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Think in the end it doesn't matter what route you take when drawing/painting, as long as you keep at it. Reference routes tend to give you a good insight into details, while keeping you back in areas such as volume, which is the basis for other areas such as lighting/shading.

One risk you run when taking the reference route is that you and your "audience", such as friends, get used to a relatively very high quality in this stage, which can make reference free attempts discouraging, as they seem very inferior in comparison, and you end up sort of stuck in a constraining reference mode.

I think it's like learning another language: in the reference route you start without any real grammar insight, merely copying phrases. After a couple of years you'll be able to converse quite well, and you know all the local phrases and expressions, but you'll still probably commit quite basic grammar errors and will have trouble formulating more complex sentences.

The construction route is quite opposite, where you focus on the grammar and develop a solid foundation, but your conversations get quite stiff, and you'll lack the local flavor.

Course, there's nothing that says that you have to stick to any of the extremes, and most follow a course along the middle, which seems reasonable.

Anyway, looks nice!

Tremble before the badger patrol!

Mr Matti:

Sure, we can't know what would've occurred without christianity: perhaps a secular utopia, perhaps a social darwinistic nightmare.  All we know is that we're currently adopting the same absolute that was introduced to our culture by a christian figure, and that while we currently hold it as self evident, there's little self evident about it.

Khris:

Not sure if you're still stuck in science vs religion mode, but what I wrote about involved the moral idea that "All humans are equal". While it may sound trite to us in this day and age, it's still a radical one and has made its way to us through our christian tradition.

I have plenty of beefs with christianity, but I think we should give credit where credit's due, and as far as I know, we owe this radical idea, adopted and cultivated later on by secular movements, to christianity.

I don't see how it's by any means a natural idea, though it would be really nice if it was/is.

Having faith that a secular culture would've developed the idea without a similar religious tradition seems a bit optimistic in my view, but as we don't have any purely secular cultures to compare with, I guess we're stuck with speculation.

I think atheists/agnostics tend to underestimate the importance of the christian tradition that has lead us up to our current western civilization. In a way it's akin to grandchildren bashing the dated ideas of grandparents, forgetting that they're part of the same evolving idea tradition.

The main quite radical contribution of christianity in my opinion is the concept of everyone having been created equal. There are of course passages about women being subordinated that muddies the waters, but it's a strikingly modern view in any case.

I personally fear that we wouldn't have adopted this view in a purely secular tradition, or that at least it would've taken quite a bit longer.

And frankly there's no guarantee it would've or will prevail in a purely secular society, which makes religious moral absolutes like these quite handy, though other nonsensical ideas and the blind faith mentality brings along other severe problems.

The odd thing is that seculars have started to outperform christians in their own game in many respects. If you would have an objective observer judge what group most embodies caring for the poor and shunned of today (with the one exception of fetuses, though it's a kind of gray area), it would most likely be the left, famously secular.

I think this is a real shame, and a serious problem for christianity, which undermines its legitimacy and detracts followers.

I would welcome a sort of radical religious section of society, which truly embodied empathy, could go as far as to be vegans, which would act as a moral extreme, kind of like green parties, to keep secularism from heading off in wrong directions.

Otherwise, the left to me is doing a heck of a better job of being the movement of the poor and ostracized.

The pendulum of democracy, made up of government involvement in society and economy swings from totally free no involvement to inevitable socialism.

So here is the question.  At what point is there too much governmental action and is it even possible for it to reverse without some type of actual revolt, as opposed to the civilized revolts we have in the form of election?'

While the pendulum has a great span, the swings tend to decrease into smaller motions over time, and frankly the current swing in the US feels rather minor in the grander scheme of things, though the right-wing media's hyperbolic reaction makes it seem like a big deal. Obama's victory seems like purely a swing back from Bush, and since W pushed things quite far, the counter movement will be a bit bigger than usual.

At the core of the current, if you will, paranoia, seems to be the idea that once the government seize power in an area (in this case health care), this area is now lost, barring a grand revolt.

I guess it might be due to inexperience in governmental involvement, and a general slippery slope mentality, but if you look at europe, things go back n forth between privatization and governmentalization. Just because the government is controlling or is active in an area doesn't mean it can't be privatized without any fuss. We're balancing, cautious creatures, but also equipped with a crave for new things to stimulate, and will grow tired of ruling parties and ideas, and off the pendulum goes again.

While I think insults are inappropriate, and everyone in a debate deserves respect as a person, unfounded speculation, no matter how dear to someone's heart, doesn't deserve any.

