Adventure's End - Illustration WIP (Crits Needed)

_Hofsta_

Heya Polycount!

I'm not new to the community but I haven't posted in a while and I also had to make a new profile due to some technical issues with the new site.

I've had an idea for a new illustration depicting 2 adventures resting after a quest. I want to capture a fantasy feel mixed with that lazy summer afternoon vibe. I have a current sketch that I'm working with but I'm not fully happy with the composition yet. I'd love to get some feedback on the comp and execution of the idea so feel free to share your thoughts and paintovers are totally welcome.

Will post more progress soon. Cheers!

_Hofsta_

So I'm still struggling with the composition of this piece. I took some time away from it and came to the conclusion that everything in this feels very flat. I went back and tried to do another rough comp sketch with a bit more perspective and depth.

It's an improvement, but I'm not sure its quite there yet. Would love some crits and feedback on the composition.

Thanks!
    

Eric Chadwick

I like where this is going!

It's uncomfortable with his right heel and her toe being cut off at the bottom. Add a comfortable margin there. Same with the sword tip at left.

Compositionally, the focus is their faces. Use the mountains in the ridgeline to lead the eyes there, instead of being a flat series of peaks.

Why is she nude, but he is not? If she is a dream, it might help to indicate this in her form somehow. Maybe her feet are wisping away, or she's only partly formed whereas he is fully defined.

_Hofsta_

Eric, Thanks a ton for the feedback.

I'll try pulling the frame out a bit and see if it makes the composition look less cramped.

Good idea with the mountains!

She probably wont stay nude. I was being lazy and didn't add clothes to her yet to try and keep my anatomy honest. My intention is to clothe her and make this more a depiction of two adventurers sharing a peaceful moment of intimacy after just having completed a quest of some sort. The dream or spirit idea is kinda cool. If the route I'm going doesn't seem to be working out maybe I'll steal that idea.

Progress has and will be hit or miss for a little while as I'm in the process of moving, but more to come soon!

_Hofsta_

Been a while since I've been able to work on this. (Pro tip - Don't move to a new apartment, it's a huge pain!)

This is just a quick update where I tried to fix some of the crits in the sketch. I'll be working on this for the rest of the day, no promises on any notable progress though as I'm still struggling with many of the elements in the composition at this early stage.

Thanks for checking in. Crits and feedback appreciated. Happy arting!

_Hofsta_

Started on the line work to get everything figured out before I start doing value passes.

Let me know what you think.

miguelnarayan

I like the anatomy! Well done. One thing that seems obvious to me, is that the tree and everything else, is framing the background, the mountains, you get a oval space of the tree + lovers lying down + tree branch, that frame everything that is back there as if it was a painting frame hanging on the wall. That may be the biggest offender to the composition, it is a great composition still, but I feel you're aiming to the next level, so I'd work more on that. Maybe use some rope/vines on the top to help define scale, though that is a bit of a cliché, or maybe use birds to help pointing to the characters again... basically what Eric said is true, if you must have the foreground like this, use elements on the back to push the eye to the front again. You can also try to paint in more detail, the foreground than the background. Good luck! I'm sure this is going to be epic!

_Hofsta_

@miguelnarayan

Thanks for the feedback. I would like to break up some of the shapes in the composition while still keeping the flow. I like the idea of birds drawing the eye back into the composition. I'm also planning to use clouds in the same way. I will probably mess around with the shape of the mountains to break things up as well.

I'm thinking most of the detail will be focused on the two adventurers and some of the elements in the extreme foreground and far background won't have much detail at all.

Great suggestions. I'm glad you're liking the idea and the direction it's going so far!

_Hofsta_

So I've finished the quick and dirty line art as well as a value blockout. I changed the shape of the mountains, added some foothills for more depth and threw in a silly bird brush all based on suggestions. I think I've alleviated at least some of the issue of the background looking overly 'framed'. I still don't like the area around the feet to the far right. I know it's off but I can't put my finger on why.

I'll keep chugging away at this, meanwhile feedback is always appreciated.

Cheers!

hykare

Hi Hofsta, I'm not sure if that's what's bothering you about the feet, but here's what I see. His left foot seems to be resting higher than hers, even though they're very close. Also the thigh of her right leg seems too long in proportion to the rest of it even though the shin is foreshortened. Looking at the sketch where she's naked I think the distance between knee and hip is right, but the hips wouldn't be tilted that much so everything would move left. Here's a shitty stock ref(sorry): http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/woman-looking-side-lying-25331080.jpg Some terrible photoshop happened to her legs, but it shows the maximum angle the hips can tilt. I hope this makes some sense.

Also props for drawing foreshortened figures like that, every time I try that they end up horribly disfigured. Anyways, I like this, can't wait for the color pass :awesome:

miguelnarayan

The birds do a good job on putting the eye back to the people. Maybe you could place some tree shadows on ground, with their light/shadow shapes pointing at the couple or any other place you want as well, they could form a stream, like a line of action, similar to the light effect you have on the couple form. The crossed swords do a good job on telling me that place is not meant to be looked at, something I learn from looking at Splash damage concept art, is that they use tapes and other pertinent objects to make a huge cross or line like those and stop people from looking there, while still accepting that these props exist. I think that system on the left, contrasts heavily with the open mountains on the right. But this is still an improvement. By the way, I envy your anatomy skills. Have you taken any character drawing foundation course?

