Curse

Operative 14 · Jul 09, 2009, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Many months ago (I think it was last fall) I posted a wallpaper where I sort of explained that it was meant to commemorate my GW characters after the time of Guild Wars 1. Many of us have our stories, as can be seen in the ever popular 'Retirement of Your Characters' thread. My main two characters, an Elementalist from Prophecies and a Dervish, end their days by leaving the Tyria we know behind, heading out for lands unknown to the East of Ascalon. Along the way, my hope and intention is that they would encounter equally grand adventures as they did throughout GW1.

This scene depicts such an occurrence. Crossing the plains of a vast grassland, they come across an artifact of immense power.

On an artistic side note, I've wanted to do this kind of thing for a very long time. I've always had this image in my mind of drawing vast, epic landscapes, I've just never had the expertise to do so. Especially after seeing the astounding work that is the concept art for Guild Wars. This piece is sort of a bit of concept art, if you will, for my own characters futures. I'm particularly proud of this work because, with the exception of my characters, their weapons and the backpack, I made everything else from scratch.

I also wanted to note that the thing that I am particularly pleased with is that it's so different from Guild Wars. It sort of illustrates what I feel is missing from the game; big, vast landscapes that go on forever, the only limit being mountains that you can see in the far, far distance. The world of Tyria is just a warren of tiny little canyons that we get to play in, I'm hoping we'll see zones like this in GW2.

While I know there is a vast amount that could be improved upon, I'm happy and surprised by how it turned out. What do you guys think?

As always, constructive criticism is quite welcome.

Zan Usi Quan · Jul 09, 2009, 08:44 AM // 08:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Operative 14

It sort of illustrates what I feel is missing from the game; big, vast landscapes that go on forever, the only limit being mountains that you can see in the far, far distance.

Thursday evening, 23pm:
Here we go (hits R)

Friday morning, 9.30am:
There we are !

Deimos Zargarda · Jul 09, 2009, 08:53 AM // 08:53

Looks nice, you aint so bad doing these wallpapers.

Fanita · Jul 09, 2009, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Not bad, but I think your elementalist would appreciate some legs...

Archress Shayleigh · Jul 09, 2009, 10:04 AM // 10:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fanita

Not bad, but I think your elementalist would appreciate some legs...

He is ahead of his dervish, slightly downhill. >.< Very nice pic

paddymew · Jul 09, 2009, 10:43 AM // 10:43

Really good picture! Although I think that the grasslands of Ascalon and the surrounding areas are either seared to a crisp or lush green, as seen in the Charr Homelands.
Maybe it should be a bit... greener?

subarucar · Jul 09, 2009, 10:49 AM // 10:49

I like the grass on the hill they are standing on. I might have to borrow that for future photoshop projects, i have never been able to come up with decent looking artistic styled grass. Mind giving my a quick run over how you did it so i dont miss anything?

Temidien · Jul 09, 2009, 02:34 PM // 14:34

Interesting concept, but the art needs some serious work.

- Your really need to re-evaluate the light sources on this, light is coming from almost every direction and your shadows are all over the place.

- Dervish's skirt and feet are not interacting with the ground at all. May I suggest brushing over the skirt so she doesn't look like she's hovering?

- For being such an intense beam of light in the background, NOTHING in the sky or on the ground is reflecting light.

- Using more than 3 brushes for the grass would definitely help the realism, especially for the background hill. Only the left side has any texture, the rest looks like a wall of green. Also, the top edge of the hill just meets the sky. If it were a hill, it would round off at the edge.

- Background mountains have no texture. This can be cheated if you make it a bit more blurry to fake depth.

- Grass doesn't behave like it does in the foreground. I know you were going for a sense of depth and wild nature, but rolling hills (especially where a storm is brewing-as seen in the background) have a lot of wind. Wind moves grass. Usually in a uniform direction.

- Foreground grass is made of only two brushes. It's a neat combination, sure, but not very lifelike. I recommend using the pen tool to hand-make some of it.

- If the Ele is in front of the Derv (and not hovering in the air with no legs), than he should be substantially smaller. Especially if he's far enough in front that his legs get cut off from the slope of the hill.

If any of this comes across as mean, I apologize. I assumed by posting on here that you wanted constructive criticism.

ele pl · Jul 09, 2009, 02:55 PM // 14:55

I kinda like it, but sorry, see better. Still much work to do. Nice concept though. You can add some nice details on that **cloud**.

