Kamari Concepts-Which one?

[ArtistErin]

@kirsten-mcg I love the Phoenix concept! It's easiest to understand and you are doing great so far with color

[kirsten-mcg]

@Asyas_illos THat's true! I've been trying to keep too much blue out of my artwork, because in the past I've had a tendency to use it too much. But you're right that this time there's a good reason for it!

[kirsten-mcg]

@ArtistErin I'm so glad to hear that my concept comes across! I've been a little worried about that part.

[MarcRobinson]

@kirsten-mcg liking the way this is going! Idea... Maybe try and keep the background elements cool in colour temperature. This'll help the warm phoenix glow better. On the two colour comps you've got the whole image quite warm, and it'd be a shame for such a great creature design to not pop off the page.

[kirsten-mcg]

@MarcRobinson Good point! I'm working on a blue version right now to see how I like it. That would definitely cool things down.

[Sarah VanDam]

@MarcRobinson I agree. Maybe more of a sapphire blue or blue-green base

[kirsten-mcg]

Started working on this version in blue. I’m liking the color combo with the warm phenix colors.

[Chantal Goetheer]

@kirsten-mcg indeed the combination looks great! Could you make those brown edges on walls, stairs and paintings more a blue tinted type of brown? Now they steel too much of my attention from the Phoenix.

[kirsten-mcg]

@Chantal-Goetheer I've been playing with the color of those quite a bit. Still haven't hit on something I'm completely happy with. I'll try a more blue shade and see how it looks. Thanks!

[mzameckaart]

@kirsten-mcg I think a phoenix is a very clever idea for this prompt!
For some reason I really liked the green background, but the blue one will also work well.
Maybe the cage should be bigger? Or was the previous incarnation smaller than this one?

[Miriam]

@kirsten-mcg This is looking great! I really like the blue & agree with @kirsten-mcg that it would be good to tone down the browns.

I'm not very good with colors, but maybe you could try lowering the saturation on the brown? (more like the edges of the rug)

[kirsten-mcg]

@mzameckaart When I asked my family about half of them like the green! I think it's just personal color preference. I'll check the size of the cage. Thanks for noticing that!

[Asyas_illos]

I tried going over everything but the Phoenix and kids with a low opacity aqua color to see how it looked. I think a more orange based brown for the woodworking could help too, it’d be less contrast-y if it were a tad lighter

[kirsten-mcg]

Just about finished. I still need to add my watercolor texture, but I like to save that for vert last as I have to flatten all my layers first. I might try another version in more of an aqua color like @Asyas_illos suggested. Finding the right color for the wood is just killing me! What do you think @Miriam @mzameckaart @Chantal-Goetheer @MarcRobinson @Stephanie-H and @LittleRaven ?

[Chantal Goetheer]

@kirsten-mcg the background is taking much less attention now and the Phoenix is popping out much more, so good job!

[MarcRobinson]

@kirsten-mcg I like it a lot. I particularly like the pattern textures on the floor and steps which add a lot of visual interest.

[kirsten-mcg]

@MarcRobinson Thank you!

[kirsten-mcg]

@Chantal-Goetheer Thank you! That's good to hear.

[Miriam]

@kirsten-mcg This is great! It looks very magical & the focus is on the bird & the action.

[LittleRaven]

@kirsten-mcg Sorry, bit late to the party but better late then never I guess. I really love how this turned out! It looks really nice, great job!

But since you had a hard time with finding the right color I want to give you some feedback. First of all great job on finding a good color scheme with the complementary colors with the orange and blues! But I do feel its a bit lost in the final image. To just push this a bit more I would set a layer in photoshop to overlay and paint over the whole background with a desaturated blue tone, and really make the bird pop out. And this also creates a nice atmospheric effect like it would be a scene at night.

I feel the vocal points should be the bird and also the kids, so everything in the background should stay in the blue color family as much as possible. Right now for instance, the wood of the stairs in the background is in the red family and the stairs is in the blue, this creates color contrast (aka complementary colors) and this really attracts the eye. If you put a blue overlay on it, the reds are pulled more towards the blues. I also would add a layer in linear dodge mode with a dark red just on the kids faces to pull those more to the red family. To show all this I feel like a picture speaks more than words, so I created a paint over for you.

Hope this helps!