[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.