oooh my holy god!

this work doesn`t seem to end...

how war do you want to go with it?

still nice.. no beautiful! the rocks are amazing!

Somthing I notice now when I see the full pic: I don't like the hedges, at all.
They're so boring! The rest of the image is very alive, has stuff going on everywhere. The bushes just don't really fit in there if you ask me.

@inbntly,  I use Photoshop but this can be MSPainted just the same. I do use an occassional layer for working out areas but mostly work flat.

@Opacus, What do you suggest for interest? I originally had the hedges as a secret entrance and at this point I can rework but don't want to layout the area from scratch. I do occasionally think of putting in a tree or two. I also thought the sculptures helped add interest.

anyhooo
 

1 Looks cool, bit Henk-ish which you know I love.
(Hell nearly everyone likes Henk)
But I think 2 would suit the best. It's a nice hedge. The texture is far nicer then the previous one. I say go with number 2

I love 1, but 2 would be better for what you're doing...1 would kinda suck as a hedge maze, though o_O

Definitely much better than before. Before it looked kind of like a greenish sponge.

I'd honestly have to go with 3 or 4 for the hedges. 2 almost gives me the idea of Marijuana :), and I Think 3 would look the best as far as the texture goes.

I really dont think those hedges look right:/.

AMAZING!!

Ojala algún día llege yo a hacer eso xD

you got jungle there jal. even if the idea is to make it abandoned and wild, the definition of the bush's shape should remain to an extent, or else, it merges tooo much, lowering the readbility. iw as going to suggest 3 over the rest for the same reason. the focus is to show there is a maze there, made of rusty plants, not vice versa.

42 colors so far, btw.

I don't know if its too late, but I think hedge #3 would fit best in the scene.

Lol
What I meant is that the rocks seem faded next to the buildings (bottom left), and either you need to give more definition to the rocks or less to the buildings in my opinion. I think the rocks should have more contrast ;)

@ Sab, this is very interesting and everything makes perfect sense with one flaw in the basis of your judgement, me thinks. I do give you high props for seeing through the jalonso magic as you always do. I don't recall any area of fudging that you have ever failed to see ;)
First off the value discrepancies are palette sacrifices. Correcting this, even one color can throw whole other areas off. This palette has been extra challenging as it is. That I opted for a high contrast coloring style made some color choices more of a requirement than anything else. Finding neutralizers without any grey whatsoever only made the color choices even more difficult to work with and often around. I am still hoping to bring the colors down by a few too.
About the distance and altitude issues. I assure you that every single item is to scale and placed on the grid. I am so very anal about this detail in iso art.
The depth perception and where I think you have misjudged is that the isometric perspective being 'equal on every angle' can have this optic illusion.
That I make extremely busy isos only makes this worse. Its an artistic sacrifice I knowingly make on almost everything.
This illusion can best be seen in the 'basement' layer where the hedges have a curve. Notice that the floor is aligned to the main level where the furnace is. The hedges however when looked closely do not seem to match even tho they do.
One thing that I think you failed to give me a little bit of credit is is factor that you do not point out in your observations. Even if this piece appears to be quite big. It is actually a very small space to go from a four story mountain peak to one story below ground. The slope transitions are completely inadequate. Every building and item is placed in the areas where these transitions would normally go. I had to place visual distracters to blend these areas. I am very sure that if I corrected all the hue values and removed the three 'blenders' (clock tower, glass house,fire furnace) your critique would be excatly the opposite in that the planes would be off in vertical space and not horizontal as you see now.
I do have this in mind as I work and have already played (but not shown) areas of steam that are intended to diffuse areas to even further minimize the visual discrepancies. Once there is steam coming from the underground areas and things are fogged in I am hoping these things will all go away.
I've always said that when you say anything it is always very insightful and to the point not to mention correct. When it comes to c+c, you are A+A
*The glass house will be completely remade and recolored so this area can be ignored on the last update.

I kinda liked the blimp. Bring it back. XD

And the rocks seem to be the biggest challenge in this piece.

They're a huge improvement since the original. But somehow they just don't seem to get along with the rest of the piece. It's like they're being forced onto the scene.

You could try splitting this into two different pieces: One where the buildings on the right get replaced with more rocks, and one where the rocks on the left side get replaced with more buildings.

I dunno, it's probably just me. XD

Hey dude.
How long did it take you to create this beautiful piece? from start to finish.

Also, it isn't finished yet.

I pixel about 2-3 hours every day. I do spend a lot of time looking at reference material and occasionally even dream about pieces I work on. I'd say I've worked on this 24/7 since I started :)

I am currently debating this whole project and think I may have to restart all over with more defined theories and concepts. This piece started random with no direction and it seems that it shows :'(

I'm sorry I took it defensively, greenraven.

nothing is wrong with random jalonso!
it started out nice and now is really good. all here await its finished version.

you will have to focus on what it shall BECOME, not what it was mentioned to be because this demotivates you. you understand what i mean? btw you can fix most of the "not planned" stuff later too... am i wrong ?!?!

just keep up the good work, sit back and relax from this piece for maybe a day or two. then come back to it.


keep it up !

(The bush is very very cool now ;) )

I don't think I meant abandon, I hardly ever do.
I mean that the 'story' is not working so well because I started in a random manner (without a concrete idea/concept).
I must simply arrange the layout and reconfigure so that it reads and tells its own story. This is an underlaying issue with this piece that has been there from the very start. Its just a collage of 'stuff' that kinda looks ok but I know better. There are issues that I myself have been aware of from the very start and they do bother me. Many of the crits here have pointed these oddities in a round about way. I see them and have been in a mad dash to hide/camo and otherwise just keep piling on the pixel pudding I now have going...

...I'll just restart...

If you wish to choose between the technical or the artistic way...

Im not an expert at the artistic way, but if you stop with this, you better make the technical way just as awesome as on this one.

Whatever I said about it, I still believe that this is really awesome, at least as awesome as the flaber cove, but than 4 times as large!
Thanks for enabling us to see this progress and comment on it, it was great to see :).

Wuttttt.

It isn't the difference between the "techincal" way and the "artistic" way. If anything, restarting it and rebuilding everything with a purpose and a story is FAR more "artistic" than a jumble of things that -looks- like it might be something but durrrn if you can say exactly what.

If you start a piece with nothing but a vague idea of what you want it to be, i.e. " I want it to have rocks and a building or two" and go from there, saying things to yourself like "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a big random pipe connecting those two buildings" or "Wouldn't a gigantic animated deerchaser look cool right here?" you're inevitably going to end up with a big mess of things that admittedly DO look interesting, but are missing (most likely) composition and continuity, as well as story and function.

If you work with too many classical animators, you'll hear them yell "FUNCTION DEFINES FORM" at you at least once. No matter what you do, if you build the form to the function, rather than make up the function to suit the form, you'll end up with a better-looking (and more importantly, more believable) whatever it is.

(So you don't build the story to suit the house, you build the house to suit the story. That's like building an elegant, rich victorian house for a movie, then deciding that it needs to be decrepit and old. Whatcha gonna do, knock out some walls and throw in some cobwebs? Never gonna look as good as if you built a haunted, abandoned, decrepit and old house to begin with, it will ALWAYS feel like an elegant, rich victorian house with holes in the walls and cobwebs tossed in.)

Have faith in the Jal. He knows what he is doing. He will make a piece that not only looks cool, but is believable and has LIFE, and we will all pee our pants with jealousy and joy.


Edited by Saboteur - 19 October 2008 at 11:56am

I personally like em. Brings diversity to the piece.

Maybe adding a little hut on this side of the rocks with a winding staircase down. That seems awesome imo.