Art - Which?

[hwango]

Which do you like better?

Larger color palette: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/21617414/

or

More monochromatic: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/21617476/

...and any other comments or suggestions also welcome.

Comments

[krzzl.livejournal.com]

Personally, I like the monochromatic one better. It has a "warmer" feel, not in the sense of being warm and fuzzy, but warm like the warm color palette, and bringing a sense of "heat" (which goes with the firey sky really well). When looking at them side by side, the larger color palette one looks more ominous and creepy, so I guess it also depends on what mood you're going for. (Hot firey doom or spooky slightly less firey doom?)

I don't understand the glow on the lion. It looks a little weird to me. I don't know if it's not done yet. The only thing that makes sense is that it's supposed to be the reflection of the sun on him, or maybe he just casted a spell, but it's more "border-like" so it looks a bit artificial to me. If you keep it, I would blend it out more, like a gaussian blur type effect. It's not as jarring in the monochromatic one to me, and blends in better with the color scheme, so it looks a little more natural.

[invader-haywire.livejournal.com]

Hmm... really all I notice is monochromatic one is more yellow and brighter than the other. A little too bright considering the sun and clouds in the sky. It seems to throw your light source off.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Reflected sun...it's definitely one of the things that nags me as not being quite right. maybe I'll tone it down and see if that's better.

[tankhangen.livejournal.com]

I like the monochromatic one better. I agree with kaiwoklaw, that the sun halo effect does not look quite right. My only other critique is I don't really like the vest, but thats just my opinion on the style, artistically it looks good.

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I like the glow effect. I also like the monochromatic version more. It looks more like sunset/sunrise. It also makes the long grass look better.

He should be a little bit pudgy though. Male lions tend to sit around all day while the females get food. ;)

Is it possible to add some glow effect to the grass in the background? I think the patch directly before the sun might be too dark. (grass one) (grass two) Maybe just making the horizon beneath the sun slightly bowl shaped would help.

I think he needs more of a shadow. The light caught on the grass front left is probably about where his shadow should be.

[tankhangen.livejournal.com]

Only older male lions get fat and lazy. The young ones the dominant male kicks out of the pride hunt for them self. However they also don't have a mane till they are older, and thus fat and lazy and let the females hunt.

[octophobic.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you're right that only old lions get fat and lazy. I was joking based on something I saw which indicates that lions do as little moving as possible. Apparently muscle can only be repaired so many times so the lion's strategy is to exercise in quick bursts.

I've seen it mentioned on a few shows that the female lions do most of the hunting. The male lion's primary role is to protect his den from other predators and other lions. And apparently to mark out their territory. No doubt a daily chore. ;)

From above article:
"The females do most of the hunting: the pride either walks in single file, or fans out in a loose formation, searching for potential prey."

Another article:
"The lionesses do a considerable part of the hunting."

Wikipedia Lion entry:
"The females do the hunting for the pride while the males are largely occupied with maintaining the borders of their territory. Males are expelled from the pride when they reach maturity. When or if a male coalition takes over a pride and ousts the previous coalition, the conquerors often kill any cubs that they did not father."

The only thing I don't like about Wikipedia is that people aren't required to quote or list their sources.

Male lions have it pretty good. Until of course someone younger comes along and steals their whole den. Lions are kind of like business executives I guess.