The idea of your Jurassic Priestess hiding inside of an old conifer is lovely - a lovely non-generic, non-grrr-dinosaur response. That said, I actually find your concept art difficult to read spatially. It helped when you said it was the view looking down into the 'nest' - and your influence maps of those carved out trees helped me understand your environment too. The difficulty here is one of scale, and not having and real visual cues to tell us how big or how far away everything is. We could, for example, be looking into an ancient wood or ravine or cavern... The idea that we're inside a tree - an essentially cylindrical space - doesn't communicate and I think you should maybe give some thought to staging your lair as an interior space - perhaps by including an element of the exterior - as if we're looking through a gap in the trunk or similar?
Your depiction of the scroll is very nicely executed, but in common with some previous feedback, I think you could tighten up your concept art in terms of lighting - rim lighting to really pick out some of those outlines; at the moment, everything in this image is a bit 'soft'.
So - lovely character concept - very demure and restful and gentle - but I think your interior needs a bit more clearly realised internal structure - something a bit more sculptural-organic, as opposed to just organic - you need some more actual 'shapes' in there - something to raise this space beyond the ordinary:
I'm not suggesting that these elements should look manufactured somehow, but rather you need to get some strong shapes in there - a bit of clear structure amongst that weave of wood: and a bit more visual info in regard to this space being 'inside' an ancient tree - which might require staging the view so that the exterior is included somehow.
Finally - this is a magical, mystical space so loosen up your lighting a bit more - use it cinematically and use more of it! :D
OGR 16/11/2012
ReplyDeleteHi Peta-gaye,
Okay - fascinating back-story for your character; the whole feel of your narrative and world reminds me of this in tone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XGRmaiCpPU&feature=related
The idea of your Jurassic Priestess hiding inside of an old conifer is lovely - a lovely non-generic, non-grrr-dinosaur response. That said, I actually find your concept art difficult to read spatially. It helped when you said it was the view looking down into the 'nest' - and your influence maps of those carved out trees helped me understand your environment too. The difficulty here is one of scale, and not having and real visual cues to tell us how big or how far away everything is. We could, for example, be looking into an ancient wood or ravine or cavern... The idea that we're inside a tree - an essentially cylindrical space - doesn't communicate and I think you should maybe give some thought to staging your lair as an interior space - perhaps by including an element of the exterior - as if we're looking through a gap in the trunk or similar?
Your depiction of the scroll is very nicely executed, but in common with some previous feedback, I think you could tighten up your concept art in terms of lighting - rim lighting to really pick out some of those outlines; at the moment, everything in this image is a bit 'soft'.
So - lovely character concept - very demure and restful and gentle - but I think your interior needs a bit more clearly realised internal structure - something a bit more sculptural-organic, as opposed to just organic - you need some more actual 'shapes' in there - something to raise this space beyond the ordinary:
http://bulatov.org/images/wooden/8a_big_w.jpg
http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/wood-sculpture?before=1343674581
http://www.math.binghamton.edu/alex/PICTURES/Wood_Sculpture_6.jpg
http://www.kennesaw.edu/visual_arts/ACCSE/i/OdeleyeA_SunMoonRhythms
I'm not suggesting that these elements should look manufactured somehow, but rather you need to get some strong shapes in there - a bit of clear structure amongst that weave of wood: and a bit more visual info in regard to this space being 'inside' an ancient tree - which might require staging the view so that the exterior is included somehow.
Finally - this is a magical, mystical space so loosen up your lighting a bit more - use it cinematically and use more of it! :D