FINAL | WORLDS | 2D | Post-war city of Kilrian, rebuilding | Thakis

[thakis]

Greetings everyone, my name is Thakis and this will be my entry for the Worlds art contest.
I'm super excited and I can't wait to see what awesome worlds will be born out of this event! Good luck to everyone taking place!
Cheers

The theme is the following, as described by the most renowned historian of these troubled times...

''No one can believe it was finally over...

Three years have passed since the beginning of the war. The relentless pursuit of power led the magical kingdom of Dunn'zalor to disregard the position it held in the Triadic Union and attempt to establish their own rule in the kingdoms of the North and South. After it was discovered that Dunn'zalorian mages were behind the mysterious disappearances of villagers from remote villages of the northern and southern borders, using them in horrific experiments of mind manipulation, war spread like wildfire across the continent.

Now, after the final city of Dunn'zalor, Kilrian, lies in ruins and the victory celebrations are over, refugees from the conflict-striken city of Cyran across the Northern border are pouring in, building their new homes here among the remains of the once proud magical towers and homes of the Kilrian mages and scholars. Some of these buildings even still stand intact, as a result of the strong presense of magic in the area. I pray to the gods that this is indeed the end of the war that cost so much to this land and its people.''

• Leandor Filir, Laramian historian, year 137 of the 3rd age of Man

CONCEPT SHEET

FINAL ILLUSTRATION

[thakis]

Here's the first rough sketch I did after selecting the thumbnail I liked the most:

And here's a modified version of it I am currently working on:

[thakis]

I am a little concerned about the whole magic thing as part of the 'fantasy' theme, I hope I'm still on-topic with the second version and the not-so-strong focus on magic, which is mainly used a backstory element.

Here's a rough value sketch I've done, though I'm still working on it:

Worked on the values a little more. I 'll now get into colour and see if I can make it work at a rough stage. I also need to decide on the bird, the ruins and the tower in the background.

[thakis]

Made some progress. Added colors and some lighting. I'll start adding more elements soon (ruins, people, etc)

[thakis]

Some more progress. Lots of things to be added or improved, slowly getting there

[thakis]

The struggle is real... I'm still new to making complete paintings with several elements and areas of interest. Nonetheless, here's some further progress

[ranarh]

You should take care of atmospheric effects soon now. The village doesn't need to be single-house detailed, at least not right now. Your sky is a bit wonky; I suggest you keep the "paint from back to front" approach in mind and worry about getting the further away things done first, then slowly add more detail working towards the front. I like the colour choices, but add more blues to the shadows as slightly lit by the sky. And finally, the front tower's bricks don't follow perspective.

[thakis]

Hey, thanks so much for your comment, I really appreciate it. I kinda jump all over the place fixing things and I inda lose focus on some big and important ones. The sky is a bit problematic to me, I'm still not 100% sure how I want it value-wise, but I'll figure something out.
Thanks a lot, cheers

[hebronppg]

Hello thakis
Personally I liked your progress, but I believed you needed to improve further. Ranarh's opinion above told you better than me..

Personally I also had my opinion here...
First, I love your color choice, it made me remembered some old oil paintings in an art gallery, I also love your sun light fell in the ground, and make a nice shadow in the left side.

However, I guessed you made some mistakes here.. In my opinion, you had problem with scale. The left people seemed too big and unmatched with overall images.. Perhaps, you should reduce it. Mirroring your left guy, also will lead viewer eyes to your vocal point, the dragon tower. Currently, it seems he has his own business, and it is not a part of your story..
Adding distance between your main ground and background will also improve your image. It will create this image has a sense of depth.
Your left purple castle, it blurred your focal point. If I were you, I would add blue color, similar color like your sky color with soft brush to create a sense of distance at the area around of your purple castle.
All in all, I have never thought to hurt you with my words. However, I suggest you to trial and error more. Practices will guide you to the next level. Cheers...

Keep it up man,
thank you
Hebron PPG

[thakis]

Maan, it's so nice to have people critique your work! You guys have really helped me out so much! Most of these problems were bothering myself as well, I could see several things going wrong, but having a fresh eye point them out is so helpful! Your comments about atmosphere and scale were spot on

So, I did some hasty corrections today, trying to fix some of the depth and atmosphere problems. I also added a ''brick'' pile sketch to help with the storytelling of the dragon on the tower. Things that are mostly bothering me right now are:
-Houses and people do not integrate smoothly into the painting, I will need to have them be a proper part of the painting, rather than little stamps stuck on top of it.
-The tower in the back still seems a little weird. I think the colors are ok now, but I need to fix the values so it blends nicely with the sky.
-I am still not sure about the size of the cart and the qoodcutter in the foreground, it's still bothering me quite a bit. It may need some further adjusting.
-I need to implement some overcast shadow feeling in the area behind the wall, like the one in the left of the foreground.
-There's also the right lighting missing in some foreground and middle areas to push the contrast more.
Slowly getting there
Thanks again @hebronppg and @ranarh for your thoughtful and kind comments, I really appreciate it!
Cheers

[thakis]

I've also considered an alternate foreground, not sure if it's worth working on it or not though

[thakis]

Made some progress today. I decided to take the 'back to front' approach suggested to me, so today I tried to fix the sky. Now I need to find a way for the tower at the back to not pop out too much. After that, on to the houses and the rest of the area behind the walls.

