GR#012 - Bridge to Eden - Perspective

[Dex]

FINAL:



FIRST:



Been working on this on and off for a while. It's for my father's birthday, and his birthday is the 29th of September, so I still have a bit of time left

Anyways, I'm mainly looking for insights on what's done so far- no drastic changes will probably be made, because I have set myself a deadline.

C+C is appreciated, as always.

http://www.thoughtfulnessshopfineart.com/thomaskinkade/images/bridgeofaith.jpg

inspiration for this image comes from the above link (sorry big brother )

[thedaemon]

Lovely piece so far. I like the contrast from dark to light, left to right respectively. But I think that you could do more over exposure on the dirt path/grass where the sky is very over exposed. I think it would work better with the contrast of the left, forest side. Not too much mind you, but I think some would work. Also the tree on the right looks low quality compared to the other, I guess wip? Also the water could use some more rendering, maybe you could put some wildlife , a fish perhaps under the water?

[Helm]

all your pieces have a similar technique in the texturing, one that almost disregards the actual volumetric concepts of the item you're shading and just obfuscates this lacking with informationless detail. You're idealzing forms in your head and you fill them in with flat texture, it's like you said 'this will be tree foliage' and then bucket-filled in the leaf texture and then selectively brightened/darkened on top.

Your stuff is pleasing to look at but I feel the need to tell you that I can see through the pleasing to behind that, and there needs more work with how the individual parts of a volume make up an instance of something (tree branch with foliage on top, bricks to the bridge, whatever) and how that needs to work together with the composition and the overall idea.

Not all of this suffers in the same way, but most of it does. You're too loose with your forms and too imprecise with the concept behind how you texture, you confuse information for detail. Your pixel skills are great, you need to go under the hood and fill in those fundamental skill holes.

[Draco9898]

The perspective looks off in that the bridge never seems to become smaller as it gets farther away from the camera/viewer.

[big brother]

Sorry to sound harsh, but Kinkade is to art as Kenny G. is to music. To make a derivative of works that are so derivative to begin with... lacks imagination.

Although, at this point, I'm sure you've put in too much time tweaking pixels to change anything major.

In other feedback, I feel like your details don't wrap around the planes of the major shapes. A lot of them feel like they are directly-applied vertical textures. The basic composition needs lots of work; you have a tendency towards mathematical layouts. For instance, The tree near the end of the bridge fits centrally within the triangle of the mountain. The rocks and flowers in the lower left are almost equidistantly aligned. You should be able to justify all these artistic decisions.

[Mathias]

You're tireless, man. You just keep it coming. Wonderful little scene, it's fun to inspect.
I just wish there was something to focus on. It feels a little like a background layer for something, like a game.

Your reference was Kinkade's "Bridge of Faith", which is probably intended as some Christian metaphor.



So his focus is meant to be the bridge, it makes sense with the title . . . sort of. Your title "Bridge to Eden" I guess places the logical focus on the bridge as well, so I guess that still works, but then I'm left wondering - which side is eden? What if one side was a dried up desert and the other a lush rain forest type environment? IMO, that would give the illustration a nice obvious concept viewers could grab a hold of. Right now, it's just scenery.


Diminishing perspective is a persistent problem for you. The bridge is especially troubling. It's drawn in a confusing obfuscated way; very distracting to me. The black cat well stated that your texturing is lending to the problem - surfaces poorly indicate what angle they are to our POV, they remind me of parallaxed skies from old FPS games. I have a suggestion for it's construction attempting to "fix" it, and not betray your style while doing so:





When viewing your work, I sometimes get the idea that you do a basic sketch, but skip the refinement stage and go straight to final pixelling. Things like the bridge's construction and those rope poles shouldn't have made it this far. They should have been revised while refining your initial line-art. That rope changes width almost randomly; hurts your viewers' impression of depth.


Hopefully that's helpful. Keep up the good stuff.

[Gil]

For some reason, I just like it the way it is. The distortions just seem to fit his general art style. The flat decorative shading, the flattened perspective. The composition makes it all a whole.

I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso.

I think Dex might be on to something here, a personal way of expressing visual ideas. His own "style", which does seem to make sense within the rest of his works.

[Helm]

For some reason, I just like it the way it is. The distortions just seem to fit his general art style. The flat decorative shading, the flattened perspective. The composition makes it all a whole.

I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso.

I think Dex might be on to something here, a personal way of expressing visual ideas. His own "style", which does seem to make sense within the rest of his works.

He can keep this as it is if he thinks it's pleasing and it's great you think it's pleasing too. But the critique stands. Even if Picasso posted here he might get anatomy critique, which, given that he posted for critique in the first place, he should appreciate people giving him. See what I mean, it's not so much an issue if this looks good, it's the issue of the underlying areas where knowledge isn't strong. Dex will and should keep making art for his whole life and certain pieces will be more resonant with him and others than some of his other works, that's really great, artistry is a boon to one's psyche. But if he posts here for critique it means he wants to get better in traditional skills.

[Mathias]

I feel as though we're bashing Picasso for anatomy skills, with the added disclaimer, that Dex obviously isn't Picasso

Hehe, that's a valid point, hopefully Dex doesn't interpret any response in this thread as "bashing", though. And Helm again beat me to a similar comment that I feel prompted to assert now - I enjoy Dex's stuff too, but if he's making decisions based on a lack of skills in certain areas then he has some comfortable room for improvement calling his name, and it's his responsibility to explore that "room". No telling what he'll find in there. He'll only improve. Hopefully his style doesn't suffer in the process. I admit, unless I consciously work against it, I tend to make things too rigidly perfect. But my advice stands - consider it something to think about, in the least.

[Redshrike]

I have to say, I agree wholeheartedly with with Helm and Mathias have said.  I feel like Dex's stuff could be really, really awesome if he reigned those things in somewhat.  I think it's the outlines not following the texture the shading suggests which really makes it look odd to me.