Art - More swamp

[hwango]

I've been looking at this for too long tonight, and I'm starting to gibber. Hopefully this is progress:

(Photobucket, because deviantART is in read-only mode right now)

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/Swamp-_wip2.jpg

Sunlight is supposed to be streaming in through a hole in the fog/cloud cover. Reflections should, for the most part, be where they're supposed to be, though I think there are some points that need touching up. Is the reflection convincing for the most part, though?

Comments

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

Reflection looks good. The sunlight may need an actual sharper edge and need to be broken up in beams to make it more clearly register as sunshine.

One of the trees doesn't look quite tied into the background. The one on the left with the chopped off top and the one branch. The roots in front a little too well defined, because they appear to be flaoting above the ground, rather than attached to it. The top also doesn't appear quite right because its too distinct. The tangle of trees next to it, heavily obscured by mist, that one still poppong out very sharp. The top of that tree needs to be fogged over just a hair more to blend it into background.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, that accursed tree. It is my new nemesis. I'm happy with the trees on the right, so-so on the fogged out tangle on the far left, but that stupid one to the right of the tangle fills me with hate. Besides the issues you mentioned, I think it's a weird shape. I need to make the roots smaller, or make the one branch bigger, or something. Maybe I'll just rip it out and replace it with extra grass-like plants. I plan to put some of those in anyway, and it would give me an excuse to elminate that hateful tree.

[hwango.livejournal.com]

Okay, grasslike plants at the water's edge turn out to make my swamp cluttered and too busy, and are a nightmare to reflect properly in the water. So I think I'll be skipping those.

I have ripped off the arm of my nemesis, uprooted it, and flung it into the water. I like it better there.

Finally, I have a slightly sharper beam of sunlight, and put it at a slightly steeper angle. I'm thinking maybe it should be steeper still if it's supposed to be morning sun burning off the fog. Speaking of the fog, I tried to give the fog near the top more definition so it doesn't look like just a bunch of gray airbrushing.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c291/hwango/Swamp-_wip3.jpg

[incarnadine.livejournal.com]

I like this version much better. Triumphing over your
nemesis seems to have been key.

In the future, you might want to try solving more problems by ripping
off an arm and flinging into water. It really seems to work.

~P.