I would say definately make it smaller! Much.

Note: most image hosts convert bmp to jpg.

Agree with previous comments, about size and anatomy.
I like the general idea, but I don't get the city idea.
And what are the 'spots' in the air?

Foreground colors don't look like night: desaturate and darken...

Much better cow!
Its head is probably too big, though.
There is also an angle of view discrepancy: the cow looks as viewed from 45° or more, the bg from near horizontal.

The head is much better. The persp is not...
Unless you want to go for a game-like oblique persp which is totally unnatural.
If you want a bg with horizon and distant buildings, you don't have a choice of an angle of view: has to be near horizontal. You can't see the tops of bldgs, that would mean you're flying high!
Also, even in this case, you should have a vanishing point, the left side bldgs should be mirrored, and those in the middle, somewhere in between.

The solution there is (unfortunately) on the foreground... Since that implies redrawing the cow, maybe you can let it go like that for now...

Desaturation: here's an edit, with the photoshop dialog box. There is certainly something similar in GG, there is in paint too. May look a bit different but the 3 settings (hue - lightness - sat) are always there.
The graphic you found is not really helpful, since desaturation looks like lightening.



Paint dialog box:

vanishing points in linear perspective are vritually always placed on the horizon. In neutral perspective (basically eye-heigth, and what you seem to be using) this usually means in the midle of the canvas.  you are useing onepoint-perspective so that point would be dead centre in your canvas. otherwise you seem to have it down. the colours are much improved and the cow looks awesome. keep it up and this will be a killer piece

Blue is better, but a bit low. Suppose you stand on the hill: you look at the distant city from a height, the horizon if you could see it (you can't because it's hidden by bldgs, it's not the white line) intersects the bldgs at the same height as the hill. Depends on your view of that hill, I'd say 1/3 of the distance btw blue and red points. That should be the height of the vanishing point.

But, there's no reason why the city should be aligned with your particular angle of view, so the vanishing point might be anywhere on that hirizon line, right or left, and even out of the picture! In which case there should be 2 points, one left one right...

But, all this is rather theoretical in this case, because this piece does not actually need persp on the bldgs. For 2 reasons:
- the city is distant, so what you would see of bldg sides would be very thin anyway (1 or 2 px); 'strong' vanishing points / lines as you made them imply a wide-angle view, from a short distance. OK if the cow was lying on a city plaza.
- it's probably more atmospheric to just have a night skyline as in your 1st piece.

Your skyline has got better btw, it's still a bit cramped. I'd show a little horizon...
Maybe the moon is too big too.

Edit: made a perspective noobtorial.



Edited by Manupix - 27 October 2009 at 5:16am

Telephoto: yes. In fact you don't have a choice, you decided that option when designing your piece concept. A distant city in a wide angle view would be very, very tiny. Example here.

New quick edit:


I went for narrow bldg sides, but once again you don't really need any, I think.
And I couldn't resist playing with light, hope you don't mind...
A little moonlight reflection on the tallest bldgs, night light on the cow, radical change of foreground colors to look more like night too.


En français c'est plus facile?



Edited by Manupix - 26 October 2009 at 12:03pm

Make sure the sky and the building borders are even darker (compare with manupix), and then start working on the cow!