[WIP] Clouds

[Roach]

How could I improve these?

[Pix3M]

Is it a background asset? I was going to suggest adding a character or object into the composition somehow , but I realized that I'm not sure if this is art just for art, or art to be used as a part of something bigger

[Roach]

Correct, it is going to be used as a background for an animation I'm working on.
I don't quite know if I'm going in the right direction with this as well. I added another color to help smooth the clouds and tried to fix random clusters. I think they look a bit better now.

[eishiya]

The bottom half looks great, like a very overcast sky. In the top half, things get confusing. The light area in the middle is really throwing me off, because I can't tell what it's meant to be. It looks like it's emitting light, going by the lighting on the clouds around it? But I can't tell.

[Roach]

So you think I should darken it?

[eishiya]

It's not that you should darken it, it's that you should make it clearer what that shape is meant to be. If it's glow from the moon behind the clouds with some thicker clouds in the middle of it, then I'd recommend having the outline of the moon faintly visible, and making the clouds shapes more clear.

[Roach]

I've thought about it and I don't think I want there to be a moon behind the clouds, and I agree the lightness of the clouds is what throws me off about them too. I will also try to add more shape to it.

[eishiya]

Where is the light coming from? The sun, the moon? Magic? Where is the light source? It seems like you've been so focused on making nice a nice cloud texture, you haven't given enough thought to the light that makes that texture visible.

[Roach]

I was originally thinking of a sun shining through, but then I thought a moon, Now I figured I'm just going to cut out the light really.

Are these any better?

[eishiya]

Well, if you cut out the light entirely, you'll be left with a full black screen. You should have a light source and you should know what it is, even if it's somewhere off the canvas.

[Roach]

Sorry, by cut out light I meant the light coming from the the cloud. My light is supposed to be coming from 180 degrees facing the clouds if that makes sense now. So basically the moon is my light source.

[eishiya]

180 degrees facing the clouds, does that mean it's lighting from the front (that is, the moon is behind the viewer)? That would explain why you're having a hard time, front lighting is the hardest to make look good, since it flattens the forms. If it's an option, I recommend having the light some from somewhere to the side, so that the forms can be more clearly shown. That would probably help your foreground too.

I forgot to respond to the previous image - I think it looks better, it reads much more like "here are lots of clouds" without any mysterious features. I think your 3rd lightest colour could stand to be a little lighter. It contrasts too much with the 2nd lightest colour, but has almost no contrast with the 4th lightest. That may make it easier for you to produce smooth gradations.

[Roach]

I changed the color like you suggested and I must say it looks a lot better to me.

[Decroded]

if the light comes more from viewers angle, there wouldn't be so much concentration of light in top centre.
cast the rays in ur mind, it would be brighter on things that are closer than things that are futher, and brighter on things that are higher (relative to world not camera) than things that are lower.
Things nearer centre of view may reflect a bit more light but nowhere near the extent we see here so the effect would be more subtle, more about creating the effect of darkening towards the outside than a sudden bright patch in the middle.

[Roach]

Okay I will try to make it less bright in the center, and even darker on the outside?