, as it was quickly and cheaply done, illustrates it to some degree.

What I did was to lower the contrast and darken all the areas that:

I) Were in shadow
II) Don't feel important

It also features the fog effect on colour, as the contrast has been reduced also there, making the colours more homogeneous:



To be fair, fog wouldn't actually produce those colours - it's more as if fog had desaturated the local colours, and the sunlight/book light had then created some kind of a hazy overlay.

-

It's worth noting that while the edit may look a bit monotone and boring in comparison to the original, it's mostly due to the comparison itself. We're used to this kind of monochromatic look from movies, which in their context looks normal, but not in comparison with normal colours:


(screens from The Brothers Grimm)

The colours in these are simply designed, and the original footage most likely had ordinary colours. It's this treatment (called 'colour grading') that makes stuff look movie like, and is what often seperate amateur looking paintings/3D/footage from "pro".

Should say that not all movies go this far in their treatment of course, and it all depends on the atmosphere that the director want to create.

-

One odd thing when we lower the contrast like this, is that we're actually increasing the overall sense of contrast:



I think this is a critical thing that is often overlooked. Many try to achieve high contrast by increasing the overall contrast, which just create the kind of effect depicted in the upper part. This usually results in a harsh unattractive look.

Edit: Added a link to a larger version of the comparison image

[InCreator]

Loominous edit - as we could expect from best lighting/shadow expert at AGS Critics Lounge AFAIK - looks very realistic to me.

But maybe too realistic, though. Like those newer 3D shooters, where everything is either yellow of blue... and it's a bless to play a game with real colors after those...

I personally prefer colorful, magical look that original had.

[loominous]

But maybe too realistic, though. Like those newer 3D shooters, where everything is either yellow of blue... and it's a bless to play a game with real colors after those...

I personally prefer colorful, magical look that original had.

I guess it's inevitable that people connect the kind of colour treatment I mentioned to examples like GRAW (the game in that screenshot), which indeed quickly become monotonous.

But it can really be very colourful, which is the reason why I mentioned that my treatment was quick n crude. Just adding an overlay effect isn't enough to make the colours interesting, which is pretty much what I did.

The point is rather to create a careful uniformity, which takes a bit of work, and can be very diverse looking.

Gonna write up something about that when we reach the next stage in the BB.

[Andail]

Thanks a lot for your opinions, it's worth a lot in this stage when things are only half-done. Will change the elf's eyes, the misty magic effect and various other details for next update.

Loomy, great points. As I said, the values and shading and everything is pretty unbalanced and inconsistent right now.
Especially the forest part in your version is vastly superior to mine, and I'll certainly aim for a less saturated, less contrasted, more misty look.
I get what you're saying about perspective, and I was expecting you to come here and talk about more radical viewpoints and lower perspective But I'm more or less happy with how the perspective is now, not because it's got an optimal presence and drama going on, but because it's a more laidback, descriptive image I'm going
for.

EDIT: Quite major revamp. Check first post. Two characters still unfinished. I think the forest is now nearly finished, don't know if I can improve it at this point without having to re-paint too large parts of it.

So...c&c needed

[Andail]

So, in case anyone's interested, here's the final version over at cgtalk:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=133=654220

Cheerio

[gypsysnail]

Hey Andail, I LOVE that piece of work. Its one of the most beautiful artworks I have seen on this forum. I noticed that you said you did it in photoshop with a tablet. I would like to know more about the tablet - what brand is the tablet? I am asking about the brand because I have heard only some brands work best with photoshop while others dont. I have one but it doesnt do a good job. Also around how much would the tablet be? Another question is, because I am not yet experienced with the use of tablets, can all colouring and effects be done using the tablet? I just feel a tablet would give me the desired style that I am after for one of my upcoming games. Let me know more about this tablet. And once again GREAT work Andail!

[Andail]

Thank you, Gypsysnail

I'm still using my old - and slightly worn - Trust 6x8 inch tablet. I'd buy a smaller Wacom one but haven't got around to do it yet. If you're on a really tight budget I'd totally recommend Trust, but I've had some various compability issues with different computers, and sometimes I've had to download drivers in a special order, or install them and restart in a special order, etc, before everything works properly (pressure sensitivity etc).

The tablet pen is used in basically all situations except if you would draw up alot of straight lines or something else not necessitating free-hand drawing. Typically, you'd have the mouse nearby and swap between them like a hairdresser swaps between the scissors and the comb; in a very quick almost subconcious gesture.

I still work only in PS because I simply know it better, but I intend to learn Painter one day since I think it can emulate different media better (oil, watercolour, etc) which can really help when putting paint on large surfaces.

The general idea when working with a pen tablet is to start out with large (often assymetric) brushes with low opacity, then work your way to more details by decreasing brush sizes and increasing their opacity.
Good luck and be sure to show your results!

[gypsysnail]

Hey there, thanks for the really good advice. I will look up Trust tablet on the net. Wacom I've heard of that one, thats more expensive but more compatible with most systems? I have the newest system, hopefully Trust wont have compatibility issues with it. My pc is a dual quad and win xp on it. Yes freehand style is what I was wanting to do for my images. Thanks also for the heads up on Painter, I might give this one a go too, always willing to try new things to develop my style. Definitely will keep you all in the know and posted on my progress.