[STAGE] Street Fighter Alpha 2, Venezuela, Stradigos
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I'll be redoing this stage into a volcanic stage for the contest. I'll be keeping the general idea of the foreground, but burning away any grass and making the tan ground blacker (overall, think Mordor colors). For the background I'll be replacing the water in the water flalls with lava, and the lake below it with a lava lake of some sort. Not sure if it will be the bright orange lava people are framiliar with or more of a tar pit look with lava fissures. The mountain in the background will be replaced with the volcano. I'm thinking dark skies and, of course, smoke rising from the volcano.
Just got a brand new rig. After I set that up, I'll start work on the concept art. I'm a pretty shitty concept artist, but I'm always looking for opportunities to grow. Looking forward to the 3D part already! I hope to use this competition to improve my skills and get some solid feedback from the community.
Also, this is my first contest and is only my second environment. Here goes nothing!
Replies
While the colors definitely aren't set in stone (pun intended), I'm definitely loving them so far. I'm having a hard time blending in the volcano to the middle ground, but I have an idea of how to do so tomorrow. I see in the reference image here that the mountain is farther off and doesn't really blend into the middle ground like I'm trying to do. So I think I'll dial the mountain back a bit in size and give a clear distinction between it and the middle ground.
I'm not looking forward to detailing this image. I'm just not there skill wise. My mind can visualize the chunks and colors, but the defined rock details I'm worried about. I may just bring this piece up to that point and call it done. But actually, the more I'm working with it and blocking it out, the more defined it's getting. So maybe this will happen naturally? I don't know, this is my first time doing something like this.
I'm hoping to be done with the concept by Friday. I'm using the Cintiq here at work
I like the brighter foreground. The background garners enough attention as it is, but with a lighter foreground, it makes the background less distracting which is important for maintaining focus during a fighter game.
I implemented that idea I had for the middle ground and I feel it really worked out. I like the closer mountain range and how the ground in between that and the lava valley creates distance between it and the volcano.
I think tomorrow I'm going to work on highlights and defining my shapes more. I'm not in love with how I'm doing the lava either... seems off. Maybe. I don't know. I need to rework the clouds too since I moved things around.
The biggest thing making me unhappy with this piece is the damn lava pit. It's also a big deal on the original stage so I have to get it right. In the original stage, that was a waterfall. I'm gonna have to rework that somehow tomorrow. It also doesn't make sense to have a volcano way in the background and have a random lava pit over here. I mean, it's possible and stuff, but that's the critique I'm giving myself. I may see what I can do about a river of lava stretching from the volcano to the pit.
As usual, I'll change this from an attachment to an embedded image when I get home and have access to my dropbox.
Don't worry about the lava being far from the volcano that's totally realistic actually. At least here in Hawaii it's very common for the lava to travel underground through "lava tubes" until it reaches the ocean. Sometimes the ceiling of those tubes collapses revealing the flowing lava underneath, like this:
Or maybe you want to stick to the waterfall look of the original:
Sorry to clutter up your thread with pics, let me know if you want the links removed and I'll edit my post.
Definitely search out some more reference. The volcano here is called "Kilauea" and is probably a good one to start with. There seem to be some videos on Youtube as well, sometimes it's good to see something in motion to better understand it.
Also, it seems as though you are posting other images, but I only see the one linked from vgmaps and your attachment. It might be why you don't have so many replies yet.
Good luck!
No, you're cool, leave the images there. Good to know those things exist. They actually remind me of the random lava cubes in Minecaft, lol.
I think my lunch at work tomorrow will be dedicated to figuring out this lava pit thing. There's a few ideas I want to try. Thanks again for the ideas!