shadownet opened this issue on Jul 19, 2001 ยท 9 posts
shadownet posted Fri, 20 July 2001 at 12:33 PM
Thanks for the feedback!!! This is what I needed. Something(s) about the pic has/have been bugging me and I just can not put my finger on it. For one, I think the water does need some tweaking so I will do some more work on it. I am not happy with Smaug - and the look of the jeweled underbelly - but was not sure what to do so will need to experiment some more there. I think I like the Smaug I had in an ealier version better in which he seemed to melt more into the background and was less defined. I think a bit of sprinkling of sparkles across his belly will suffice and I will try that also. Making the townsfolk more panicky sould not be a problem, so I will give that a try as well. Now that I look at it again - less blurry eyed than before - the folks do seem to be taking the burning of their town quiet well. Remarkably well. Maybe a bit more of "run for your life" is needed. :o) I think I like the overall coloring scheme so I will probably leave that alone - if I were going for more realistic look than I would try the grayish-blue sky out as that sounds really interesting. Might tweak the lighting on Bard just a bit though, maybe backlight him or something since the the main source of light is - as pointed out - so I should have light hitting him from that direction a bit more pronounced. Harsher shadows might also work. Carolly, I tried lighting up Bard's face with Smaug's flames as you suggested in an earlier post but just could not get the overall scene to look right doing it that way. If you still think it would help, give me some ideas as to how you would do it and I will try again. As for why the mountain and water look ablaze - there is a line from the book about the river running with gold at the mountain kings return, and when the townfolks saw the approach of Smaug, burning everything along the way as he came, many thought this to have come true (which in a way it had - as prophecy tends to work that way). Anyhow, that was what I was shooting for. I have to agree it did not work out like I had hoped and some changes are needed to get the mountain and water back in perspective. But if you guys have any ideas on how I might convey that aspect and yet tone the water and mountain down a bit, please let me know. Thanks again for all the help. Now back to work I go... :o) Rob