June / July '15 Lite Challenge: Donall's Bane

[ChickPea]

Finally got to make a start on my entry.

My idea is firmly in the land of fantasy. A power-hungry clan chief does a deal with the denizens of a demonic dimension (so alliterative!) but he cheats on the agreement and they unleash their magic on his home. It creates a massive fiery rift and changes the landscape.

I decided to try something new (for me) for this challenge, and I'm doing a mostly greyscale map. I might relent in the end and add some colour if it looks too boring but that's my thinking for now.

I've started on the mountains and the rift. I cheated with the mountains and traced the basic ridge outline from a real world photo, then got to work on the shading. I'm quite pleased with how the mountains are turning out, cos there's no way I could draw mountains that realistic without aid! I keep turning the opacity of the shading up and down, cos it seems to vary in appearance depending on which screen I use. Does the shading look very faint or is it OK?

Next I have to shade the inside of the rift, create a half-ruined castle, some dried up river beds and a new lake.

### Latest WIP ###

[Neyjour]

Really nice job so far! Your mountains are looking pretty darn awesome! And the linework looks... medium to me. Not too dark and not too light.

Ooops... I just realized you were asking about the shading, not the linework! The shading looks very, very pale. I do think you should make it darker.

[snodsy]

I like the mountains a lot, I think its fine to trace the mountains, that's how you learn to drawn them, your still determining which lines to accentuate and over time, learn to do them natural. Fun story look forward to seeing it.

[Bogie]

Nice!! On my monitor the shading is a little light but not bad. A bit darker on everything wouldn't hurt.

[Wolram]

Tracing real world mountains is a cool idea, it makes it look very convincing, but I think your shading must be too light because I can't even see it on my monitor!

[ChickPea]

Thanks for the feedback, guys. When I looked at the mountains on my main PC they looked OK. The shading was quite light, but I wanted it that way. However when I looked at it on my phone & tablet, it could hardly be seen, so I did think there might be an issue.

I upped the opacity about 10% but I think it's still too light. Looking at it on my crappy work monitor it barely looks different from the first pic. Sigh.... I'll increase it again for my next WIP upload.

I know I said I was going for a black & white/greyscale pic, and I mostly am, but I wanted my rift thingy to be coloured, so that it would really draw the eye and be the focus of the pic. I'm thinking I might add a tiny bit of colour to the title too, but that will probably be all. I think the Chasm of Doom is colourful enough to carry the map!

### Latest WIP ###

[Wolram]

Shading does look better, maybe a touch darker still? My monitor seems to be lighter than everyone elses anyway...

Don't forget the old rule of warm light cold shaddows, if your rift is producing hot red light, you want to get a hint of blue in the relevant shaded areas. Gives it some punch.

I really like the idea of having a single coloured element in the drawing, so I would make it as dramatic as you can, maybe some lava bursts!?

[ChickPea]

Yup, I'm going to up the shading about another 10% and see how that looks. It looks different on every screen I check it on. I think the brightness setting has a lot to do with it.

Thanks for the tip about the cold shadows. I didn't actually know that! I'll see what I can do.

On the rift, yeah, I want to do a little more to it. I was working on it late last night, but when I see again with fresh eyes today, it needs a little more oomph! I was thinking about adding some smoky vapours rising up from the depths. Lava bursts is a good idea though. I'll see what I can come up with.

[ChickPea]

I've been working on my rift and this is my latest update. I tried to colour it a bit more, but not sure how well it's working out. I was also poking around with my brush presets and found an uber cool rocket fire effect which I've used for the smoke coming out of the chasm. You know those people who find a cool effect ... then use it to death? Yeah, that's me. I had huge plumes going up to the sky and had to force myself to tone it down.

I need to look at everything again tomorrow and see if I want to redo any parts, but here's what I've got for now. I increased the opacity on my shading & line art another few percent, but it still looks pale, so I'll check that again on my various screens tomorrow. I still like Wolram's idea of little spurts of lava and I'll try to work that in too, but it's late and I'm too tired now.

Also, pro tip for Gimp users: if you haven't already downloaded Gimp Paint Studio, get it!

### Latest WIP ###

[Meshon]

Don't forget the old rule of warm light cold shaddows

That's why I love the Guild, I pop in to have a look at ChickPea's latest art and end up learning an old rule (I must be too new, that's why I missed it ) Not to mention the "how to draw a dangerous divide, developed after a dastardly dictator double-crossed the denizens of a demonic dimension" demonstration that I'm diggin' here.

I don't have a great deal of experience with doing good shading, but so far I've found that I want to use a feather but I should be using a hammer. When I work closely on something for awhile, every little nuance is clearly visible to me, but when I step back and look… all that stuff becomes invisible.

I love the noxious vapours and I kinda want to see your version with more. I think they could be thicker, at least some of them, and it looks like they're just a few degrees off vertical. You could try floating them straight up and then smearing the tops of them in the direction of the prevailing winds.

This is looking good, I can't wait to see you smashing some buildings up!

cheers,
Meshon