Dragonfly

Hi,

I’ve been working on the image below of a dragonfly-type creature.

I’m reasonably happy, but feel that something needs to be done to it to make it “pop”

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

Tom


  • the rock distracts. And has a to low texture on it in contrast to the dragonfly.
  • the background is to loud / to bright in some spots. Distracts, too.
  • Try to reduce your color palette. To many different colors.
  • Better composition. Try to place the dragonfly so that the red mark on his front is at 2/3 in x and 1/3 in y on the image. At the moment it’s to much right/top heavy.
  • Maybe some motion blur on the wings.

Great advice, thanks :slight_smile:

I did actually try different colour schemes for the grass - does the image below seem less distracting? Maybe still need to reduce its saturation?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]369932[/ATTACH]

So a bit of a slightly different composition and colour palette. I’ve also added in motion blur for the wings.

Not sure if it’s lost visual interest with the monochromatic look though?


It’s a good start. Palette is still a bit of a mess. Using highly saturated (pure color) reds and greens (imo) is not a good idea here.

Go back to references of dragonflies and the like, get some modeled and sculpted details that bring it closer to something real. The red (And yellow) looks as if it was just painted on (like a person with a bucket of paint) it comes off as distracting and phony. Experiment with sss, and keep going with it.

And the last image you posted, you seem to be thinking that that is monochomatic. Google image ‘monochromatic’, a monochromatic version would be a bit more like this:


Hey there!

One problem for me is eye-flow. The long, sharp lines in the grass pull my eye away from the dragonfly. Maybe you can try increasing the motion bur on the grass a bit to give the dragonfly more apparent speed and reduce (but not eliminate) the distraction.

Color selection on the dragonfly is a little wonky because you were using very warm colors for the background and a mix of warm and cool on the dragonfly. Changing to green grass helped some but now the problem is that they complement each other rather than highlight the main object of the piece. You could try adding more red to the body of the dragonfly, maybe have some red stripes running along the length of the body on it’s back, or switch the red and blue so that red is the main color of the dragonfly with blue splotches/stripes. But, the idea is to have warm colors in front of cool colors. The more contrast between warm and cool, the more it’ll pop.

Anyway, I think it’s a good piece! It’s got motion, color, and originality. Never seen a Dragonslug before :D!

Hi Photox, thanks for the critique. The references I found of dragonflies did have pretty saturated colours, but I tend to agree that a slightly less saturated palette looks better. As far as the palette goes, I probably need to be strict with myself and choose a scheme, rather than just go with whatever works best for the overall image, rather than just in isolation.

I’m off on holiday next week (yay!), but will pick this up when I get back!

Tom

Right, so it’s been a while, but finally found time to pick this up again!

I’ve tried to be more consistent with the colour palette, and tried to find a slightly more dynamic shot.



Worse and worse, the first one is bad, but post #5 is almost perfect.

Awesome.

So what makes you think post 5 is better, given the critique on it?

I’d agree, the post #5 version is the best of them. Like the details on the front legs at the last one tho. What distracts me is the main body, especially the top of it. It looks like it is made from clay. Unless you were going for this effect, you probably simply could try to increase details to highlight some parts that seems left out by now, like the wings connecting to the body. Maybe the upper part of the body could look more like a snail, or maybe more like a shell. Or a mix of both, would be worth a try imo. The overall model look is nice, the ‘horns’ are somewhat cute, but the clay-like shape seems somewhat strange to me.

So I’ve played with the materials, especially with the top part.

I get what you say about adding some extra details - may go back and remodel/add some stuff.

Anyway, for now…


It’s not quite where I wanted to get with it, however, I’m not unhappy with it and it’s time to move on.

I’ve had some fun learning about the materials, but in general I need to focus more on composition.

Anywho, for now:


id like to see the wings translucent - so that some of the leaf and vegetation from behind can peek through. I enjoy the color mix - dragonfly’s colors are always pretty wild!

Thanks :slight_smile:

The wings are slightly translucent - they’re based on a glass shader material, but perhaps I could have pushed it a bit further. In general, I’m happy with it, though