AuthorTopic: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage  (Read 6452 times)

Offline fskn

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #10 on: May 05, 2021, 10:16:21 pm
Whoa. The new foliage looks fantastic, dude. Congrats.
And the detailing on the trees at the far back.

The rocks (they're rocks, right?) in the middle of the stream look a little bit noisy to me, so that, together with the colors you chose, stablish a visual connection with the flowers on her head, and that's a bit confusing.
I'm kind of reading them as flowers right now, and it looks like she either picked some of those from the river to put them on her head, or the opposite, she took them off and threw them in the river.
If, instead, they're meant to be flowers, then I think you need to add darker shades and give them more definition.

For the closest bank you could just add leaves like I said before. Bigger leaves. You could try to make similar foliage as to what you added in the far bank, but bigger and more detailed.
Well, not necessarily more detailed, but making us see those two and think that they're the same type of leaves, just at different distances.
Could something different too, of course, but I think it would look neat if you did something like that.

Other types of leaves mixed in would make it even better.

But IMHO it looks gorgeous already.

Offline cels

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #11 on: May 05, 2021, 10:30:01 pm
I think fskn's idea of fallen leaves is a good one. I was going to suggest overgrown cobblestones or something. Something ominous that reinforces the fatal mood of the piece without being too obvious (although a skull, a vial of poison and tickets to the 'The Murder of Gonzago' would make the piece more accessible to a mainstream audience). Just having a bunch of rocks or grass seems a bit insignificant.

FWIW, I read the flowers as flowers so that's not an issue for me. Unless they're rocks.  :lol:

Offline SeDiceBisonte

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #12 on: May 06, 2021, 09:28:37 am
Thanks guys!

Haha, they're meant to be flowers but I realized they were too big and I didn't get round to finishing them by the end of the day. That shouldn't imply that I actually know how I'm going to finish them, mind you. I think the ones in her hair get by because contextually there isn't much else they could be.

The flowers are the reason the composition ended up the way it is, with her looking out of the frame. It's meant to look like some have fallen from her hair but she hasn't noticed, foreshadowing the fact that she's going to end up in the river. I think it's probably far too subtle, though, so I actually like the idea of throwing in some other ominous hints (as long as they're subtle–as you say, CELS, it'd be easy to hit the audience over the head with it).

I'm considering extending my deadline slightly to a year since I finished my first piece rather than a year since I joined, but maybe I can pull this off today...

Offline cels

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #13 on: May 06, 2021, 12:55:20 pm
Good luck, man! However far you want to take this, it's already a great piece.  ;D

Offline SeDiceBisonte

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #14 on: May 06, 2021, 10:23:01 pm
I decided the deadline was important enough to finish it off as best I could today, although it would definitely have been better with varied leaves and something else to give it that ominous feeling.



If there's anything glaringly wrong or really terrible (e.g. those rocks, which I ended up hating more than the leaves so I just slapped some shadows from trees off to the right of the picture) then I can still update it.

I wish I'd had time to get it up on here a bit earlier, but work got in the way the last few weeks.

Thanks again for the help!

Offline fskn

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #15 on: May 06, 2021, 10:36:43 pm
If there's anything glaringly wrong or really terrible...

Nothing. That's just jaw-droppingly good. And I'm so stealing this for my ref. folder.
Congrats!

Offline cels

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #16 on: May 07, 2021, 05:16:02 am
Looks fantastic! Congrats!  ;D

Offline SeDiceBisonte

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Re: Ophelia - Need Advice on Foliage

Reply #17 on: May 08, 2021, 09:50:18 am
Thanks guys! I really appreciate all the help (more of which I'll be able to apply on my next, non-time-limited project, whatever that may be).