Chicken of the Seas · Jul 09, 2009, 06:29 PM // 18:29

Its nice but tbh I don't think its one of your best. I really liked the other wallpapers you've made before though.

I know cutting out renders is hard but you seemed to do it very well in your past wallpapers, what happened to the dervish's skirt in this one?

I understand (or I think I do) that the "wind" is supposed to be causing the grass to go every which way, but I think it should still have a general direction.

I like the under-texture you used for the grass on the hill though, but for some reason something about the shade of green you chose throws me off, even though I know its supposed to be "in the shade" because of the clouds.

And yeah basically everything else Temidien already noted =P

Operative 14 · Jul 09, 2009, 06:52 PM // 18:52

The grass is supposed to be more of a dehydrated, yellowed out savannah than a large grassy area, so it's not a shade of green, more of a wheat field.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to the pen tool. I made the grass on the foreground hill by just using the smear tool and making the blades of grass with a 10 pixel soft brush and my little graphics tablet. And the background hill was just playing with the Wind/Stagger option through polar coordinates. You're right though, that has led it to look quite... wild. On future projects, I'll make sure to pick a spot the wind is coming from and work from there!

I'm wondering about the artifact light though, since it's supposed to be a good distance away (I know I didn't do well on the perspective, but it's supposed to be over kind a rolling hill in the background) isn't it far enough away that it wouldn't really interact? And even if it did, it's from about the same direction as the sun (shaded from the viewing perspective behind the clouds to the upper left) so any light it would throw off would be marginally the same direction and luminosity, if not overridden, by the sun.

I strongly agree, I don't think this is one of my best pieces by any means. It was more an exploratory or a proof of concept than anything serious. Still, it's the first time I've tried doing anything like it, so hopefully I'll get better with practice and time. I just wanted to get away from being dependent on taking well framed screenshots and googling for semi-appropriate images as backgrounds.

Thank you all for your insight, it is truely very helpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zan Usi Quan

Thursday evening, 23pm:
Here we go (hits R)

Friday morning, 9.30am:
There we are !

That's not what I meant! I just want far off vistas and spectacular views.

Temidien · Jul 09, 2009, 07:56 PM // 19:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Operative 14

I'm wondering about the artifact light though, since it's supposed to be a good distance away (I know I didn't do well on the perspective, but it's supposed to be over kind a rolling hill in the background) isn't it far enough away that it wouldn't really interact? And even if it did, it's from about the same direction as the sun (shaded from the viewing perspective behind the clouds to the upper left) so any light it would throw off would be marginally the same direction and luminosity, if not overridden, by the sun.

What bothers me the most about the artifact light is that the pillars (?) aren't lit by it at all. They look as though they're only being lit by the sun. Also, the electricity emanating from the artifact would generate light as well, which should be reflected on the pillars.

The space between the brightly-lit clouds and the grass is what bother me the most. It reminds me of the "fog of war" effect in RTS games or poorly programmed action games where everything in the distance is a fuzzy blur and as you get closer 3D objects render themselves. This scene would look perfectly natural in a game (color balance aside), but as a piece of landscape art the entire middle portion just comes across as lazy. I understand the difficulty of rendering a mountain-range and atmosphere that far off in the distance, but it's those little details that are glaring when omitted.

Hope I'm not being too rough on ya. For all the tough love, I really do *like* the piece. Halo 3 meets GW, I get it. Very cool. I really like what you did with the characters (depth issues aside). Just hoping you take the criticism as inspiration to do better and better until one day you're making actual concept art for the games we play.

Good luck ^^

Operative 14 · Jul 10, 2009, 12:10 AM // 00:10

No, I genuinely appreciate the advice since it is advice. No one ever gets better if they don't learn from their mistakes, and it's a lot easier for others to see such things.

The space between the clouds and the grass, I was sort of going for a monsoon effect there. Where, off in the distance, you have a huge wall of clouds dwarfing the ground, darkening the sky and obscuring the extremely distant mountains through lack of light and also spotty torrential downpours. Though the mountains would greatly benefit from even the smallest amount of texture now that I look at it.

I also didn't realize that looked like anything from the Halo series, I never played any of those programs.