[WIP] Another Landscape... [C+C]

[ChadHachey]

Don't know if I should have posted this in my other thread, but oh well it's picture of a sunrise looking over some water. I like how my water turned out, unlike the other, although there's probably still improvements to be made. The tree and the bush doesn't stand out as much and blends to much...

Not sure if this is a stupid idea, but I'm trying to do a landscape with only four colors so I can force myself to make better use of my palettes (I'm not great at this). So is four colors to little? Bah I dunno, help is appreciated.

[Tourist]

Four colors for a landscape seems difficult, but what you've got is rather nice.  The only thing I see is that the tree is lit from the left, but the sun is on the right.  I think the tree needs to be backlit instead.

Tourist

[Kcilc]

Well, maybe just add one more color. You wanna make sure the sun is super bright.

You've got a good composition, it's just that that tree...it looks like it's being lit from something that's not the sun; I'd be fine with it if its sun-facing side still had a highlight, but like Tourist said, it actually ignores it completely. Usually it's best to just have a nice line of highlight along the edges of a couple things. Also keep in mind that the sun affects the water and sky a quite a lot, and you might consider employing a couple of the other colors in your piece to bring them to life.

Here's a quick little edit to illustrate:

[ChadHachey]

Ah, yeah the tree was a sloppy job, it's the tree that I made in my other thread. I added the light source after the tree, so thanks for pointing that out.

That's an amazing edit Kcilc, I'll defiantly try adding another color thanks!

EDIT:

Looks much better, though I think my clouds need quite a bit of work still.

[ChadHachey]

Clouds are less of a cluterfuck now, but I think the tree's leaves read as clouds now, or is that just me? I also just realized that this monitor's color is way off and now have to fix up my palette.

[Anarkhya]

I think the tree's leaves read as clouds now

I agree. as clouds and leaves share the same hue. Also the leaves touches the top of the scene, thus its difficult to understand what is the thing on top of the tree. adding 10 pix vertical in your canvas could help.

[ChadHachey]

Pretty happy with how this turned out, considering it's my second stab at a landscape. I'm calling this finished now, unless you guys can point out something else that needs tweaking.

[Kcilc]

Just two little tips for future reference.

There's more going on when you're shading that edge on the silhouette than just a line. It's a little slice of the tree's actual shading, and some parts would still be in shadow even with the sun there.

The leaves are still just a silhouetted blob, which is what clouds are. To really put it back into the foreground, I'd try to add some holes on the canopy, and some rampant leaves sticking out here and there.

[skamocore]

A fairly quick colour edit. I've tried keeping with your initial idea of having just 4 colours.



Some thoughts - You'll probably want to increase the contrast, especially given the nature of the lightsource; have a look at some reference images of sunrises. Here's something I just found on Flickr. You should also consider moving more towards purples. Notice how I gave an implied horizon line rather than an actual line; another Flickr image, have a look at the horizon. You'll notice that there really isn't much of a line at all, and it only really exists because it is the meeting point between the sky and the water. And at this resolution a single pixel horizon line is probably much too big.

[Anarkhya]

The leaves are still just a silhouetted blob, which is what clouds are. To really put it back into the foreground, I'd try to add some holes on the canopy, and some rampant leaves sticking out here and there.

Besides, as demonstrated in the edit posted by Kcilc, silhouette leaves may be illuminated by the sunshine casting a light on the right edge, in order to emphasize the not-a-2d-blob feeling.