ART WAR 4 | 2D | War of the Elements | On the wings of Fire | nesokaiyoh

[nesokaiyoh]

@Motocrab
Ahh thank you! Yeah a change like this definitely helped a lot

@nyamesis
Thanks! Oh certainly, finding a balance in lighting and value is always something I take pride in. A lot of unnecessary intensity will also just be removed when I add atmosphere too, giving it a bit more balance

[pashalosenkov97]

Oh my God. It's so impressive and atmospheric!!! It's breathtaking. I can't convey all the emotions.

[nesokaiyoh]

I'm really glad the atmosphere is coming along, I usually overdo it so I'm trying to be careful this time around.

Last update of tonight, I want to play some witcher so I'm finishing it a bit early today! Worked more on the lava and fire, messed around with lots of environmental effects, mostly the god rays. Still got a lot of atmosphere to fix and of course detail the clouds and add other environment deets. Idatrus and the lava on him needs some heavy duty rendering, it was a placeholder when I started messing around with the lighting. He'll definitely be more finished soon, as well as the foreground and people lol but as they'll be more symbolism than anything they won't require much work.

My computer is starting to chug now as well, getting really slow. It's a big enough file already at nearly 8k by 4k pixels. Usually I don't have this problem but I've had crash problems for months and I discovered it was mostly RAM related, and I actually had to remove one of my RAM sticks in order to not get the crashes. I really need to send the PC back for repair as I've troubleshooted every possible problem including a complete reinstall of Windows from the disc. But obviously I can't send the PC back until the contest is over otherwise I risk not getting it finished xD So unfortunately I have to deal with the slow performance, at least until it's done. Thankfully there's not too much left on it and a lot of the heavy rendering as I said in the previous paragraph is just Idatrus and the foreground. Oof

Then it's just a matter of tiny details, touch ups, balancing and some post-edit effects like dust in the lense etc etc! I've been working on a storyboard of these two meeting from the volcano as well which I plan on posting after this is finished (provided I get the time)

[pylua]

Those god rays already added a lot to the scene, it's looking great.
I was sceptical when you first added the lava on the knee because it was kinda hard to understand and see it.
But replacing a lot of the fire by lava really helped a lot for the understanding of the overall scene (including that knee)

[poplavski_m]

wow. great idea. really looking forward to the final work

[Oceane_Roh]

Really good progress, your render is amazing. (The drape )
There is something a bit weird with his right hand. The finger look a bit broken and I had trouble to figure out if he has 4 or 5 finger on his hand, the bottom part don't read really well. And the lava melting from his heart doesn't really follow the volum and dynamic of his torso.
But yeah, very good

[rgdraw]

This is too good I can't handle it ahhh!!! * faint *

[mr_dessin]

So much details everywhere

[nesokaiyoh]

@mr_dessin
I know there are a little too many, I tend to go overboard xO

@rgdraw
Thank you <3

@Oceane_Roh
Oh thank you! And yes I do agree, a couple of people had mentioned it and I wanted to fix it but got distracted with other things, I tend to flit back and forth between multiple renders at a time. I will definitely work on that though, as I wanted to repaint it anyway! I'll fix the lava a bit more too, it's not completely done yet, and especially so the lava on the floor so that'll also be on the list lmao

@poplavski_m
Thanks!

I think maybe the god rays are also making it a bit chaotic? I'm hoping with more finished rendering it'll pull it all together but currently it's a bit of a mess. I appreciate your feedback, and I do agree that with the rays the knee is a little more visible. It's also not entirely finished yet, rushed a little into the environment lighting because I love it so much lol

Thanks everyone! I probably won't be working on it today. Have a lot of busy family stuff today and I need a break anyway. There's only what, 9 days left? on the competition but I'm not worried at all. I've said previously that the largest bulk of work on this piece has been done and aside from Idatrus and the lava, the rest is just minor repaints and touch ups.

I wanted to thank everyone for all of your support and feedback so far, it's been a really big help for me and I want to push this piece to the best of my ability! I'm actually a little bit sad that it'll be over soon, but I made a thread on the art blogs section of the forum so I'm hoping I can keep the same kind of consistency and enjoyment through art and others on there (I will also post all of this art war stuff on there too for the sake of history and clarity)

[Eugen_Khandusenko]

Really Energetic! Like the motion & the scale + how you treat fire with flat passes. Cheers!

[nesokaiyoh]

Thank you!

[Serfer]

I'd say that the god rays work well as they are reinforcing the main area, face and chest. And they look great!
Have you considered creating a new file and there then flatten some layers? so you'll be working with a light file, but you'll have the backup layers on the old file.
I really want to see this fully rendered, btw!

