AuthorTopic: GR#012 - Bridge to Eden - Perspective  (Read 19657 times)

Offline Dex

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GR#012 - Bridge to Eden - Perspective

on: September 13, 2009, 07:24:15 pm
FINAL:



FIRST:



Been working on this on and off for a while. It's for my father's birthday, and his birthday is the 29th of September, so I still have a bit of time left ;D

Anyways, I'm mainly looking for insights on what's done so far- no drastic changes will probably be made, because I have set myself a deadline.

C+C is appreciated, as always. :crazy:

http://www.thoughtfulnessshopfineart.com/thomaskinkade/images/bridgeofaith.jpg

inspiration for this image comes from the above link (sorry big brother ;D)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2009, 12:38:25 am by Dex »

Offline thedaemon

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #1 on: September 13, 2009, 07:34:23 pm
Lovely piece so far. I like the contrast from dark to light, left to right respectively. But I think that you could do more over exposure on the dirt path/grass where the sky is very over exposed. I think it would work better with the contrast of the left, forest side. Not too much mind you, but I think some would work. Also the tree on the right looks low quality compared to the other, I guess wip? :) Also the water could use some more rendering, maybe you could put some wildlife , a fish perhaps under the water?
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Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #2 on: September 14, 2009, 12:15:31 am
all your pieces have a similar technique in the texturing, one that almost disregards the actual volumetric concepts of the item you're shading and just obfuscates this lacking with informationless detail. You're idealzing forms in your head and you fill them in with flat texture, it's like you said 'this will be tree foliage' and then bucket-filled in the leaf texture and then selectively brightened/darkened on top.

Your stuff is pleasing to look at but I feel the need to tell you that I can see through the pleasing to behind that, and there needs more work with how the individual parts of a volume make up an instance of something (tree branch with foliage on top, bricks to the bridge, whatever) and how that needs to work together with the composition and the overall idea.

Not all of this suffers in the same way, but most of it does. You're too loose with your forms and too imprecise with the concept behind how you texture, you confuse information for detail. Your pixel skills are great, you need to go under the hood and fill in those fundamental skill holes.

Offline Draco9898

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #3 on: September 14, 2009, 03:12:44 am
The perspective looks off in that the bridge never seems to become smaller as it gets farther away from the camera/viewer.

Offline big brother

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #4 on: September 14, 2009, 03:46:32 am
Sorry to sound harsh, but Kinkade is to art as Kenny G. is to music. To make a derivative of works that are so derivative to begin with... lacks imagination.

Although, at this point, I'm sure you've put in too much time tweaking pixels to change anything major.

In other feedback, I feel like your details don't wrap around the planes of the major shapes. A lot of them feel like they are directly-applied vertical textures. The basic composition needs lots of work; you have a tendency towards mathematical layouts. For instance, The tree near the end of the bridge fits centrally within the triangle of the mountain. The rocks and flowers in the lower left are almost equidistantly aligned. You should be able to justify all these artistic decisions.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2009, 03:54:10 am by big brother »

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #5 on: September 17, 2009, 03:23:20 am
You're tireless, man. You just keep it coming. Wonderful little scene, it's fun to inspect.
I just wish there was something to focus on. It feels a little like a background layer for something, like a game.

Your reference was Kinkade's "Bridge of Faith", which is probably intended as some Christian metaphor.



So his focus is meant to be the bridge, it makes sense with the title . . . sort of. Your title "Bridge to Eden" I guess places the logical focus on the bridge as well, so I guess that still works, but then I'm left wondering - which side is eden? What if one side was a dried up desert and the other a lush rain forest type environment? IMO, that would give the illustration a nice obvious concept viewers could grab a hold of. Right now, it's just scenery.


