With that said, I do feel that the gargoyle on top needs to be reworked. Not the part that you've highlighted, but the shape of the head itself. I'm not sure if it's the perspective or what.

But yeah, I'm pretty sure that the buildings are in perspective. The rest, I don't know. The mounted knights might have the wrong perspective, I don't have enough experience drawing such things from different angles.



Added some windows to the ruins, I feel it gives the picture more air and unity. The composition doesn't feel like two separate halves like it did before.


Edited by CELS - 30 October 2011 at 6:38am

Thanks. Of course, the perspective makes it seem extra thin, but I've gone and added some extra pixels in depth so it appears to be a functional building rather than a wall.

Also made some changes to the trees, added a few shadows and worked a bit more on the hills. Hmm, some of those trees are really too big, now that I think about it. Will fix.






Edited by CELS - 30 October 2011 at 2:39pm

Thanks! Good point about the bright line. I used to paint miniatures and it has left me with a bad habit of wanting to add bright lines to all the edges of things, even in pixel art.

Here's the latest version with a number of small tweaks and adjustments. I've spent way too much time on this piece over the last few weeks. If I don't submit it to the gallery soon, it's going to absorb my life.

Suggestions for last changes are still welcome.

This looks really cool.
as far as suggestions, (even though I'm hardly qualified to be giving any) the clouds look kinda flat they could use some perspective.
Let me explain with a picture:

</tenseconddrawing>
Your clouds look like they're perpendicular to the view (on the left), while they would really be much closer to parallel with the view.

Anyway it looks really great, makes me wish I had more time to draw stuff >_<

I see tons of unused potential in this piece, if you think that you worked to long on it put it away and come back to it later. The hardest thing is always that you see the things for yourself.

For me the picture doesn't really seem finished.
I also don't know why you spend that much time with the foreground ruins instead of working at the really important parts, like the knights, the castle and the generall illusion of depth.

The left side of the the building adds nothing to the image (I am talking of the part from the first gargoyle head to the boarder, you could delete it and it wouldn't hurt the image). As I said in my earlier posts the sky could use some more place, at the moment the castle looks squeezed in there a bit, 10-15 px + height would rather help.

Then there is the perspectivic issue with the sky which were pointed out a few times and there is the same thing with the midground hills. They have the same size as the further away ones.
The crow in the preview looks rather good for me, but I asked myself why don't only add that one in the image to have a small detail in there which is kind of fun and delete the other ones. The three crows you have in there have the same problem like the monster you added there before, they are unimportant, but seems to be the best outworked things.
Also tweaking the anatomy and the shape of the knights and adding there the most detail would help a lot.
The trees looks like candyfloss, not rather outworked, just like a rough wip. Also the path in the middle of the image looks like a loveless placed line.

The atmospheric thing which could add a lot to that piece is fog. Fading away the castle into the of and placing it also between the mountains really helps, but that could be done as last step, if all other things are set down.

And the next thing is to add some AA. At the moment you don't added any AA and this destroys the completely image.

You usual add AA and details when the forms are OK. But Your biggest problem seems to be the majority problem.
If I am looking at the image I see a castle in the fog and knights riding to it. That seems also to be the idea. If we are looking at the sentence we see "castle" and "knights". The castle seems to be outworked (except of AA and some things whhich could be solved better with lighting and shading) and the knights seems to be completely unfinished.
Working out the ruin is nice, really, but it doesn't really help to make the painting better because it's simple unimportant (as I said earlier in the post). It adds a little bit to the atmosphere, but isn't a very important part for the idea and that's the reason for the building. Why not working out the most important stuff at first and after this you can play around with the unimportant stuff as long as you want.
Adding new objects after the composition is done is always a really bad idea (e.g. like the 3 crows), make sure that you concentrate on the stuff you placed before and you are spending time with this.

The piece itself as it is now will get maybe a place in the weekly showcase. If you'd work very hard on it I can easily imagine that it'd be a monthly top piece but that requires a seriously amount of work.

P.S.: forgot to mention that you have perspectivical problems with the backwall windows and with the window ledges of the foreground windows.


Edited by Cyangmou - 31 October 2011 at 2:47am

Edited by CELS - 31 October 2011 at 7:01am

As I wrote before, I think onek's edit is very pretty. I like the modification of the ruins, I like the increased contrast of the nearest  scenery, I like the new skies...

But I do want fog. And I may go with the flock of ravens, despite popular consensus.

its true, because of the high contrast and the more vibrant colors scheme my edit doesnt lookfoggy anymore..
i understand that u want to go for the foggy look, but currently it looks more like moonlihgt imo
to make it foggy the contrast should be even lower and the bg can get even lighter.
also u should add patches of fog-- like clouds layin on the ground..
i tried that in my edit , but becasue of previos mentioned issues it doesnt really work...

somewhat like so