I've just arrived at your blog fresh from writing Alex feedback on his choice of Argia. Everything I've just written as part of his OGR feedback applies as directly to you, so do please visit his OGR post here and take note of the 'warning' too:
I can already see from your thumbnails that we're in danger of the 'three brown paintings' syndrome - Argia is rather booby-trapped in this way! In order to crack this city, you need as much real world reference and inspiration as possible; for example, you suggest that you might explore natural rock formations as the basis for your Argian architecture - great - but do please actually look at actual rock formations and their respective characteristics so as to avoid drawing 'brown lumps with windows' (which happens a lot). Take a look at these examples and note how architectural they are to begin with:
The other thing to keep sight of is that cities are comprised of a range of buildings - everything from cathedrals and temples to factories. If Argia is indeed a city it would likewise have this range of scale and function. It would also have a transportation system, right - something like this?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ds9mfUB7Dg (after a few minutes).
So just to reiterate, Argia is tough, but only because you've got think about it as a real place created by real people, and once you do that, you can start to ensure a more distinctive approach.
Avoid 3 brown paintings of brown rocks with lights...
Thank you very much for the advice and references, Phil! I shall be sure to stick to more colours than just brown/dark brown - after looking at some references, cooler and more neutral tones such as blues, greys and greens will be, in my opinion, a better fit for my paintings as the main colours, with small hits of darker brown tones in shadowed areas.
OGR 06/10/2016
ReplyDeleteHi Joe,
I've just arrived at your blog fresh from writing Alex feedback on his choice of Argia. Everything I've just written as part of his OGR feedback applies as directly to you, so do please visit his OGR post here and take note of the 'warning' too:
http://alanimationscribbles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/invisible-cities-ogr.html
I can already see from your thumbnails that we're in danger of the 'three brown paintings' syndrome - Argia is rather booby-trapped in this way! In order to crack this city, you need as much real world reference and inspiration as possible; for example, you suggest that you might explore natural rock formations as the basis for your Argian architecture - great - but do please actually look at actual rock formations and their respective characteristics so as to avoid drawing 'brown lumps with windows' (which happens a lot). Take a look at these examples and note how architectural they are to begin with:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150205-the-15-most-amazing-landforms
The other thing to keep sight of is that cities are comprised of a range of buildings - everything from cathedrals and temples to factories. If Argia is indeed a city it would likewise have this range of scale and function. It would also have a transportation system, right - something like this?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ds9mfUB7Dg (after a few minutes).
So just to reiterate, Argia is tough, but only because you've got think about it as a real place created by real people, and once you do that, you can start to ensure a more distinctive approach.
Avoid 3 brown paintings of brown rocks with lights...
Thank you very much for the advice and references, Phil! I shall be sure to stick to more colours than just brown/dark brown - after looking at some references, cooler and more neutral tones such as blues, greys and greens will be, in my opinion, a better fit for my paintings as the main colours, with small hits of darker brown tones in shadowed areas.
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