Looking For Conceptual/Compositional Feedback
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Heya SVS!
I'm looking for a bit of feedback on a digital piece I put together this year, namely whether you can tell what is going on/what is in the image. Any other feedback is more than welcome, but I do not wish to take up too much of your folk's time.
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Howdy hey!
I checked out your compositional study. It's interesting! It definitely has a strong narrative point of view! Here's how I read it:
There's a robotic crab creature looking up at a mechanical...something... that also has cut and frayed wires. I'm assuming the robot crab destroyed the wires and cut itself loose?
I'm not sure what the light source is per say, but maybe that's not important. I do like the backlighting, especially on the limb joints (I'm definitely not a mechanic), I think the lighting plays on the metal quite beautifully. I know this is a compositional study, but I'm hoping the mechanical something in the top left corner can be cleaned up a little? It's sort of fuzzy.
With the way the cables are bunched up and away from the robot crab, it sort of seems the mechanical something is alive? And perhaps afraid of the the robot crab? I wonder what it might look like if a couple of the chords were hanging down limply, or laying detached next to the robot crab?
Also, something about the mechanical something's proportion seems off? Like the perspective is skewed? It's as if we're looking at the 3/4 side of it's base, but we're looking into the periscope wire attachment. Does that make sense?
Anyways, these are just some things I'm thinking about as I'm looking at the compositional piece. I think it's definitely interesting and has a lot of storytelling already planned into it. I'm looking forward to the finished piece! Thanks for sharing!Hope you're well and keeping busy!
All the best,
Shani, The Art Bard -
@TheArtBard Thanks so much for the feedback!
Now that I've gor your gut reaction I can explain a bit. The foreground creature is a little guy called a Luminyr. You can find photos of them at www.matthew-bliss.com under Light of Luminyr. The idea is that they hunt for lightbulbs. Their adversary is the creature above, which is made up of a bunch of materials. Namely electrical wire, mirrors, and a paper-covered inkwell. I've had some trouble making things work well together and be readable...
...but the feedback is immensely helpful! I will come back to it this evening and see what can be done for tweaks. Thanks again!
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I think the over all composition is working but I do have some suggestions.
I find the creatures above very hard to read and understand. To someone who is unfamiliar with these characters it is very hard to discern this creatures. There isn’t much connecting these two sort of "halves" of the composition, one being the lower creature and the other being the flying creature. I think the flying creature should have some of those tentacles dangling down a bit more so it doesn’t feel so closed off and separated from the other creature. I would also recommend you sharpen up the image a bit. This is something Jake, Lee, and Will often warn about in critiques. The image looks sort of out of focus right now, like it’s all done with a very soft brush which makes it hard for the eye to rest on a focal point and takes away from a sense of depth. Hope this helps -
@Griffin Haha, I just listened to that episode of the podcast where they talk about the soft brushes!
Thanks for the crit! I'm having a hard time understanding why the space between the two is counter productive though. The top left creature (cyanoid) is meant to be leaping from behind the Luminyr. Thus the distance is somewhat appropriate, no? I feel, however, that I'm missing something.
This is all juicy feedback. I can't wait to come back to this piece and wrestle with it some more!
Pax
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@Jabbernewt it’s not the distance between them that is an issue it’s the space between them and the way that it is used. Especially now knowing that the cyanoid is leaping from behind I think the tentacles could be shaped in a way that is more predatory, like it’s poised to attack. I’m looking at the shape of the cyanoid and it’s very circular and rounded. I think this sort of shape language might get in the way of what you’re a trying to convey. If the cyanoid were pointing its tentacles in a slightly more angular way, pointingtowards the luminyr, then it might be more readable
