Messages

Quick Edit (150 kb)

(i) Made the sunset a bit more dramatic, mainly just to let it illuminate the rocks which Mr C adviced and to create more variation (I m guessing this will scroll from left to right?). Just fiddled with 'Blend channels' in PS.

(ii) Made the cloudy area less saturated. The saturated ground didn t really correspond to the sky there, and less saturated colors adds more gloom to it.

Really nice style btw.

Edit: Looking at it again i realise that my desaturation starts a too early. The perspective fooled me.

Edit: On third look, my edit stinks.

I agree about taking some liberties when it comes to lighting to emphasize a mood.

The problem as I see it is that making the image truly believeable, the lighting must make sense. While the ordinary viewer won't probably be able to pinpoint any irregularities, everyone will sense whether a painting feels believable or not.

The light will bounce ofcourse, and since it also seems pretty cloudy there will be pretty much omnilight which will kill most shadows. This creates a problem if you wish to have strong contrasts (which you mentioned that you desire).

If you want contrast you need directional light. The rocks seems to be lit by pretty strong sunshine coming from the left, casting significant shadow (in your version). This sort of light can't simply be redirected/bounced in this manner, if the main light is coming from the back. Bouncing light mainly kills shadows and rarely creates.

My advice was to stick to pick a single light setting. Either sharp sunlight from the left or back, or a cloudy lighting, which would kill the contrast but could add mystique.

This isn't ment as nitpicking. The picture is very wellrendered, but to raise it to another level I think the lighting must be corrected, not for the sake of being realistic, but to improve the general impression.

Shadow edit (100 kb)

The lighting seems a bit confusing to me. The rocks and hillside seems to be lit from the upper left while the tree and some other objects corresponds to the backlight.

I added some sloppy shadows which I think would occur if the lighting is coming from between the back mountains.

Btw, the style is very nice now that the bluriness is gone.

Sloppy edit:



Added shadows. With the lamp as only lightsource, the area not directly lit should be almost pitchblack.

Quick edit (150 kb)

(i) Made the colors less saturated further back in the landscape to add depth.

(ii) Added (ugly) highlight on the tree, since it seems to be lit from the upper left like everything else.

Quick edit (150kb)

(i) Used the "Unsharp Mask" (not familiar with the english name) filter in PS to increase the sharpness.

(ii) Tinkered with the colors using 'Replace color' in PS.

Could you post it as a .mid file so we can tinker with it?

Some modifications:

x1




(i) Altered hairline. Less linear to make it more realistic, and higher to make him appear more cerebral.

(ii) Changed clothes to make him more gentleman like. This would depend on his mission I guess, so if he's infiltrating a ship, yours would be more believeable.

(iii) Raised crotch to make legs longer. Longer legs are more realistic, however if you want to go for a very cartoony style, shorter legs would be preferable.

(iv) Lowered eyelids. This makes him look more wily than sinister, which I think is more characteristic for a spy.

Really nice style btw. Very NES like.

Crap, so it is. Oh well, thanks for the help.

I sometimes hear melodies in my dreams which I in the moment believe that I have written myself, but once I awake realize that I havn't.

Last night, however, the opposite happened. I heard a melody sung and I simply noted it as a traditional psalm or folk song, and payed no attention to it. When I woke up, the melody was still in my head, but by then I couldn't place it and I figured I must have made it up.

I created an arrangement for it that is very different from the one in the dream which was a sacral sounding choir arrangement, and if someone happens to recall it, please tell me from where:

The Music

The Score (.mid file, not configured for listening)

Serious C&C is welcomed as well.

Quick modifications:

x2


(i) Lowered the saturation.

(ii) Tinted the pic to a more cyan/turquoise hue. Just a matter of taste, blueish will make it more MI1 - 2, more cyan/turquoise CMI-EFMI.

(iii) Added shadows to give more depth and make the lighting more interesting. The tree was very 2D, with only shadows and highlights on the edges.

(iv) Added a gradiant in the sky, making the upper part darker (skys tend to be lightest at the horizon).

(v) Added reflection in water.

i'd go with the old contrast... you shouldn't listen to people who only can say "CONTRAST" as C&C

Most beginners pic's have too low contrast, so if the comment keeps popping up, it s because it s a common fault. (not calling DC a beginner of course, since he s obviously very skilled.)

It is important to always lower the saturation once the contrast has been upped though, otherwise the colors will bleed.

Btw, your style s most excellent.

