Between Classes

[moomoose]

figured id try my hand at something completely different- matte painting, first attempt at desert ruins-

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played with it a bit more...

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[artimies7]

Moo, if that's an original, it's absolutely fantastic.

[vrt]

Lots of color tweaks, moomoose, but I don't really see where your work comes in.. Would you happen to have a link to the plate?

[moomoose]

i suppose that's a good thing? http://www.sxc.hu/photo/450416
the ruins in the left foreground and the tomb to the right side were added from other sources and edited around

[artimies7]

Well, there's still nice work done.

[vrt]

Ah, I see. They didn't really strike me as ruins - I feel they'd need a little more compositional 'pop' to them. Right now it feels rather plain, there's no real subject.

[moomoose]

i was considering building a city into the massive rock, but i wanted to make sure everything else was melded and looking unified before i tried anything harder

-specifically, i had found http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1266329 but due to the lighting direction of that one, im not entirely sure how to integrate it into the sides of the rock

edit: here's along the lines of what i was thinking.  didn't want to go too far in if something was funky.

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i've tried attaching a grid and distorting it by perspective, but it doesnt seem to be coming out quite right no matter how i tilt the thing.

[shadow303]

Did you really get that city out of that green/blue background ..not that I am a big expert, but in that case I would try to flip it horizontally, add an inner shadow (with an angle about ~20 degrees) and then perspective distort it a bit to match the rocks behind.. maybe that could work.

[vrt]

I see some holes in the rock, but I wouldn't quite call it a city yet. Gotta think bigger! Have some small ruined houses at the foothills, have some decorative pillars around, maybe even some toppled statues. Also, try to have a few structures tall enough to get some of that high-contrast lighting hit them. That could definitely make it pop.

The image you found is wonderful. Use it as a reference and start painting.

[moomoose]

the cheap drawing tablet i bought arrives tomorrow, will try to get the hang of it (having not touched anything like it before, im a bit curious as to how the pressure will work, as well as tracking where the pen is when it isnt touching the pad) and hope to be able to add stuff without making it look jarring.

[shadow303]

I started painting on my IPad a few days ago (even though it's not a pad specifically designed for drawing) and it's great, it's a completely different thing to draw with a "digital pencil" than drawing with your mouse - I really like it. I'm not yet so accurate at drawing with a pencil, but it's a lot more intuitive and inspiring.

[moomoose]

vrt, when youre doing the initial figure sketching, for shrieker for example, what brush are you using?