I do not consider my beliefs to be speculation in any way.  I have had many experiences that affirm my belief in Christ.  It is not unfounded for me to believe what has been confirmed through my experiences.  Although I admit it would be unfounded for you, once again though, this is anecdotal evidence which seems like it isn't wanted here.  So all I can say is that I believe and have faith.

Fair enough. What reason would you give to an unattached observer for believing in your faith? I see Bush saying that god told him to go to Iraq, while Al Quaeda members are being instructed by god to kill as many americans as possible. Palestinian suicide bombers sure seem extremely convinced of their god's presence and will, perhaps even more so than christians. Should I take this as proof that Islam may be the way to go?

There seems to be a few options: either it's the same god, and it doesn't matter which one I worship, though it would be pretty puzzling, as it makes one wonder why it brought different teachings to different people, and why these scriptures encourages conversions, which usually turn out to be bloody affairs, as it's the same god.

Or perhaps just one of them is correct, which beckons the question, which one is the right one, as all of them have devout followers totally convinced of their belief's validity, having witnessed miracles, visions, conversations etc, much like yourself.

Or it might turn out that god is an absent being without any interest in us or our affairs, which makes what rules we live by our own matter.

Or, of course, it might be that there is no god, which makes our situation quite identical to the former.

One reason often given for faith is that it brings happiness. But if you take the example of gays, if I become a christian or muslim, wouldn't my potential happiness be at the expense of their lives? Or people who could've been saved by stem cell research? Or the entire planet if devout followers eager to bring on the final days with a massive holy war in the middle east days get their wish? And wouldn't I just be wrapping myself in a security blanket instead of dealing with the absurdity of our existence?

It's been a while since I read the bible, but I don't ever recall there being any arguments, just commandments. And why should there be; god demands that we follow instructions blindly, as a sign of true faith, and not go around asking for reasons.

The commandments were given in the old testament first to Israel and they were to be followed out of faith.  But in the gospels particularly Matthew Jesus explains why to follow all of the commandments.

Could you give a representative example of these arguments? I don't recall hearing any in sermons, but it was quite a while ago. And didn't Jesus tell us to consider god a shepherd, we being the sheep blindly following him?

(Btw, my use of the word 'commandments' might've been inappropriate, as I wasn't referring to the ten commandments, just commandments in general.)

Edit: Spelling

I faintly recall Jesus saying something along the lines of: "Prepared to be mocked for your beliefs" to his disciples. While it feels insulting to say so, there's still a point in that advice, because religious people need to realize just how extremely outlandish all these claims are outside their community, particularly when you have another equally convinced religious guy next to you claiming that he knows that his god, The True God, thinks something else.

I wouldn't say that it is insulting in the least.  I have been mocked many times for my beliefs but that's what I've signed up for and I will not hold a grudge against anybody who insults me, I'll just keep trying.  

That's a very humble and nice attitude. As religions become dominant, they tend to lose perspective of the very wobbly foundation on which their speculations rest. While I think insults are inappropriate, and everyone in a debate deserves respect as a person, unfounded speculation, no matter how dear to someone's heart, doesn't deserve any.

Because people of true faith, like some gents in this thread have explained nicely, don't look for arguments in their holy scriptures. Something is right because god says so, not because of argument X, Y and Z found in verse A, B, C, which makes a debate pointless, and strapping on some explosives all too easy.

I'm confused by what your saying here.  Sorry.  Are you saying that people aren't using scripture to back up their arguments because I'm trying to use scripture as well as reason.

I think the confusion might be due different views on what we consider valid arguments. While an argument like: "Stealing is wrong because God says so in verse X, Y, Z", probably seems fine if you believe that the bible is the holy words of god, for everyone else it has the same weight as: "Stealing is wrong because my mom said so yesterday".

It's been a while since I read the bible, but I don't ever recall there being any arguments, just commandments. And why should there be; god demands that we follow instructions blindly, as a sign of true faith, and not go around asking for reasons.

Edit: Spelling

I personally find faith healing a harmless placebo cure which probably works well on people of strong faith, just like homeopathy. If it works for you where medicine has failed, that's great. If it makes you refrain from taking prescribed medicine and ends up killing you, then that's less great. I recall going to confession when I was a kid (a catholic ritual), and feeling a distinct ease of mind when I left, which you can explain however way you like.

