You still haven't fixed the black outlines on your backlit pillars, nor have you added the shadows that they should be casting, the two things everyone keeps telling you to change.

As I alluded too before, the outlines stay until a background is determined or completed to a reasonable extent. That's the primary reason they exist in the first place.

Shadows existed behind the pillars, they were just more subtle than I would have liked and did not extend to the brickwork which exists underneath the platform.

Anyway thanks for the comments; I updated it and I think I ended up at least slightly addressing most of the points people brought up.
I tried to neaten out the arch itself somewhat, i strengthened the shadows behind the pillars (although they feel too... angled?)

although I did forget to address the keystone issue that Manupix brought up, I intend on dealing with that soon

probably the two main things that are bugging me now is that it feels as if the openings are too small in relation to the amount of standard dark wallspace and that the "darkness" is suffocating the light
and the angle of the shadows on the bricks

Enhanced the shadows on the floor, shaded the top a bit more. Wondering if I should have; I initially imagined it being a bit more clean than this.

Most importantly, thanks everyone for their comments and critique!

It think it would be helpful to look up some references for that kind of architecture. I believe a series of arches supported by columns is called an arcade, so I did some googling and ended up with this wiki full of interesting drawings from a french book on architecture.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_French_Architecture_from_the_11th_to_16th_Century/Volume_1/Blind_Arcade?match=fr

Columns can have plenty of interesting styles. A good picture reference here on the classical orders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_order

There's a picture of the Santa Sabina here, whch uses composite order columns to support the arches.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santa_Sabina.JPG

Thanks a lot for the references! I'll see if I can't put them to use. While these are a bit more standard european than I was originally intending (I actually had a bit more of a mayan, maybe indian (or spanish??) kind of style in mind) it's been a great help in defining what exactly I should do.

I'm not sure about this, but I don't think you can get the kinda light effects with a black outline...? The light supposes to be there due to glare, and the idea of having a black line in glaring light didn't seem right in my head. Any takers?

Yeah, it's not done; the background isn't going to be pure white nor is the outline going to be black. I just haven't drawn the background behind that yet, that's all.

The top curvature of the archways could be better too and the few upwards streaks of light at the top seem strange.

Yeah, that curvature bothers me slightly. I've touched upon it slightly, but I'm not sure if I'm going to get too much more out of it. And I wasn't sure what I was doing with anything above the arch itself so I hadn't done anything about those yet; in fact I'm still not absolutely positive about that part, specifically.

To show that the light is coming from the outside to the inside, you could show the light coming through and hitting the floor.

Yeah, I was planning on doing that in-game so that I could add a hint of motion to it as you move through the room, and maybe have it shine on the character as well. But I took your suggestion to heart and in the most recent version I've touched upon it slightly on the floor.




Is this any better? I've added a bit of lighting to the floor and I've started trying to define the archs a bit more (with some help from crab2selout) while trying to retain the more simplistic style I was going for.

Obviously still a WIP; as evidenced by the white bars on the right side where I had to move the pillars because somehow they became uneven while I was copying and pasting them.

C+C please? Any thoughts on the direction thus far? Should I try and study architecture a bit more as to better deal with the archs?

This is the most recent "stable" version where I know what I'm doing.

Basically, it's a kind of Ico/shadow of the colossus-esque corridor, located outside, consisting of a walkway, a ceiling and pillars/archways. The light is very bright; behind the pillars and ontop of the "stairs" would be grass and a few withering trees. Behind that probably a small wall or something, i'm not positive.

Any comments, critique or suggestions thus far would be pretty helpful. I'm still not entirely sure how exactly I should go about the lighting of the pillars (being on the inside) in contrast with the stairs and floor. I want them to have more of a grey-ish tint and not be quite as contrasted as the stairs and the floor but I'm not sure exactly. I'm also not sure where I'm going with the empty space between the archways and the ceiling.

it was inspired by:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/shadowofcolossus/images/f/f5/Secret_Garden_image.jpg

C+C?

EDIT:
(presumably) Final version:

EDIT 2:
didn't like the easter tones so I browned it a little.