Art Meditation (WIP)

[Turkey]

After a day of rigging up Demon Azut (my character from my last topic), I can finally use him for other projects. Here's the first one:

I'm using it for a competition, which requires 3 black and white images. Since I wanted a handmade look, I applied Toon Shading on everything. I am personally happy with how it turned out. However, I feel that I should add something.

Any ideas?

[DeadSeraphim]

Very, very cool. I'd suggest the thing that's missing would be something in the sky. It seems very blank.

[haruno_sakura]

First, I'd like to compliment you on the marvelous job you've done on this. The shading that you've done adds so much depth, and I especially love the sense of texture in the cape (cloak? wings, perhaps? er...whatever it is that's covering him LOL). The blades of grass draw attention to and emphasize the figure in the middle, which is excellent. Every element in this picture, from the figure to the sword to each blade of grass has a sense of depth, but the only thing that doesn't is the sky. You may want to add slightly transparent clouds to complete the sense of depth that you have going throughout the entire image. Or even rain? I hope that helps ^_^

~haruno_sakura

[Turkey]

I tried and tried adding clouds, but none seemed to fit properly into the scene. Thus, I simply added stars. I also removed the outlines, just to see how it looked (and I like it!). Added some butterflies too. Sadly, while messing with the lightning, I lost the look I had given his face, which was my favorite part of the image...:(

[DeadSeraphim]

That looks much better, but as you said, the lighting on his face is gone. It's regrettable. The sky is good and the darkening of the cloak thingy demonstrates that its night. Anyway, its better than what it was.

[Pyrophobic]

Excellent job! You've done particularly well in capturing the spiny forms of the grass and the hair - it looks like a Playstation game, sort of. They form a nice contrast with the smooth planes of his cloak.

I think the stars definitely did the job - with the tonal range, they add a successful depth and a bizarre coldness to the image because they make the figure seem so open and exposed. I am intrigued by Haruno_Sakura's suggestion of using rain also - might be a nice experiment, and it certainly adds more layers to a piece of work.

Very well done!

[Turkey]

This is starting to hurt my PC. Each image render takes about 2-3 minutes.

Well, I changed the lightning back to daylight, and made some clouds (thanks to Saraja Olivier's excellent tutorial, I might add). I also tweaked the lightning once again, and while I have yet to replicate the cool face effect, I managed to give off a clearer view of the scene. I changed the butterflies' texture, and moved Azut's wings backwards (yes, they are wings).

Right now I am less than pleased with the clouds, but it's 1:39AM, and I don't feel like changing them without a good night's sleep.

BTW- Thanks for the comments! Without your help, I probably would've stayed with the first image.