Warring Cities

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Should I add more colors to smoothen the aa?

Should do some more pixel level work like textures, more shading and the sort?

These are just some questions I have regarding my piece.

C+C away.

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I tried adding some more interesting ideas to the piece. I feel like it has more of a story now.



However, I am unsure of how to show they are rockets very well. Or if I should even have rockets in the picture. 

[Seiseki]

Looks a lot more interesting, it's a really cool idea.
But I think the guy in the middle ruins it, he looks huge..

The dithered area where the sky color changes look weird, it's too straight and noticable.
And why isn't the sun round?

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Things to work on:

Adding fire effect to rockets
Add aa to a lot of things
Show where rockets are coming from (More rocket trucks)

Anyone have any idea how I might shade or texture the hills, they look very boring as a solid color and I am unsure how I would shade them.

Thanks for the C+C Seiseki. I got rid of the foreground because it was ugly. I changed the dithering and the sun as well.

[Pix3M]

Something about the composition of the smog guy feels a little off...

I feel the complexity being so focused on one side seems to make him look incredibly unbalanced, I think?

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I haven't gotten to the composition balancing yet but do you think the classic cartoon rolling hills helps break up the monotony?

Also for the composition, do you think making the angel person doing something similar to the smog man will help balance it? Like if he has his own barrage of missiles meeting towards the center. But I definitely agree with you Pix3M, I could feel something wrong with it.

[cirpons]

Composition wise this

is much better than this

why?
well, try to cover the right half of the first image with you palm, it feels kinda like something is missing, the image has lost a vital component - the angel. Now if you cover the left half of the second picture it gives a sense of a complete piece by itself. In other words, the second piece lacks cohesion and the viewer cannot find any noticeable interaction between the cities, thus it is hard to convey a conflict.
A workaround could be a viewer character:

and more missiles from both sides. this makes a triangle pattern for the viewer to follow.

another way to make the piece more dynamic would be to arrange them into a diagonal:


or a mixture of both:


you could also change the perspective of the viewer to change the whole meaning of the piece.
(sorry for the bad English)

[Vakinox]

The newest perspective on the bottom has my vote.
Absolutely.

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Awesome edits! I'll test them out. I would've responded sooner but I was camping.