Saturday, April 2, 2011

Death to the Winter Dragon WIP

Where to start on explaining this one... I woke up at 4:30 in the morning yesterday with something like this image in my head. I've been working on it for days, and it's starting to feel muddled... I'm happy with the general staging and many of the color choices I used to block it in. I want to retain a certain over-arching geometric sense to it. But I'm losing some of it in weak decision making. I darkened up the fore-ground elements to really get that sun-rising in the bgd feel, and I'm going back in to lighten-up some of the values in the fore so they pop better. I was looking at several different artists for reference including Eyvind Earle (that's why the tree is so much more textured than anything else). I really have been trying to pay attention to value contrast. Any criticisms? Suggestions? Definitely going to be continuing to work on this one, so anything is welcome.

1 comment:

Scott C. Gwynn said...

Yes! This is really fantastic! (I need to find different ways to say I like something) The values are working a lot better and the composition is way stronger. This is a HUGE leap forward!

I also think the blockiness is incredibly interesting. Like 8 bit took solid form but retained it's edge qualities. Really cool concept.

The composition is starting to work well. I think it would be a little better if you strengthened your three focal points (the knight's face, the sword, and the dragon's head/eye). I think one of the biggest distractions from this are the tree branches. They kind of become an unwanted 4th focal point. Playing with value in that area would help.

I also think that it would help to have the leaves of the tree extend beyond the comp.

Anyway. I'm way impressed! This is a big success.