Feature 08 - Gregory faces the dragon

[Mathias]

Hehe, I'd decided to not post a barrage of crit points and just let you be happy and move on to the next project, it's simply not healthy to linger too long on an old project. But you got crit above anyway.

No, instead I'll just lend a little bit of help by animating st0ven's edit toggling your latest version for easy comparison (otherwise I find it impossible to conclude which details have been altered)


THIS IS ST0VEN'S EDIT:



What on earth is that flying thing top left?

I will say this - my 2 biggest complaints - that boring sky  &  your foreground lighting: The ball of flame is hitting his hands, his hands are directly above the stone floor and closer to us than the busted up handrail, YET the lightsource is set obviously further away from us than the handrail. Do you see what I'm saying? This seems like a major folly.

[Cyangmou]

Thought the last days a lot about some things and how i can improve it, I wasn't really satisfied with the result. Now I am at a point where I need somebody who pushes my thinking or can help me

At the moment I am at this state


Used st0vens really helpful edit and worked on. I changed some major parts, especially the lighting (foreground, dragon's arm, midground), some textures (dragon's skin, other little things), and other stuff. Don't made a gif. Overtook his contrast sheme just to work with it. THe fire edit was great too, but don't worked it out. Just added a sparkle, maybe I'll make it that the mage deflects the fire.

At first one of the things is the anatomy of the mage, I thing the bigger problem was the reading of the position of his feet, because of this I changed the right foot to the left and made the right foot visible, if there are other problems i don't see at the moment, it'd be great if somebody can show me the issues.


(help lines could be useful)




Then there is another thing, i changed some of the colors with the darker fire colors just to see if there is a chance to get the heat of the fire.

I know it's a little bit eye-hurting at the moment, but I think especially in the foreground (podest, railing column, let the midground buildings maybe as they are) it could turn out nice. I also think it helps at the dragon's wings (don't edited the texture there, but I'll).
Now it's just the question if it's worth to work more in a directory like that. I think the focus will be save if I only use the darker colors of the fire ramp and it harmonises up the piece a lot. Of course there is some adjustment work to to but I wonder if the idea'll work.

The other thing is that I tried dither at the sky (don't added clouds) but I think it don't works. THe thing is that I am not really experienced with drawing skies and some basic tips would be quite helpful. At the moment I think a layered background and some interested composed clouds could be good.

Another thing i am quite not sure about are the midground tiles (the blue ones). Don't really thought about this so far, but I think there is also a better solution.

I really appreciate Helpful critique's. A special thank to Pistachio, Eyecraft and st0ven so far for their great help.

[PypeBros]

I prefered the eyes with pupils "blinded" by the fire. It made it more malevolent ... a brutal beast.
the tongue seems pretty thin and not appropriate to such a T-Rex-like head.

Otherwise, it's impressive and I would be eager to see it finished.

[Mathias]

I agree about the eye thing. For pixel dragons disgorging fire, look no further. Notice the eyes even. Try it. Gives the impression that there's some serious energy being expelled.

[Cyangmou]

I also preferred the blinded eyes, although the othe rones looked nice too. Now I improved the blinded version.



I remade the wing texture, worked out the fire and tried to improve the sky. I chose the warm/cold color sheme , don't know if it hurts in the eyes (maybe I just looked to long at it).

[Cyangmou]

Now I'd really call it finished, overworked the whole piece and it's definitely bette rnow. Also changed lots of little things with this last edit, more AA and other unnoticeable things unless you compare it with the earlier version. Another thing I changed is the orange of the yellow tan gradient in the foreground.
With a total working time of a little bit more than 120h and 32 colors I'd call it finished now. I learned a lot from this piece and I also mentioned tons of things I'll do in a different way the next time. Big thanks to all who are posted here useful critique and helped me.

[DungeonDan]

I been following this post for awhile and i see so much has been done and it looks great keep up the good work man

[PypeBros]

before it gets closed/burried/featured, I'd like to point out that it's a bit strange to see that much contrast and details on the things (teeth and dragon skin, mostly) that are just next to (and behind) the line of fire. I'd have expected the light of the firespit to erase any visiblity of what's nearby to the point it's reduced to a silouhetto. I'd love to know whether anyone with more drawing experience than myself feels the same.

[piffany]

I keep coming back to this thread cuz it's so amazing O_O