Hey Johann, I like what you have going on here so far. Here are a few changes you might want to consider. In my paintover I tried to clean up the negative space between the legs so that it looks more dynamic. I also moved the right arm a little back and made the hand rest on the hip more naturally. Next I overlayed a bunch of armor textures to see if any cool designs appeared. I also changed the weapon to a helmet becuase I felt it worked with the pose better, and lastly I threw in a severed head for good measure :) 

Hi Kelli,  I agree with tom i feel like this piece has some cool good stuff going, and i like that you want to put a dragon in there, but i did a paint over where i thought it would be more helpful to describe the massive space between the mountains and sky and sea with a flock of dragons showing with atmoshpere the space between them as well. hope it helps, great work!

cheers Rich

Hi CW,

I like a lot of the direction your going, the one piece i saw that i think could be super cool, i played with a couple things, and not sure if you down with the direction but bringing things forward and back also implying more of  a curve around the planet thing and making more interesting shapes for the craft...let me know of questions, but just an idea, hope it helps:)  cheers

rich

Hi Ryan,  Really like the direction you went with these illustrations! I agree with you on the third one seems the stronges I think your color pallette is great. With the paint over i did was to give you some idea of how far you can push some of those shapes and patterns to help describe everything else in the scene. Also to not be held back and when you see something that might work give it a shot. So i played witht he cloak a bit more and tried to really use it with the composition. hit me up if you have questions, hope it helps:) cheers

There's a lot of nice stuff going on here, I especially love the colors. Now, I'm not picking on this picture, but since it's finished, I can point out a lot of stuff since I know it won't be addressed later in the process.

1- the composition is segmented into parts. Instead of being separated into a 1, 2, 3 read- each quarter is equally important, therefor nothing is important. I scaled up the guys so that either they could be the focus, or the foreground element secondary read, right now they're just tacked on at the bottom. Also, overlapping shapes helps with depth more than atmospheric perspective ever could. The overlapping also helps in the other elements, like not making the mountains follow the countour of hte building, that just looks too convenient aka fake. It's natural for us to want to do that, keep elements out of each others way, but nature doesn't adhere to composition.

2- the scale in your actual design is all over the place. You've got a little window with a windowsill, then an inch down, there's tiny trucks, it throws the viewer way off. Watch your scale cues, not just putting objects in for scale, but also minding the type of construction and its functionality at various scales.

3- that antenna shooting a laser, besides being too distracting to be in the corner, or too cornered to be a focal point, has more scale issues of its own. It's huge in scale, but in design looks more like an old tv antenna. Watch where you get your reference.

4- everything needs to be based in reality, and some of your architecture is just nonsense. That weird floating building with posts coming out of it, not only does it look like its a small room up there when in fact its a giant hanger size warehouse, but it's just floating on two posts. Ever seen a table even do that? Let alone a giant building?

Hope that helps!

I think there's a cool idea here, but even without changing layout or desig, really just painting over with some tones, you can start to give this image some badly needed form. Currently its really really noisy, and while I can see you're aiming for a rocky texture, its much more important to first describe teh big shapes, afterall, its is an ISLAND *made* of rocks... not just a bunch of rocks. Sculpt the big shapes and let small details support that, and using reference fo shore lines or coastal rock formations or whatever would be a much better way to make sure you're starting in the right direction.

I think you've got some nice colors going on and you're focused on mood which is really gr, but everything seems really mushy. You've got to have some structure in there. Everything sort of nondescript as though it were modeled with mashed potatoes. Really knowing what you're drawing will help sell the idea, and from a graphical standpoint, it'll give your pieces some much needed structural contrast to the overall softness you've got going on.

Hello Jessica! I really appreciate the work you put in your covers! and i took a couple that i think were something of an idea.  And though i took them a different direction i thought it might give you some more ideas on how to look at your work. I notice you using some of the techniques that i mentioned in class with the lasso tool and using selection.  I think an important thing for you to focus on right now is before starting a piece look at some artist you really admire and disect what you like about it and try to put some of that into your own paintings:) a lot easier said than done:) but it's a good place to start. 

So with the ice cover i think finding an interesting silhouette rather than just posting the subject in the middle like so and also finding some lighting ref that you enjoy would be a direction to go:)  you have some great texture and watercolor look in yours, just try to balance how much noise you put in your piece:)

and with the gate one, i wrote some notes on your image and just for example played with what i would do with the image:) hope it helps and please ask questions!

cheers

Hey Daniel, I like your character here and i thought it was a good idea to move forward on, here is a little sketch of some different things to try.  having the one foot even after you render it out will probably still look like she has one foot so i think it looks more balanced with having the two feet and also played with some thick and thins for some of the other shapes.  just a thought....and i like what you think for the dress, you should post up ref material so we can see where your coming from. cheers!