[WIP]Big Fish

[Lóng]

Have been working on this one for a while another one of those pieces lingering around in my mind for years.
Thought it would be a good idea to have unbiased eyes have a look at it at this stage, as usual especially unsure about the colors.

[Lazycow]

There's little contrast between fish and background. You could probably try to increase the contrast a bit or use a different colorset for the fish.

Also, the background seems to be brighter than the fish. (That might be ok if the viewer is on the bottom of the lake and looks up to the surface. It's hard to see)

[Lóng]

The version above is an older one here is the current.


Maybe its my monitor but the contrast, because of the brown used on the fish, looks ok to me, the right one has slightly increased contrast, I like the left one more cause very little light reaches the bottom of the lake, so I think it makes more sense.

Yep the viewer is supposed to be under the fish looking up that's why stuff closer the surface is lighter , is it hard to read because of the contrast?

[Kain Nobel]

I think the biggest issue you have with readability is that your pallet consists of a bunch of closely related colors, a little hue shifting can help make it more interesting. I went ahead and played with your colors just to see what I could come up with...

Older => Newer


In the newer version, I increased the red and green (ie yellow) properties of the brighter colors of the color ramp. I don't know if this is technically what "hue shifting" is but I think it does help to improve readability. While it did wonders to make your highlights pop more, I think it makes the ocean surface too bright so...



I toned down the brightness of the ocean's surface by using the next two darker colors of what was already being used. With this, it sort of blurs the distinction between the land and water which imo is more realistic. Matter of fact, I think with this edit the image now uses seven colors instead of eight o.o

Hope that information helps.

[Lóng]

I think that edit of yours is a tad too harsh, as for hueshifting as far as I know having a hue-shifted ramp(value,saturation and hue gaps) is an expansion of having a straight ramp(value and saturation gaps only) so I think both of our palettes have hue shifting in them. Played around with saturation, contrast and lightness, tried to have some kind of intermediate between your edit and my previous version, still unsure, I always feel like I'm groping in the dark when it comes down to colors.


I don't think the merging of land and water is working in this case.

[Cyangmou]

Well, Kain pointed already out some things, I'd heavily recommend removing lots of the details in the background to make the fish stand out more. I'd also change the position and the contrast level of the boat, to sugest more depth, same for the line. THe water surface could be improved by using a form perspective and by strengthening the highlights at the fish and adding a lot of contrast to the hook, the fokus will be better.
I also think that the piece could use a lot of Antialiasing, I added here and there some sloppy AA, but it seems to be fine. It definitely needs a lot more.
And the clusters (e.g. bubbles, bg fish) need a rework to prettier forms, also those of the fish.

P.S. I read the rocks as underwater fissure and not as land/sea

[Lóng]

That's some massive improvement , looks more organic and interesting, studying this(and hopefully applying some of it) will keep me busy for a while.

As for anti-aliasing I try to avoid having to resort to use it, partly the reason I'm trying to keep the contrast low.I try to practice cluster conservation, what I'm trying to achieve ideally is having giant expressive clusters with perfect-lined borders, I use single pixels only when absolutely necessary(reason why I try to avoid AA) I try to rework affected areas or recolor them instead and in worst cases rather put up with some degree of jaggedness.

[Cyangmou]

I have a similar basic approach. But in case of adding darker color on a light color (e.g. the fishing line close the hook) to create contrast you definitely have to use AA and single pixels, for the sake of making it look smooth. Supr tight AA (with the middle color between the 2 tones) works usually pretty nice.
Imo it looks better than non AA'd pieces or pieces in which there is artifically no contrast or no focus.

[Lóng]

Currently trying to bring everything in place and figuring out the palette, still a lot of cleaning up/correcting to do, but its getting there.


Edit:
further update

I'm pretty much done with this, still open for color suggestions.
Thx for helping me take this piece a couple of levels further.