Feedback for environment
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@griffin Hi Griffin,
Great work! Thanks for sharing it.
Similar to JL Householder's suggestion, I'd like to ask a couple of questions:- Where is the focal point on your painting?
- What emotional response do you want the viewer to feel from the painting (what do you want the character to be feeling)? You don't have to be seeing his/her face because your use of value contrast should be able to tell the viewer what he's feeling by proxy.
It's not clear to me where you want me to look and what you're trying to get me to feel from the painting. Once you know the answers to those questions then I would use values to achieve the answers. This includes deciding where your light source is, and the affect that has on your values. It might indeed be very diffused light, so is evenly spread throughout the forest, but how does that answer the above questions?
What do you think?
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This is very cute! But as others have said I think your character needs to stand out more. Also you did nicely fading the light as it gets deeper but I feel like the canopy doesn’t change to much, especially that center tree, I feel like it should be a different shade whether that’s darker or lighter. During yesterday’s critique arena the guys were saying that a lot of the entries that were very monochromatic needed some contrasting color. Hope that helps you!
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@griffin great color palette and rendering of the trees.
What's the story?
Because we don't see the character's face, the expectation is that the character is looking at something more important than they are. We're looking for a focal point that isn't there.
Where does the path lead? Is there something else on the path? Peeking out from the trees? Lurking? Is this a serene scene, or is there danger ahead? Or adventure?
My personal opinion is that the 10% you're missing is story. You have drawn and rendered the scene well, but it's just a scene. It looks like you've started to lay the groundwork for a story, but it's undeveloped at this point.
Please keep sharing! Would like to see where you go with this (and where the path leads!).
illustrator - author - smiley person
mbaileyart.com
instagram.com/mbaileyart/ -
@adam-thornton-0 the focal point is pretty much just the forest in general. I knew from the get go that the center tree would draw attention but I didn’t mind that too much and just decided to go for. I see now that it may be too much of a focal point. I’ll avoid that sort of thing in the future for sure.
I’d like to viewers to feel the connection that the character has with the forest, that it’s special and meaningful to him.
The lighting has been tricky for me. I love intense lighting but the heavy canopy means softer even lighting (I think). I tried dappled sunlight but it’s hard to pull off and just became too distracting.
Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated!
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@asyas_illos thanks for the feedback! I’ll definitely think about making it more analogous rather than monochromatic. I think monochromatic can absolutely work in some cases but maybe that isn’t what this piece needs.
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@melissa-bailey-0 I’m thinking I should have given more context now haha. This is part of series I’ve been doing on my Instagram. The story followers this character and slowly unravels more about him. If you check out my Instagram to see those other posts let me know if this one makes more sense! I don’t want that to sound like I’m dismissing your feedback, it may very well be the case that despite context this piece still needs more narrative drive so thanks for commenting, I appreciate it!
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@griffin
Thanks for your reply Griffin.
I hear what you're saying.
When you say you want the viewers to see the connection that the character has with the forest - that it’s special and meaningful to him - I think that's the core of the 'story'. But do you feel you've achieved that? Can you explain (even to yourself) that you've shown that? I guess this echos what Melissa said in that, perhaps, the 10% you're missing is story.
Would love to see what you might do with it. -
@Griffin I tried to look through the responses to see if this was already said, so if it's duplicated forgive me
I personally think the issue for me looking at it at first glance is the knockback of the distance isn't pronounced enough to help create that immediate front/middle/back separation.I'm getting "misty forest scene" feeling because we're not seeing any dappled light hitting the floor. If that's on target, I think you could start to see the forest fall back closer to the character. I think the last layer is probably spot on, but maybe that tree closest to us on the far-right is where you'd begin to see it fall off, and your next-to-last layer would be a lot closer to the last layer than it is now.
Edit: pulling it into B/W I think highlights that a lot more. The value range could just progressively be more separated to help the eye figure out what to do with the image.
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@jdubz this was really helpful! Going to try what you’ve suggested here! Thanks!
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@griffin I agree with @jdubz with the mist and I think if you found another way to connect the forest holding special meaning to him it would help. Maybe have him hold a branch/leaf of the tree he's focusing on or have something in a back pocket. Just a thought.