Anyway, if someone wants to fill the gap of the origin of the universe with a non-physical being working outside the laws of physics, then fine, you're free to speculate, and it might turn out to be true in the end. It's like speculating whether there are aliens in the universe; it sounds plausible, might not turn out to be true, but at the end of the day it doesn't affect your every day life and actions.

It's a completely different matter, however, to claim to know the personal beliefs and wishes of this being. If you think god hates gays, or that we should stone adulterers, and demand that we conform our laws accordingly, then kindly show some proof that your particular god exist and has this wish, or get out of the debate.

Because people of true faith, like some gents in this thread have explained nicely, don't look for or arguments in their holy scriptures. Something is right because god says so, not because of argument X, Y and Z found in verse A, B, C, which makes a debate pointless, and strapping on some explosives all too easy.

That said, I know plenty of religious people and of course very few are this dogmatic, and look at the bible more as a guide to be interpreted, and the bright ones I know sound similar to Professor Coyne in the interview RickJ posted earlier leaning towards a kind of deism of many great past thinkers.

I faintly recall Jesus saying something along the lines of: "Prepared to be mocked for your beliefs" to his disciples. While it feels insulting to say so, there's still a point in that advice, because religious people need to realize just how extremely outlandish all these claims are outside their community, particularly when you have another equally convinced religious guy next to you claiming that he knows that his god, The True God, thinks something else.

[EdLoen]

Alrighty!

Nice to see a good amount of entries, and very nice ones at that!

To select the next host I generated a random number, which fell on EdLoen.

(In case Ed can't host I did a backup generation which fell on FruitTree, so I hope he can step in if need be).

Nice round!

Cool house!

Problems with mixing light source colours, such as yellow in this case, often occur when the area's colour is changed while the value remains fairly intact, and you end up with these somewhat icky blends. This is one reason to give the light sources more punch, but that on the other hand has unfortunate side effects of its own, such as killing certain moods, so it all boils down to style choices. With your impressive sketching rate I'm sure you'll find a light setup that provides focus and keeps the nice mood soon enough.

A lighting thing to try out is what's called the 'fresnel' effect, which can be seen being turned on n off in this example:



The effect might sound a bit confusing, but the practical application when painting is simple. Basically it states that most objects become more reflective the sharper the angle we view them from. So in case of the spheres below, the outer edges will be reflecting the background more clearly than the "middle" area, which we view more straight on.



So to put it in practice in your latest entry, instead of having the edges of the house be a darker value, almost like an outline, instead brighten them up, particular those regions which reflect the sky (to be accurate, only make the edges lighter if they reflect areas that are lighter than the object - if the background area is darker, then the edges should get darker, as the object is reflecting a dark area, like a mirror reflecting a dark room).

It's one of those little things that help give objects volume and is easy to implement, but which are hard to spot without any guidance. To what degree you want to implement it is again a style choice.

If the above confuses anyone, feel free to ask for any clarifications, and though I'm hardly an expert on the subject, the community's 3d folks can most likely offer greater insights.

Looks great!

Some stronger focus would've been nice, but might've spoiled the mood.

One thing that you could try is to vary the "landscape" a bit, so instead of extending the front content backwards you could have subdivisions, such as a sea and harbor in the back left, or high plateau on the far right with some other stuff. It's not that the current consistency is bad, it's just that such subdivisions would probably create a richer piece, which would hold our interest a bit longer and add some depth to the world.

I've only really had one pet, an ill-tempered fish that I affectionately referred to as 'the fish'.



In his grand adventure series, he fights a world full of conspiracies that only his keen senses are able to detect, confident that any problem can be solved by a punch from one of his trusty fin fists 'Captain Hook' and 'Admiral Knox'.

Nice piece as usual - perhaps a bit bland as Andail mentioned, but still makes me happy to look at.

I think one thing that we sort of expect, and which is emphasized by the missing hand, is something in the upper left area, as we're lead there by several elements, such as the character's arm, head direction and cape thingy, and not finding anything interesting at the spot is probably one of the largest culprits for the blandish impression.

An idea, which would also emphasize the windiness and generally the atmosphere, would be to add lots of airborne objects, such as dandelion seeds, of which a large one (or intact ball) could be passing through her now missing right hand, perhaps landing on it, or being gently embraced, and with the help of some catching light be another focal point (would have to darken the background a bit around that spot to make it pop though).

Another thing is that the tight cropping might be constraining the scene, robbing it of a sort of open, free feeling that seems fitting. Perhaps try extending it horizontally a bit, at least leftwards, and you could have the flying objects sort of form a galaxy like path leading off into the distance. Or something.

Good to see your work again!

