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

Oceane_Roh 2020-02-01 16:29:27 UTC #241

Yes the blue tones work very well and add more depth than the harmonized one. But they tend to add too much distraction, so you should use them on the focal point maybe and harmonized a bit the rest ?

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-01 17:46:45 UTC #242

@Oceane_Roh
Ahh thanks. Yeah I'll mess around with it in a couple days

@glubglubz
There are only lightning bolts in the cloud above him, it isn't the cloud itself that's the problem - it's that nothing else reads well. And I can't make it so. In terms of reference I've been referencing literally everything, you can see on the screenshots I've taken, I always am referencing everything to improve it, I do understand what you mean though and it could definitely use some work.
I'm glad you like it, I'll work on the sword too next time I come to it.

@rgdraw
Yeah I have done, the competition mostly I've been working on nearly everyday since I started, and the painting thus far well, I actually have done. Around 3-6 hours every I've been working on it from start to finish and it's getting harder to see mistakes the longer I try to work on it! Thank you though, I'll keep working on it until I'm happy with it

rgdraw 2020-02-01 17:54:25 UTC #243

You're welcome! Glad I could help you a bit!

sparksofdawn 2020-02-01 17:56:24 UTC #244

The illustration works pretty well as a whole, the design is pretty solid as well so don't be discouraged!
Personal opinion time: The one thing that bugs me a bit and I think it's maybe the source of your frustration as well is that the values get a bit disjointed in a couple of places. Don't get me wrong, they're 'realistic', but you could maybe use some creative license and simplify them, draw attention to where you want (for example the value contrast in the top right clouds is almost as strong as the main focal point when you squint). Also everything is so full of detail that the eye has nowhere to rest.
Just be careful not to jump to the other extreme and oversimplify/overwork the piece with adjustments. If you have the time, take another day away from it and take a fresh look.

Whatever you choose, you've done a solid piece and you shouldn't feel in any way bad about it!

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-01 18:07:35 UTC #245

Alright thank you for the feedback! And yes you are very correct, it doesn't read well because of the values, the light, it's jumbled and it doesn't give the feeling of scale that I wanted to give. I am taking a couple days off though, regardless the piece is close to completion in any case but I'm just a bit upset it's not going how I want it to really. I'll try and make things more simplistic though, thanks again for your input I'll keep that in mind!

nyamesis 2020-02-02 19:07:42 UTC #246

Oof I feel the struggle :'l even though the blue looked good I guess it would've been really hard to balance it with the rest of the piece. I also feel like the sword might be getting lost in the splashing lava/flames in the area
It still looks absolutely amazing though so keep it up :> I know you can bring it to a good finish!

pylua 2020-02-02 21:58:59 UTC #247

The more you work on a piece, the more frustrating it is to see the littles things bothering you over and over again and not knowing how to fix it. Same

Taking a little break is always a good idea. Don't worry, I said that again and again on this topic but : It already looks awesome !

moirae 2020-02-03 01:19:36 UTC #248

Hope you don't mind, had a quick mess around with colours.
Cropped it slightly, tried to take focus off the guy on the floor by repeating reds from the rest of the image ( that green really doesn't work in my opinion.)
Knocked the black off the shadows of the main guy a bit by dumping a load of blue over him and lightened the background immediately around the wings to create more of a silhouette.

This is just a quick mess around on an overlay layer above your image. Feel free to totally ignore it, i just needed to see it rather than describe it to you.

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-03 15:20:56 UTC #249

Thank you, I do really appreciate this! I had a bit of a break, so I'm going to work a bit more on it today.

And thank you everyone for all the support and kind words, it means a lot! This journey has been pretty tough, but most big paintings I work on tend to end up the same way and it's a workflow I'm trying to break out of. I will be back to updating today, I've mentioned this before but it's near finishing anyway so I just want to work on making it look right. The more I look at it too the bigger Phae's head looks and it should be smaller so I'm gonna make that smaller too. I haven't forgotten the rest of the stuff that I should work on either!

serovero 2020-02-03 18:03:45 UTC #250

Dude... this is amazing stuff you have here
Loving everything.

arhityom 2020-02-03 19:19:15 UTC #251

Wow, great progress! I must say I love how the folds on the cloth work with the dripping magma - such a great visual pairing, especially down by his legs, where they just meld into each other. Super tasty! -)
Yeah, composition is a bit noisy right now - but I think it's just a matter of balancing things a bit. I agree with @moirae - some value and warm/cool difference between foreground and midground figures would work a great deal for organising everything.
Such a great illustration overall!

Sergei_Pakhomov 2020-02-03 20:03:09 UTC #252

Wow! there are a tons of emotions in your work! it's incredible!

EllyettWee 2020-02-03 20:09:02 UTC #253

really cool artwork - maybe you struggle a bit with your focal point? You did a great job with the values but maybe you could also use the colors to take the focus where you want it. At the moment there are highly saturated reds and yellows everywhere - I personally don't know where to look at - maybe it helps, if you mute the colors a bit where you don't want the observer to look at first

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-03 20:09:51 UTC #254

@arhityom
Thank you so much! Yeah in the end the design itself came out well. I agree with the balancing, it'll be next that I work on that

@Sergei_Pakhomov

Thank you!!

@serovero
Thank you I do appreciate it <3

greckijjmarik69 2020-02-03 20:11:24 UTC #255

Oh my...This work. I think it's really HOT. Great drapery, great lava, great character. So dynamic composition. Honestly, one of my favourite works from this competition.

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-03 22:34:07 UTC #256

That means a lot to me thank you so much! All the support has really been helping, so I'm giving it my all and going back to fix it!

Lainon 2020-02-03 23:42:52 UTC #257

Love this one, such a dramatic and powerful feel to it Keep up the blazing work dude! =)

nesokaiyoh 2020-02-04 01:12:24 UTC #258

Alright so, I've been deliberating on the lighting for a fair few hours today, going back and forth between all the feedback I had, messing around a lot and also trying some new things. Some things worked, some didn't. I am a bit happier this time around though, and I want to thank everyone for showing so much support when i felt down about it. It helped, a lot. So I'm back to working on it, haven't done any rendering today, mostly just wanted to get the lighting out of the way as that's really what I'm struggling with. I have a few different versions here again, a bit of a mix of feedback as well as just my own experimentation. I merged a lot of layers, deleted layers, generally cleaned things up and it's made things easier too - for me and my dear computer (I do have a pretty beasty pc btw it's no old thing)

So let me know your thoughts once again, and I can come back again around tomorrow and work on it some more - hopefully having finally decided on the lighting!

Oh and I wanted to mention, I will be borrowing some things from your edit @moirae but I quite like the dark greens/blues in the corner where Idatrus is, I like how it goes with Phae's reds, so I probably won't implement that. Final colour will be changed a little in post editing anyway, so for the most part I just want an idea of the colour setup I want going and then I can work on it afterds

3 is a little bit of everything with some extra things added. I like the idea of the smoke in the bg, and it helps with the lighting I think. Let me know your opinions! I like all of these, but 3 is my favourite

rgdraw 2020-02-04 10:08:44 UTC #259

Awesome!!!! I like both 2 and 3, on 2 it adds some atmospheric perspective that helps understand the scale of things, but on 3 it feels more impactful, so I don't know sorry u.u Both are incredible sorry I can't help more o:

And good luck with all the little people at the bottom running for their lifes, there's a lot of them to paint!!

moirae 2020-02-04 14:19:39 UTC #260

I like 2. But you could keep some slightly darker areas around the face to draw the eye a little.