Hi... I know I havn't been here much lately. I have been working some seriously long days at work... 14 hours +. So I have been Brycing a little here and a little there as I have the time to work on this image. I am at a loss now for where to go with it . Ideas and/or criticisms are very welcome. Brutal honesty is what is helpful to me. Thank you in advance. Wade

hmm... brutal honesty... dude, I like it. I mean for something game-y like you intended (i think), it looks decent enough. I'd add a bit of 'magic' around, something like a swoosh motion and whatever else you might see in a game. but that's all. the scene itself is nice. drac

I agree. I think it's great. I kind of wish we could see his face, but it still looks good this way. One thing that jumped out at me is the green blob of blood(?). Maybe it should be a small spray from the wound. Being a blob it is a bit distracting. The shadows are a bit rigid. The one under his hoof looks a little too sharp. And the last thing is some of the spines on the spider's back aren't connecting with the spider. I only said these things because you wanted honest. Those are the things that stand out to me. I still really like this image though. Very well done! :)

So far, the setup and placement of the characters is excellent - the atmosphere and textureing is great right now as well. I would really like to see this with maybe a more extreme POV - try to make the monster and the spider the focus, the space around the right of the pillar and the space between the bottom of the pic and his feet kind of kill the action. I would zoom in a bit, bring the camera closer an maybe pan down a little, cut off the ground at the bottom, maybe even roll the camera to make a sense of action. I would also cut off the area to the right, by rotating the camera to the left and bringing it foward a bit, but thats just one way you could do it. This looks awesome right now, again, the placement is excellent, but i really think making them and the action more of the focus thru the POV will bring out all the work youve done on the characters---this pic has massive potential. (sorry to go into ultra-crit mode there, but I like the pic too much to keep my mouth shut:)) cant wait to see what you do with it, and remeber thats just my 2 cents Jordan

it looks pretty good, but i think it's too bright...i dunno, but to me, if i'm a big ogre-wolf and i've got a huge axe, puffy white clouds aren't gonna inspire me to go kill some big pointy spiders. Great composition, but i'd like to see a more dangerous-like atmosphere.

I think the green thing is grass or a plant of some sort. I like the image, but I agree that a darker more moody atmosphere might improve things overall.

Well, put in some flattened, green fluid/water metaballs as spiderblod, throw in some flying pieces from the spider and add motion blur to the axe and maybe give him a bigger or more characteristic head :-) - good work so far!

Hey, Swade! Good to see some new work! Here's your dinner on a platter: The bump on your floor texture is going the wrong way. Invert it. You can see from where the sun's pointing and the shadows that the mortar troughs are actually ridges. The sky looks too purple, but that's a common Bryce issue for me. The shadows on the ground don't look dark enough to me. The bump on the column is too high and perhaps your material is "wrong" for it. I've never seen a column like that made out of granite - but who cares? ;o) It doesn't make sense to me that someone would go through the trouble of making such a column when the ridges they carve in it won't hold their shape very long (the high bump value makes the ridges look chipped and broken, but not really "weathered"). Also, for some reason, the column base looks 2D - I don't see enough light variation across its surface for it to look round to me. I like the three spiders in the background, but it took me way too long to see them. Until now, in fact. But that could just be me, of course. The trees on the right look like they have something that looks something like foliage and most of the trees on the left of the pillar look really bare. Also, the trees look too sparse and different to be living there together. I'd make them all more similar and maybe clump them a little bit so they're not so evenly distributed along the horizon line. What is this space with the tiled floor and one column and why is it out in the middle of nowhere? Showing at least a part of another column will help establish this more as a complete building of some sort and not just a floor with an old column standing next to it. The fog looks a little thick to me. Yes, i've seen fog like that, but only in real life - not in art. ;o) What i don't like about it is that it waters down the dynamic range of color on your figures. It makes them more wimpy - not dramatic enough (to connect with what others have said). The color of the sky, the direction of the light and the amount of fog make me think this is occuring in the morning. I think what feels odd to me is that i don't think i've ever seen a fantasy battle scene between something like an ogre and a scattered herd of giant spiders taking place in the morning - i think it just doesn't lend itself to dramatic action. Morning is more of a peaceful, tranquil, yawning-and-stretching time. Along the drama vein, i find that it's easy for me to get caught up in creating an entire landscape for my action or image instead of limiting the range of vision with camera angle, lighting, distance from subject or close objects that fill the frame in the background. Perhaps something like just changing the time of day to nighttime with strong moonlight in a partly cloudy sky so that areas of your landscape are visible in moonlight and the rest are darker and not requiring our attention. Something like that would focus our vision, supply more drama and eliminate extraneous and distracting details. There's my buck-fifty. Feel free to return any unused portion of this message if not fully satisfied. Cool image. I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops. If i notice anything else, i'll let you know. 8o)

Oooh, I know how to make it darker! I just learned this not too long ago. Click on the arrow next to the render ball. The Auto gamma correction is checked by default. If you uncheck it, it makes a big difference. That's all you might have to do to make it darker. Of course if you have already done this then I feel stupid. :P Anyway, I do agree that it should be darker, too. And if that green thing is grass, I would make into spider blood. Just my 2 cents. :) I still think it's a great image! Can't wait to see the end product. :)

Thanks for all the great feedback. Some really good crits and I certainly appreciate each one of them. 8) That green thing was going to be grass.... But I decided against it and completely spaced taking it out of this image. blush hehehe I will be making some changes as you have suggested. It helps to get someone elses perspective sometimes. It was a big help in this case. I will post another WIP within the next few days. Just need the time to work on it a little. Damia... never feel stupid in this forum for suggesting something you think might help. Mostly because you never know what someone else knows. The auto gamma for instance is something that I never have dealt with, thus... wasn't actually aware of it's usefulness. 8) Thanks for the suggestion.

I'm glad I could help at least a little! I'm still a novice so it shocks me when I can be helpful. ;) Can't wait to see the next WIP!