Dave's Digitals

Spent an hour or so throwing some color down.

Quick update. Was going to work more on the sky but ended up working the mountains more.

The environmental piece is shaping up nicely. I really love the sky particularly. Your piece with the girl turned out pretty nice. Love the vibrancy of the browns and golds, it really sells that autumn kind of feel. I know this is really late in stating anything of help to it, but figure I'd throw it out there for future reference. The perspective on it seems a bit compressed I think? I guess the best way I can explain it is that foreground is really foreground and then it seems to immediately extend past that to far background based on the size of everything. I will freely admit that perspective is not a strong subject for me, so I could be totally off here on that. It's a really nice piece regardless and I find that you have such a distinctive style to your work that I find it hard to find faults with it

The environment piece is nicely rendered, but I find it confusing in terms of understanding the scale of what I'm looking at.

The central object looks like a bandstand, which implies a certain size, but the bridge suggests something larger, and the mountain ridges give the impression that the building must be far bigger again. I'm not sure what to take as a scale reference.

Thanks, Thomgirl. The piece with the girl isn't done yet. And I'm struggling some with the environment image, for the reason em... mentioned. - I've been trimming and cutting trees since Saturday, but did spend a little time on both pieces here and there over the weekend. I just started working on the girl a little and also the foreground, but also see what ya mean. Hopefully it will get there. Here's an update on her...

Thanks, em... Your thoughts on the mountain scene's scale has been driving me nuts too. I've moved the 'Gazebo?" more times than I care to admit. And though I did want it as a main focal point, I'm not sure I will be able to make it fit? I've pushed in back between the mountains, moved it to the extreme left, and it doesn't seem to work. Lastly, I've been trying to pull it closer to the viewer, changing the stream edge and shrinking it down, but I'm still not sold it works. I actually turned the layer off and just had fun with the rest and if it doesn't work out, maybe come up with something else? Will have to see how it works out. (I actually did this image to see how it would look stretched across my dual 27" monitors at work, but it's been fun. I've always been partial to landscapes, but sometimes do get lost in them.

I did some more on the sky and added some more water, but won't give up on the structure just yet. Thanks again you two, I will definitely keep working on those things you mention. Here's a quick update...



EDIT: Oh, and the small bridge you mentioned em... Yes, I've been using that, moving it around to see if it would help sell the structure size, but not sure if that will even stay?

I think the mountains are the problem. For the type of ridges you've drawn they would likely need to be several hundred feet tall, at which scale the gazebo would be hardly seen.

For the gazebo to be kept relatively large, it might be worth considering replacing the mountains with a smaller scale outcrop, like the famous Vasquez Rocks

Hey Dave, em gave some good advice, I was thinking about the same, for more depth you might want to change the dimensions of the canvas (landscape into a portrait), I think depth can be achieved easier that way, just stretched your pic to see what you think.

Also the pic with your female character is looking awesome now, almost done, has great lighting now and has a polished look already, the only thing that stands out to me right away is her face, your eyes go there immediately so having a really attractive face will make your pic look 1000% better!
(not that she doesn't look good now or anything.. )

Yeah, I agree, I will just have to see what can be done to help it if anything. I haven't had much free time this week to fool with it, but was actually thinking last week to just scrap the structure altogether. But of course, the little voice in my head "who I'm also married to" keeps saying please keep the gazebo, I really like it. So I told her I would try, but if not, I would maybe do something else with it.

What little time I did have, (which wasn't very much) I was actually trying to put some brushes together for creating foliage, since I recently lost all the ones I had previously. ... I'm also testing out the idea of using some trees/foliage to see if it will help push the mountains back some. This vegetation may not stay or might change. I'm mostly just trying out various methods.

Oh, and Micro, I do understand what ya mean about shortening the canvas. But this was more of a test, seeing how an image would look stretched across my dual monitor setup at work. So the canvas size is based off the dual setup, nothing else. But appreciate it.

I really like the vegetation and the new setup of structures look nice too and with a few more structures like the bridges, the gazebo also looks less random in its environment. But the "mountains" still look more like hills or outcrops, and for that the shapes look "geologically wrong". I think em's photo ref of an outcrop would really do the trick here (if you keep in mind that all geological layers would most likely be oriented in the same direction).