Think it works very well! The composition feels dynamic and exciting and should at least seemingly support limited walk depth, though the close area does appear accessible.

I think the booth could use further focus, but could be resolved by lighting up its interior or similar. Designing this focus into the scene is quite important though, so in this case the lamppost could've been made to shine more strongly on the booth, by placement, direction, obstacles or creative shadows. Some more extreme examples, in this case from Dark Wing Duck :







As these are nighttime images, the effect is of course much stronger, but you can be creative with it in daytime as well, either by designing the scene so that everything is in shadow except for the subject, or by simply lighting whatever you want, like in this case:



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Btw, just noticed that your strokes and lighting gives quite a clay like impression - almost feels like looking at a Neverhood background!

Could you add separate high res restrictions, as the theme doesn't call for any particular resolution. 220x220 or similar seems reasonable.

I think the design is more exciting in the new one, but the composition feels quite symmetrical, both horizontally and depthwise, where things are aligned on certain depths, instead in a being spread around, though it might be a necessity in some cases like houses for functionality reasons.

I think the straight on view works quite well, but a small rotation of the middleground would probably make the image more dynamic. The street suggests slight rotation, but the houses seem to be facing the same direction, so perhaps adjusting the house on the right side (rotating it a bit clockwise) might suffice.

As with the landscapes, I think they could use a clearer focal point, where the scene is basically built around an object, and everything is made to support this (in a hopefully natural, not too obvious manner).

Introducing a main lightsource into these sketches early on could be a good way, as the lighting has a huge impact on the composition, and is basically integral to it, and postponing it will leave much of the composition up to chance.

Disney is notorious for their spotlight approach to lighting, where regardless of the conditions, you often basically have a spotlight lighting up the subject, giving it great focus, and many more stylistic styles utilize similar approaches.

How far you want to go in that direction is of course a matter of style and preference but it might be worth trying out a picture with let s say a particularly cool shop that's placed in complete focus due to composition, being placed at the golden ratio, and due to the main light hitting it, and not much else.

But as always, it's looking very nice regardless!

PS. Oh, and one thing: strong tinting can make adding complementary tinted light tougher, where if the sky in this case is quite strongly green, and you want to add red light, you'll have it tougher than if you added for instance cyanish light (which is close in hue). I think it's due a couple of reason, one, with how colour mixes, since you'll be mixing complementary colours that together form grey, so you can get these icky transitions, and if the light isn't strong, and you mix in a bit of the lightsource, you'll end up with greyish light. Secondly, due to the fact that every material works as a more or less muddy mirrors, we expect everything to blend a bit, and having strong contrasting colours seemingly unaffected by eachother can thereby feel weird and fake.

So if you're having trouble making "sunlight" look good, try using somewhat similar colours, so instead of having a blue environment and yellow light, try purple/reddish environments with orange light for instance.

Also, if you want to introduce a strong lightsource, try reducing the overall contrast in the image beforehand. This is due to exposure, where we sort of adjust the contrast depending on the light conditions, where we in a dark room can make out shadow details that we won't be able to see if we introduce a strong lightsource, as the eyes adapt to this new value range, and the old values are squashed together to form basically "black". Low contrast in shadows also helps give a more atmospheric impression, and I tend to overdo it a bit, as I'm a sucker for the gentle effect it creats.

Think the composition and general impression has improved nicely, though it has lost a bit of the naive niceness of the flat style, and would probably require some sprite scaling, which you seem to want to avoid. Could probably rotate the middleground less to reduce this, or try to design scenes where the walk depth is limited due by physical restrictions, such as fences etc.

I think one of the charms of your style is the low value contrast, so I'm not sure introducing strong sunlight would improve them in any way. Knowing how to do it is nice though, if just to discard it once it's been mastered, so it might be worth pursuing for that reason.

It might instead be preferable to introduce a lower intensity light source from behindish, like you've done in other backgrounds, to retain most of the nice low contrast, while simultaneously getting a bit of punch in the values, as well as colour dynamics.

So perhaps scenes with either a standard orange/red sun close to sunrise or sunset, or why not experiment with suns of different colours.

Anyway, looking nice!

[Creed Malay]

Righty then, vote count:

Idea: Tie between Creed Malay and cpage
Atmosphere: cuestaluis
Design: Creed Malay
Composition: cpage
Functionality: cuestaluis
Technique: cuestaluis

Receiver of most votes: cuestaluis, followed by cpage.

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Nice interesting entries everyone, and thanks for the prompt voting!