Ready For Battle

[God Gohan 49]

A Photomanipulation I was working on today. I would love some feedback, and ways to improve. I'm still practicing on some new styles, and this is only some practice. Thank you so much for the helpful tips.

 

 

[SGTROCK 1,671]

For the last few post have mentioned the same thing mate 'Blending and lighting'.  

These are key concepts and for these types of manips and can mean the difference between an average piece and a good solid piece.

 

Please have a look at the following link to GFX Terms there are a number of tutorials linked into the article that explain and show you a number of methods  to use.

http://www.pimped-pixels.net/forum/topic/27140-gfx-basic-terms/

 

 

Think realistically when compositing your next piece.  The eye is drawn to things that dont look right, everyday you perceive the world and take in thing around you they have light, shadow shape, tones such as warm or cold etc.  When you build your manip it needs the same things to appear realistic otherwise it doesnt fit and doest look right, as you gain more experience doing them you will start to see these things in your own work.

 

When I look a this there are a number of things that dont fit, lighting all the objects you added seem set in different light, to fix this you can clip a light /contrast adjustment layer to each object and adjust to to try and get all the objects with a similar light and shadow, you can also add a hue and saturation layer to get similar tonal values. The main character seems to be floating in the sky, there is nothing there to give perspective and grounding. Also ensure you don't leave straight edges from overlapping stock ie the bottom of the rocks where you have sat it in the clouds :'>

 

Blending - None of the objects seem grounded with the the BG or each other, one easy way, (doesnt work with everything) is Gradient maps first a B&W GM on Luminosity to add contrast and darken the darker areas and help with some of the darker tonal values across the whole image, then add a purple/orange GM on soft light and drop opacity down to around 19-21% so it is just visible this will do similar to B&W but will give in this case some warmer tomes across the image and tie objects together a bit more.

 

Shadows - Important to aid in depth give objects reference and grounding, particularly obvious where you have built the main character, no shadows added behind sword or arms next body where the tunic has been cut in over the horses body, the wings no shadows on the horses body or from the body on the wings near where to would be coming from his back or where the wings overlap, etc. 

 

Composition is also important, What are you trying to make the viewer feel, think, consider how want to lead the viewer through you image, visual queues, lighting, dark areas, intended lines, perspective etc

One method I use in the Obrey style pieces is the butteflys - usually 3 of them a FG one (largest) a middle ground one slightly smaller and a BG one, smallest  that hop side to side of the focal  and they usually have an accent colour, this is to lead the viewer through the image and give flow to a piece that visually has a lot to take in, the eye is typically drawn to a larger well lit object  so the viewer see's this and then follows a path from there to the next one and the next, back and forth across the image. There are a number of other ways you do this, have a look at some of the info on the web to do with graphic design principles.

 

Im not saying this piece is bad but hopefully this will give you some things to consider for the next one to focus on details and improve.

 

KAI takes time to pick up and learn new techniques  :'>

[God Gohan 49]

-snip-

 

Thanks so much for the feedback. I noticed the mistakes I made on this, and I'm working on fixing them in the next one. Especially the lighting, and blending, and overall composition. I'm going to look into video tutorials as well. I'll be reading the Basic Terms thread to familiarize myself with the general terms.  Thanks for all the help by the way. 

[Mr.Reapergod.SZ 99]

SGT explained basically everything already, kiu

[God Gohan 49]

SGT explained basically everything already, kiu :'>

 

Yup all the help would be great. I'm going to keep practicing on fantasy photo-manipulation. Thanks for the feedback.