Diminishing perspective is a persistent problem for you. The bridge is especially troubling. It's drawn in a confusing obfuscated way; very distracting to me. The black cat well stated that your texturing is lending to the problem - surfaces poorly indicate what angle they are to our POV, they remind me of parallaxed skies from old FPS games. I have a suggestion for it's construction attempting to "fix" it, and not betray your style while doing so:





When viewing your work, I sometimes get the idea that you do a basic sketch, but skip the refinement stage and go straight to final pixelling. Things like the bridge's construction and those rope poles shouldn't have made it this far. They should have been revised while refining your initial line-art. That rope changes width almost randomly; hurts your viewers' impression of depth.


Hopefully that's helpful. Keep up the good stuff.

Offline Gil

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #6 on: September 17, 2009, 05:04:09 pm
For some reason, I just like it the way it is. The distortions just seem to fit his general art style. The flat decorative shading, the flattened perspective. The composition makes it all a whole.

I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso.

I think Dex might be on to something here, a personal way of expressing visual ideas. His own "style", which does seem to make sense within the rest of his works.

Offline Helm

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #7 on: September 17, 2009, 05:07:47 pm
For some reason, I just like it the way it is. The distortions just seem to fit his general art style. The flat decorative shading, the flattened perspective. The composition makes it all a whole.

I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso.

I think Dex might be on to something here, a personal way of expressing visual ideas. His own "style", which does seem to make sense within the rest of his works.

He can keep this as it is if he thinks it's pleasing and it's great you think it's pleasing too. But the critique stands. Even if Picasso posted here he might get anatomy critique, which, given that he posted for critique in the first place, he should appreciate people giving him. See what I mean, it's not so much an issue if this looks good, it's the issue of the underlying areas where knowledge isn't strong. Dex will and should keep making art for his whole life and certain pieces will be more resonant with him and others than some of his other works, that's really great, artistry is a boon to one's psyche. But if he posts here for critique it means he wants to get better in traditional skills.

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #8 on: September 17, 2009, 05:18:36 pm
I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso

Hehe, that's a valid point, hopefully Dex doesn't interpret any response in this thread as "bashing", though. And Helm again beat me to a similar comment that I feel prompted to assert now - I enjoy Dex's stuff too, but if he's making decisions based on a lack of skills in certain areas then he has some comfortable room for improvement calling his name, and it's his responsibility to explore that "room". No telling what he'll find in there. He'll only improve. Hopefully his style doesn't suffer in the process. I admit, unless I consciously work against it, I tend to make things too rigidly perfect. But my advice stands - consider it something to think about, in the least.

Offline Redshrike

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #9 on: September 17, 2009, 08:44:33 pm
I have to say, I agree wholeheartedly with with Helm and Mathias have said.  I feel like Dex's stuff could be really, really awesome if he reigned those things in somewhat.  I think it's the outlines not following the texture the shading suggests which really makes it look odd to me.

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #10 on: September 17, 2009, 10:20:36 pm
Oh hey, glad to see more critique, I whole-heartedly enjoy it =)

Alright, what to start with. I'll go ahead and say you're all exactly right and I need to work on the perspective at once. I've already begun trying to give the trees more volume, life, and shape, and I've been changing stuff sporadically.

Anyways, I'm glad you're satisfied with it Gil, and at first I thought all I needed to do now was finish it, but I was wrong and that's the exact reason I posted here- as Helm said, to increase my knowledge and help me get better at what I'm attempting. At big brother's comment about certain things being in a triangle- that's something I'll mess with now too. ;)

Mathias, none of this feels like any bashing at all- you've all already given me the 'you've got the stuff to make this a great scene' boost, and now I'm here to listen to your critique and fix what truly needs to be finished.

Thanks for posting the image, Mathias. It's the ref I used in the sketching stage. Everything else was out of my own mind...

But anyways- thanks for what you've all said so far. I truly need to work on giving my shapes more life and form, and that's something I hope to improve by the next post, which should be either tonight or this weekend.