You probably don't want to sacrifice the tree shape, that's fine, it's a very strong and beautiful tree, but for the hint sake, you could pull it to the left more and use it's curvature to frame the couple. Though I imagine that'd be tricky, and could maybe be adjusted with the leaves on the right pointing at them.
TO sum it up, you can use any object you have on the ground, abuse it's shape to point where you want the viewer to look. I see the helmet has an arrow on the front, to protect the wearer nose, even that can be used to point, if it's laid on the right angle.

PS. - After coming back, I see that composition wise, it's working, doing it's job. The first thing I saw was the couple.

_Hofsta_

Thanks for the crits you guys! As far as the anatomy is concerned I do think that some of the adjustments you suggested are probably on the money.  When I started this piece I did a block out of the pose in 3d in Daz, so I know that it's at least semi-anatomically possible and that also helped me figure out the foreshortening and perspective. Some of the stuff going on with the legs is still reading weird though so I will work to fix that.

As far as the composition goes, some interesting suggestions. I might make a couple more tweaks, but I think its close to where I want it. Once I start adding in the final lighting and colors I think everything will read quiet nicely. I'm also planning on adding more dappled light areas onto the couple and the foreground which should help make the interest areas pop even more.

Again, thanks for the crits, I'll post more progress once I get a day off from work!

_Hofsta_

I've gotten a chance to work on this again. I didn't get as far with this today as I had hoped, but I want to post in this thread as regularly as I can so I'm throwing it up anyhow.

Still working in greyscale for now, Will be adding color soon.

C&C welcome. Cheers!

_Hofsta_

Still slow with the progress, but here's a little more done of the first value pass.

Not super happy with it at this point. Gonna keep working at it.

Eric Chadwick

I think this is ready for color. Don't want to overwork it, that can kill the vibrancy.

One thing that stands out is her left ankle (nearest one). The anatomy there feels wrong, like her ankle is broken or twisted.

Really looking forward to the color. Love the tree rendering, and the dappled shadowing.

_Hofsta_

@Eric Chadwick Thanks for the feedback, I'll revisit the anatomy and make some corrections as I progress ( I agree that it looks strange right now).

I've been struggling with the colors of this piece. I want it to have a vibrant fantasy vibe, but when I try for that everything feels too saturated. When I saturated the colors everything starts looking muddy. Struggling to find a happy medium between the two I guess.

I've done a few basic attempts at adding in rough color with some gradient maps and color layers. I'd like some feedback on which ones are working well, if any. The tone of the piece may change drastically based on my color choices at this point.





As always, thanks for checking out my thread. Happy Arting!

Aluvay

hey man nice work! I agree with the armor using it as a beacon to draw the eye back to the lovers...like
@miguelnarayan suggested, just tip the helmet on its side with the face opening facing the viewer. also I don't know about the mushroom patch? growing underneath them. At first glance I thought they were laying on their gold! haha. Finally I would exaggerate the mountains curvature just a little more to really bring the eyes back to the lovers. but looking good! Really love the shadow play on the figures.

miguelnarayan

You certainly got the right fantasy vibe going on. You got yourself something really especial here, congrats.
As for one to pick, it really depends, all of them seem correct to my eyes, if it was me, I'd keep them all as different color comps in my portfolio, but I understand the need to work on one alone. If I were to pick one, I'd pick the top one, it just communicates the idea of resting and happy landing with all the healthy green nature around them. You also eliminated your initial problem really well with the composition, the eye gets forced to the couple at a first read.

MagicSugar

Here's my recommended approach.  Prioritize the focus of your composition.  Concentrating and controlling saturation where you want a fresh viewer to look first then gradually eye flow the rest of the image (in this case, the background landscape).

_Hofsta_

For the last few months I was forced to take a break from this to work on other things and life stuff. I've started working on it again now that I have time.

Haven't made a whole lot of progress yet, but I wanted to resurrect this thread. I've tried to make some tweaks based on the last round of feedback, and I plan on making more changes based on that feedback in the future.

I'm wondering if the image seems overly contrasty on anyone else monitor. I have 2 monitors, one is calibrated and one isn't, but they're so drastically different and the calibrated monitor is old enough that I have no idea what this looks like for other people right now or which monitor is closer to correct. 

Thanks for checking in on the thread and for any feedback and crits!

_Hofsta_

Little tiny baby steps.

_Hofsta_

Chipping away at this, slowly but surely.

ArtofScott

Heya, this is looking great so far, my thoughts:

• Consider ontrolling the saturation level of the colour to steer the eye toward the focal points and away from unnecessary areas
• To my eyes, the piece also seems overlay saturated
• Some deeper occlusion shadows could also bring out some of the forms nicely and keep the compositional focus where you want it to be
• Possible increase your edge hadrness to softness range, since I see a lot of hard edges in the piece
• THe fore-ground shape bottom right - while i know why you've thought to put it here, createa  shape that leads the eye off the page, instead of stopping the eye - perhaps consider an in-scene grass mound or some other object (not too fancy obviously for focal point reasons)

That's about it from me, hope it's useful!

_Hofsta_

Thanks for the crits! The saturation is something I've been struggling with, I think my main monitor is slightly out of whack. I'll try messing around with that and see if I can fix it. I agree with more occlusion as well as adding in some softer edges. I'll take this feedback and see what I can do!