[jonatan-moonchild]

Hello @thakis :). Nice scene you have here. There is many things to look and story to explore. I like that you take the time to populate your world. Looks like people (and dragon ) are very busy building a brand new world. I like the way you lead the eye through the image from the foreground to the tower on the hill.

Don't even dare to think about deleting anything! (I'm referring to your post in my thread) You are doing great - just keep pushing and pushing to your limits and every time you try hard, you will find your limits a little bit further.

As there is always a room for improvements - here are my two cents... which are of course just my personal opinion. You've mentioned the tower at the back - I think It's okay to have another focal point in the image as long as one of them significantly drag more attention and the dragon does his job . So I would just change the darker tower into brighter tower and desaturated it a bit and maybe unify all the colors of distant towers so they would not be so colorful. One thing that bother me about them compositionally - they are very close to the border of the image so I think it wouldn't be bad to expand the image a bit on the left or... move all the walls along with all inside a bit to the right. That would give another benefit - shift main focal point away of the center, which I think, wouldn't be a bad idea. Especially if you have additional story behind the wall. As for the trees near the towers - they seem to be a bit too saturated in my eye. Also they have different hue than the green in the front which is more yellowish (I like the fresh look which it brings to the image by the way). More unified hues would bring more visual harmony to the image. The same goes to the hills on the right. General rule of thumb - the closer to the horizon, the more desaturated and brighter things are. You could use this rule to two dragons in the distance. Right now when they are dark as they are, I have the impression that they are two birds flying over people working on the foreground . By the way - the scale of the people seems to be a bit inconsistent. A man in the red seems to be a giant in comparison to the man with the bough. Also people in the distance seem to be a bit to small. I think the easiest way to fix this is narrowing the road more as it goes further away (or widening it in the foreground) so it would create the impression of greater distance.

I hope my critique did not offended or discouraged you and it is useful for something. As I wrote earlier - this just my personal opinion and you are free to ignore it if you see it different.

Keep it up man and fight to the end!

Regards
Jonatan

[thakis]

Hey man, thanks a lot for your feedback, I really appreciate it! And no, I'm not offended in any way, I can take criticism all day, fire on!
Very interesting thought about composition, I am tempted to add some width to the image, but I'm not entirely sure I can pull it off in such a short time, especially since there are so many other things I need to fix yet. I want to give the impression of a semi-densely populated city on these two hills that gets ruined as it gets close to the main wall where the battle took place. I may try changing the width if I have a day or two to spare though. I did want my focal point to be more to the right but frankly, I couldn't squeeze any of the right or left space more, so it ended up almost in the middle. Not optimal, but if it ends up like that, I'm still ok with it.
I am currently in the process of refining and fixing most things from back to front (should have done that much earlier). I have already fixed most of the values and saturation with the back tower and the trees and I am now trying to improve the whole behind the wall area which is a bit lackluster atm. The dragons in the sky are on my to-do-list as well. The mountain on the right is purposefully painted differently than the foreground. I wanted some color variety and some sense of depth there. I may put some yellowish hues at the bottom to help smoothen the transition with the foreground a bit.
As for the human figures, they have given me surpisingly big trouble so far. I realised quite late that part of the problem is the road like you said. I initially wanted a different foreground with much bigger figures, kinda like standing on top of a hill and looking down on the valley and the city, but I kinda dropped the idea eventually. I hope I can make the proportions work somehow cause it's been bugging me for a very long time >.<

Whew that was long Thanks again for the feedback, it's really a gamechanger having a fresh eye to critique your work... Cheers

[thakis]

A small update here. I worked on the area behind the wall for a while. The houses are giving me more trouble than I expected, I really hope I can make the whole piece presentable by the end of the deadline... Center area has much more contrast now compared to the back, but I will try to balance it all out tomorrow.
Furthermore on my immediate to-do-list are the human figures and the road on the foreground, some polishing on the walls, some life in general throughout the piece and after that, I will do a final light-value pass to make things as coherent as possible overall. Fingers crossed I make it in time

[tck]

dude I love how the dragon is helping rebuild the castle, it's a great idea xD
I'd make sure that the tops of the castles towers have a sharper more defined edge, try using the lasso tool to just tidy them up as the soft edge implies a soft material and the castle is presumably made of stone

[thakis]

Yeah, it's one of the many things that 've been bothering me for a while and am now trying to fix with what little time I have left. I'm glad you like my idea, thanks for the comment

[thakis]

I've been sick these last couple of days but, nonetheless, tried to fix some issues with the painting. The contest is finally over and I'm glad I took part in it, I learned SO much! I can't say I'm super impressed by my painting but hey, there's always next time
Good luck to everyone!