Stay tuned!~ ;D

Offline alkaline

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #11 on: September 21, 2009, 08:22:01 am
mm, you know how i feel about this piece dex  :P helm and mathias pretty much summed up my old convos about it. but that being said, yes, it is very pleasing to look at. your colors are always pretty spot on in this case, works great with the soft painting feeling to it. all you need is the extra bit of understanding how volumes and shapes work to go with your style. see, every once and a while i'm not completely useless  :D

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #12 on: October 07, 2009, 09:46:59 pm
alk, you are never useless <3 thanksees for the crits..

anyways, here's my attempt at making the perspective look a bit better without redoing the bridge in it's entirety. I've not done too much because I've been doing mostly life drawing and such lately, so updates WILL be slow... I've changed the position of the flowers and tried to add more life to the leaves and make them not look as flat. There's also been stuff worked on, but I'm also working on some other stuff too, and there's school and sports, sooo...

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #13 on: October 09, 2009, 02:54:38 am
You addressed the big stuff, well done. The tree leaves are way better. My biggest new worry now is the cluster of flowers bottom left, they eat too much focus now, I say less contrast. It feels like bad priorities that my eye keeps being pulled to them. Now just throw in a nuclear mushroom cloud in the distant background and you're golden.

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #14 on: October 29, 2009, 12:47:31 am


tried addressing both your and david's (on punaji) critiques. i'm drawing closer to a conclusion, but it's still unfinished. ;)

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #15 on: November 04, 2009, 04:55:41 am
Sorry Dex, meant to issue a comment earlier. Here's a quick critbarf:

Rope thicknesses still need help, especially 1st and 2nd ropes on left on far-side of bridge, the stylistic "chunkyness" of them is fine, but the thickness going from thick to thin back to thick is distracting, meaning my mind rests on them a whike and I wonder if it was a mistake; if the artist knew he did that, etc.
Flowers, bottom left, still create a dissonant splash of color not seen elsewhere. distribute more flowers around?
across stream on rightmsot side there's a rock half hidden, it and the grass around it don't match in contrast, just drop the rock's contrast I guess, you appear to be reducing the contrast as things get farther away from our POV but you don't do it consistently so the illusions falters - that tree just above the end of the bridge is a prime example.

Hope those few observations are helpful. Keep pixelin'.

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #16 on: November 15, 2009, 04:06:03 am
Hopefully I fixed the diminishing perspective with some color changes along with the contrast. Also did many many changes, hopefully you can tell. I also added more flowers in the scene, as per your suggestion, Mathias.



Any more observations? I've worked on this forever and am growing a bit tired of it. Thanks! ;D

Offline EvilEye

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #17 on: November 15, 2009, 05:44:50 am
Any fixes would require you to redo the entire thing. Specifically fixing the screwy perspective with the bridge and river.

There also seems to be a contrast problem in a lot of spots. Like the dark black under the bridge vs the medium grey in the grass all around it. This further screws with the perspective, not only making the far side of the bridge look closer then it should be, but makes the bridge itself look flat. This contrast problem is prolific on the left side of the picture as well. I realize you aren't going for realism here, but it still hurts the piece.

Ignoring all that, the pixelwork is good especially on the bridge posts, the clouds and the water. I'd call it done and move on to the next piece.

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #18 on: November 15, 2009, 03:15:21 pm
David at Punaji said he liked the contrast shifts from the right to the left side of the picture, because it makes a subtle shift in that 'garden of Eden is light, otherworld is dark' thing, but if you don't mind would you tell me what I need to change about the left side in terms of contrast? It's supposed to be fairly darker.

Either way I'll fix the bottom of the bridge. Thanks! :)

Offline Dex

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #19 on: December 04, 2009, 12:37:50 am
Oi~ I finished this, here's the PJ link: http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/48387.htm



thanks for all the comments and crits guys, it helped me a lot. not looking to change anything at this point, i'm quite busy these days...

Offline Mathias

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Re: [WIP] Bridge to Eden

Reply #20 on: December 04, 2009, 01:44:31 am
Way to go, Dex. It always feels great to finish anything. It takes discernment to know when to move on sometimes.

I have a question - Looking at this now, is there anything you wish you would've done differently?