LongJh on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/longjh/art/AEGIS-Fallen-431962449LongJh

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AEGIS Fallen

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Description

Did this piece for CGHub's New Worlds challenge (always a great time doing those!). The theme was "City in the Sky".

I always liked the way clouds looked from above, so I thought I would do something along those lines. An abandoned futuristic city with some classical design elements built high up into the clouds. I wanted to give it lonely sort of feeling - like no one has been around for long, long time. Perhaps the technology needed to carry and sustain people so high up is lost and the city just decayed by itself over time, leaving monolithic husks of its former self. Did a little fake "movie title" to go along with this image too haha.

I think rushed this image near the end. I could probably stand to flesh out this image even more, but yet I didn't want to "overwork" it. It's really a fine balance, and I'm still trying to get used to it. But impatience is definitely a bad habit of mine when in comes to painting.

Was also reading Tsutomu Nihei's manga BLAME! while working on this piece, and safe to say I was hugely inspired by him when designing the structures. Now I'm itching to do more crazy sci-fi, cyberpunk stuff  :D

Thanks for looking!

Jan '14
Image size
1600x718px 1.45 MB
© 2014 - 2024 LongJh
Comments10
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Scorpion451's avatar
Thanks for the message on the ConceptWorld page; always does us good to know that we're helping people set high standards and push themselves. :)

This one definitely earned its spot in the gallery; what made me hit yes was the  strong worldbuilding and storytelling, backed up by a solid rendering.
The architecture has a unified, consistent look, and you nailed getting across  "derelict sky city" .  The lighting/shading/colorwork are particularly strong, especially the atmospheric haze. :thumbsup:

On the critique side, I'd say that if you were to put more time into it, I would focus on polishing up whats there rather than adding more detail. The idea is fleshed out well as it is, and I think the current level of detail density is just about perfect. Its easy to get carried away with adding detail and literally loose track of the bigger picture; thats how you end up having the whole image dissolve into chaos. You're right about it being about finding the right balance, and I think you found it for this image.

One big thing you can do to enhance future work is to make certain that you go in and clean up any wobbly lines or slightly-off perspective. I'm a freehand painter myself, and I've come to understand how much of a difference it makes when inorganic forms have sharp, straight edges and tight perspective- it makes places where the forms aren't perfectly clean and straight, like the broken arch, stand out even more. Using the polygonal lasso and ellipse select tools like masking tape and a frisket when you're trying to make a hard form can be a great way to give yourself clean edges without loosing the character of a freehand line.

Look forward to seeing what you come up with in the future!