[nesokaiyoh]

I have definitely gotten rid of layers, merged things and generally made the file easier to work with but a lot of the information in the layers I have is still there. I did some more experiments, decided probably getting rid of the god rays is better

[nesokaiyoh]

Hey guys. A little bit at the end of my tether here, I've been frustrated and almost angry at the piece for a few days. I can't get the lighting right and I don't have the time to redo the whole piece either. It would've worked had I got the perspective right, which unfortunately I messed up due to the massive scale (i.e. they'd be a lot more distorted from the view of where the camera is). I agree with the majority in that it's chaotic, the focal point is messy and the composition itself is faltering probably due to my inconsistent decision making in lighting - I did these today. Was going to wait a bit until I made some more drastic changes but I don't know if I even want to work on it anymore, like I said it's been really frustrating and I lost the fun of it. I'll probably have another couple days off, and decide whether I should come back to it or not (I will at least finish rendering the people though) because honestly there's not much more I can do to it to make it any better

I haven't fixed the hand yet either, I really just wanted the piece to work before I spent anymore time rendering things out

Uploading...

I don't know though. Let me know what you guys think, any help would be greatly appreciated.
By the way I've spent the past few days just on the lighting, and have tried many different types

[hendrix.simon]

Heyya! Phaedrus looks super awesome! I think you did a great job conveying his fury, especially with that sweet eruption supporting it
I personally liked the godrays coming from the left. Its already rediculously epic and that just emphasized it.

One thing that I noticed is that I dont understand where the sword is, especially the part close to the hilt. It seems to melt (literally ) a bit with everything thats going on there.

Apart from that, just epic!!! Keep going!

[Oceane_Roh]

My favourite lightning is the first one of you last post, le blueish one add a lot of local contrast, it do help with the focal point a bit but in the same time it's also very distracting. The yellow one thigh things together and that's great.
This is a really difficult piece, with an even more difficult point of view, if I could suggest you something to not burn the piece to ashes .. Don't think to much in the details, be more expressive, there is nothing that wrong in your illustration.
You character is ragging and crying, he is in a lot of pain, we can feel that perfectly and we can understand his design, you've hit the most important points.
You may what to try a basic photoshop perspective effect on the top of your illustration to fit a bit more the point of view.
I can't do much except encourage you ! I'm also the type of person who can drop completely a piece and start it again from ashes if I have the time to do so... But yeah your piece is amazing, and you've done so much. You will sucess

[nesokaiyoh]

Hmm yeah I thought the blue would work well, then i couldn't decide if I should colour harmonise the whole thing, disliking that there's so many different saturated colours you know? It's a bit messy?

Thank you for the kind words, it started out to be fun like most paintings but I always overdo it even when I don't intend to. I'll keep on with it for sure, but I'll certainly take a break to work on other paintings and drawings in the meantime. I'll try out a bit of the PS perspective too, I'll work on rendering the people and repainting the hand as well. All the lighting effects luckily are in separate folders so if push comes to shove I'll just keep redoing the light and start again. I've also thought of just cropping Idatrus out completely but then that gets rid of a lot of the feeling and emotion I wanted involved, as we can directly see what Phaedrus is so frustrated against.

Thank you so much for the feedback, and I'm glad that at least what I wanted to show has come through well, even if the rest of the piece has fallen through somewhat!

[nesokaiyoh]

Thank you!
Yeah I get you with the sword, I layered a lot of PS effects in order to try and salvage readable lighting but I can work on making that more visible and getting rid of some of those effects too.

I agree with the god rays, though it does make the entire piece chaotic too. The idea of the god rays was that the sun was coming through tiny gaps in the pyroclastic flow that Phaedrus is generating with his power, so I tried to show that (having ash and rocks fall from the sky where Phae's volcanic cloud is at the top there too) but I need more ref and probably have to redo the background too.

I'll take your feedback into consideration and try my best to make it the best I can, thanks!

[rgdraw]

You've been working on this for a while now, so maybe that's why you get that frustrated feeling
It's an incredible piece, the focal is definitely on the character and works well, maybe it's the fire at the bottom that can be a bit distracting but otherwise it's amazing really!
I hope it helped, you're amazing, don't doubt that!

[glubglubz]

To me the lightning isn't the problem per se. I think it might be that the lightning bolts are very well defined but the clouds right next to them aren't.

Try googling lightning storm volcano if you haven't yet. There's some SUPER crazy reference for exactly what you're going for.

I do agree with @hendrix.simon about the sword though. I would suggest cleaning the blade up and adding at least one full strand of lava from the tip to his chest wound.

This is honestly one of my favorites that I've seen so far. I would love to see you finish it, but I definitely understand where you're coming from. I know that feeling all too well.

Good luck!