Glad I could help.

Some modifications:



(i) Added a backlight to make the lighting more interesting and to give a contour to the man, who blended in too much with the background.

(ii) Removed all bluriness. Working with larger brushes with softened edges usually yields ugly results imo. It's preferable to work with larger, fairly sharpedged brushes on lower opacity levels to give an organic and "painted" feel.

(iii) Added gradients by hand on all singlecolor parts to remove flat unorganic looks.

(iv) Expanded the right rock to create contrast at the bug.

(v) Modified some head features, most significantly his jaw and chin and ear (which I moved further back), but also eyes and, facial shadow and forehead.

(vi) Changed skintone

(vii) Modified bugwings. Made the reflexions less spherical and more linear (spherical reflections don t occur to my knowledge on these kind of surfaces).

(vii) lowered the saturation.

(viii) Added yellow to the green surrounding. Doing this seems to give a more realistic result, however I m not sure if it s actually realistic (I never paint outdoor themes so I have no knowledge or experience in these matters).

(viii) Some things that I ve forgotten.

Excellent book on the subject; free and available for download:

http://www.saveloomis.org/fun/fun.htm

His face looks a bit mr Bean-ish, and very unrelaxed. His pectoral muscles are is very flat, although I might have overdone his muscularity at the shoulders n back in my edit:



x2

Essebs suggestion does incorperate most of what I had in mind without the hazzle of founding a new lounge, so for what s it s worth, I m in favour of the approach.

Minor idea, perhaps impractical, would be to include some sort of disclaimer link or text in those posts, at least during the first period, so the moderators would have less work cleansing them.

Example:

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: Serious critique only (<- link to a [sticky?] post explaining the 'serious critique only' concept)

[Rest of post]

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Would also be nice if people would include whether they will take offense to any editing of their work or not, since some consider this an intrusion while others thinks of it as a great help.

Some modifications of the latest one (130 kb)

(i) Raised the blacklevel (in PS: levels/dragged the left arrow rightwards).

(ii) Made some modifications in the face (cheek, nose, mouth, eyes), the most significant being the eyes imo which looked "dead" (added eyelashes and iris).

(iii) Modified the upper hair somewhat

I was stunned by the backhair; excellent work.

A modified version of Andail s first suggestion would be to have seperate lounges for different types of criticism, instead of skill levels.

Most people seem to enjoy the current lounge and it s atmosphere, so I think leaving it as is would be best. The criticism consists mostly of friendly comments and encouragements, creating a supportive atmosphere which makes people comfortable with posting their art/critique, regardless of their skills.

The new lounge that I have in mind, would differ in the way of featuring only pure, honest constructional criticism in the manner of which Eric mentions, and having a more technical approach. This climate would likely lead to more discussions about techniques and sharing of indepth knowledge, something that might seem elitist in the ordinary lounge. Especially useful discussions/posts/tips could be gathered in knowledgethreads functioning as referencebanks to which the critics could refer.

So in short, the idea would be to let the present lounge stay as is, and create a new one in the style of which Eric and Andail speaks of.

Why not just fix this forum up instead of adding a new one?

As far as I can see, people in general like the current lounge the way it is. People like to post one line praises and smileys, and many enjoy recieving them, so why restrict these? They aren t bad per se, only a bit frustrating if you re wishing to recieve constructive advice.

In fact, the same thing can be said about detailed constructive criticism. Sometimes, people are simply proud of a piece of work, and wish to share it without seeing it torn apart, examined and criticised.

A new lounge would accommodate these diverse preferences, instead of forcing people to conform to the ideals of some.

I d say go with a combination. The problem with text interfaces, is the tediousness when issuing simple commands. However, since mouse is supported, you can let the player use a verbinterface for these things, such as 'look at' 'walk' 'open' and let them use the text for more advanced commands.

If you don t want a verbinterface, you can let the player issue commands such as 'look at' and 'walk' by rightclicking on objects, doubleclicking on one of the mousebuttons etc. This allows you to also use combinations of keyboard/mouse when giving commands, such as typing the verb, and then clicking on the object (so you don t have to type the object name).

In both of these ways, the player pretty rarely needs to type which creates a better flow n less frustration. I ve chosen the latter way in my game in production, and it works very well in my opinion.

Edit: Whatever you do, I hope you go with a textparser of some sort. Point n click cripples the experience too much leaving you with pixelhunting n inventorypuzzles.

Some modifications:



Really nice character btw.