Looking for Harsh Critique - Environment w/ character WIP

[poppyispainting]

This is my first real post here on Cubebrush! I am an aspiring concept artist/ illustrator looking for some real feedback in order to improve. Any suggestions would be welcome.

Some things I was looking to accomplish: creating a interesting composition and high contrast image, along with capturing an overall feeling of natural wonder. My inspiration was the Arizona Sandstone Caves.

Here is a closeup of the character

With this character, I was hoping to create a semi-realistic rendering while also keeping an expressive and stylized feel to the whole creature. The most finished areas are the face and front paw.

Thank you for looking!

[enalya]

Hey welcome!
I really like your environment, colours and creature design. Makes me think of Tatchit's designs.

• The lighting is a bit off at places, for example, I wonder what light illuminates the front rock formation (cilinder shape).
• A tiny detail: but I think her left leg is bent a bit weirdly, look at the fold at the calf/knee area.
• Overall I think there are too many yellows - balance it to a bit more red and it will make a nice complimentary contrast with the green water.
  I'm not sure if the character should also be yellow (she's drowned out now), but that might work out better if you've made these changes.

Good job on the values Keep it up!

[lmx]

Heyyy, good work!

One big advice would be : watch out for too much details! You got a pretty busy scene with a lot of work in it indeed, but feels like you put too much work on the character for what it deserved first! Idk your character is very detailed but appears really small compared to your overall composition, forcing you to post another image with a detailed view of it. More of that, some parts of your background are very shiny and appealing but not so detailed at all, so It feels a bit unbalanced.

I would say I like the second one more than the first one, because of the stronger composition and balance of details (character vs. background). But you could have been more simple about your character for composition's sake; the little details scintillate at that small resolution.

I hope I'm clear with my comment, not so pro wIth English so I could seem a bit aggressive (that's obviously not the case, just helping)

[poppyispainting]

Thank you for positive feedback and the suggestions! I will be posting a more completed work implementing the changes you proposed soon!

[poppyispainting]

Thank you for the compliment XD You don't come across aggressive, and even if you did that's totally fine.
I suppose I did go nuts with the detail, but for this piece I think I will keep detailing up the background instead of taking down the detail on the character. I will keep your suggestions about balancing out the background and character in mind for another piece though, because I do agree with you! Thank you for all the helpful suggestions!

[LensPitt]

As it has been said, I find the second picture actually better because the character is clearly defined as the main focus in it. The problem with your original picture is that the colors and the composition don't bring the eye to any focal point. For my critique I assume you want your character to be the focal point as it is highly detailed. There it goes:

I'd crop the image a lot for the character to take most of the picture but still have some room to breathe. Around what you did for the closeup but with more horizontal space.
Your background has a lot of curves, use that to your advantage and make them lead the eye back to the character (most that are close to him already do)
The background does a tangent on one of his ears (is you don't know what a tangent is i'll gladly explain in another post)
The green water is great as it pops against the warm tones of the character, though you lose that as we get near his face. It is important for your character to pop out against the background, especially the face area. Right now the colors of the background are far too close to his own and very saturated. I'd make them darker and give them a slightly cooler hue (dark brownish purples maybe?)
I hope it help!

[LensPitt]

Didn't see you said you wanted to go the environment route, sorry about that! In that case I would still suggest you use cooler colors around the character and add cooler touches here and there to balance it out! Try to mix it up and have a richer palette, right now the background is very monochromatic and feels overwhelmingly warm

[poppyispainting]

Thank you so much for the advice! It actually matched up with the changes I made to the piece. I added in the cooler blues and cropped the entire image. I also changed the character's eye color for a stronger vocal point, and brought the rock's saturation down. I will fix her leg, and I am planning on the character having a white conch shell in her hand, which will probably be the final vocal point.

[poppyispainting]

I might move one of the openings behind the character. Do you think this is a good idea?

[LensPitt]

yes I do, the opening close the the ground actually creates a tangent with the character's hand and you want to avoid that the new focal point is very clear though! I immediately looked at his/her eye!