Rough landcape idea

Hey guys, I'm trying to make a cool landscape pic with creatures, this is a really rough sketch I know, i'm just trying to get an idea of what the final lighting will look like and position of everything before I get into heavy detail. I think this is a comfortable way of working for me, because I need to change what i'm doing wrong, I want the center blob to be a Brontasauraus facing off against a t-rex in the upper right corner, want it to feel like a swamp type location. Going to post updates on progress, any suggestions would be great.

Well, it's hard to make any suggestions at this point except you should try to work the lighting into your dino blob. So far it's pretty much only a medium/dark silhouette.

Also, being the nitpicker I am, I'd ike to point out that it looks more like a Stegosaurus than a Brontosaurus and that Brontosauruses actually don't exist because they were found to be another already named species. They're now known as Apatosaurus and belong to those really, really huge dinos next to which a T-rex would look quite small... (The Apatosaurus was about twice as long as a T-rex.) I'm not sure Stegosaurs were around at the same time as T-Rex (they might have already died out by then) but otherwise you could consider a Hadrosaur or a Ceratopsian for the foreground dino. Or then again there were plenty of other predators besides T-Rex... (or you can ignore facts altogether like I did when I mixed two species who lived 50 million or so years apart )

lmao Charlotte that's really precise feedback and I appreciate that, your knowledge of the jurrasic period is nothing if not impressive .. I have decided to change it to a triceratops and now I find out they never actually existed !? Well i'm not changing it again, so it will just have to be historically inaccurate.

If you are changing it to a triceratops then historically I think you're actually ok. Triceratops have been found with Tyrannosaur inflicted damage if I'm correct so they were in the same area .

Yep, ceratopsians (including Triceratops) were living at the same time as T-rex so that'd be perfect. It was the brontosaur that never really existed.

I really like the dappled lighting falling on the ground and the overall cool lighting that you have. The light hitting the top of your creature though seems to be quite warm, I used a colour picker on it and it is in the red spectrum which doesn't feel right with your cool overhead light. If you are going for a complimentary scheme would it be better to keep the warm areas on the main body or in the shadows rather than in the lit areas? One other suggestion is that the body is a little symmetrical and stiff, it might add more interest if the head were lifted or the tail was turned in some way. I hope that helps. Keep us posted.

Are you really wanting to focus on the landscape or the creatures? Right now it feels still very focused on the creatures but still in a rich area. Landscape images tend to focus on a big overall awesomeness of the area and any characters involved in the scene only take up about a third of the image. Not sure if there's a rule or something, just something I've noticed. Your piece is certainly yours to set up, just wasn't sure by your initial description what you were looking to focus on more I like how you use your brushes and rough textures though to build up all these elements you have. Very cool!

Thanks guys, appreciate that on such a rough image! I never thought of using the color picker to stick to warmer or cooler colors thats a really great suggestion, If I keep the characters off to the right side that way they should just be one third the image too. i'm glad triceratops and trex shared the same time, I think one of them is going to win here but I don't know who yet.

I really like this. That flash of orange around the Tri's head makes for a contrasting focal point and there's some nice subsurface scattering going on. There's good drama going on in the confrontation too.

It's a bit "right aligned" though at the moment. Maybe you could put in some little triceratops in lea of its mother.

Lighting is going to play a big part in this Mic. I am looking forward to seeing this take shape!

One other observation is that my understanding of the frill on a triceratops is that it is solid bone and therefore would not have any subsurface scattering on the shady side. That would only happen on thick areas of skin, like under the belly or around the legs and through cartilaginous structures like a nose or an ear.

Keep it coming Mic!!