Whoops: Still Life: Revenge (redux)

[Marcia]

Accidentally put this in Organic WIPs yesterday. I'm currently working on a black widow spider to go in the negative space up near the bottles, to balance out the composition and plan to add a few more envelopes. Any other crits or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Vinc3]

thats veryyy cool, and veryyyyyyy scary! i dunno if that picture gave me the shivers, or if it was because im eating ice cream but...still! :S

[arthoz]

i think the hair is too red, its leads me away from the "good stuff", and i dont know if adding more letter/envelopes are a good thing, good your adding that spider as well, think that would add a lot if used properly.

[Marcia]

Thanks for your input, guys.

@Vinc3: Glad you find it creepy; that's the atmosphere I'm going for.

@Arthoz, I've decided to take your advice and not add more envelopes, and am also working on the hair color so it integrates better with the scene.

I've added the spider, but it didn't cast a visible shadow with the original lighting set-up, so I'm working on changing the angle of light, which is also altering the composition somewhat. I hope to have another shot to post in the next day or so.

[Thahackboy]

Great work!
I like the texuters

[Marcia]

Update: Fixed the doll's hair, added the spider, changed the angle of light to make the shadows longer and more prominent, made minor changes to some of the other textures.

[mmiller]

Nice piece
Your textures are particularly well done.

But, I kind of like the first version better.
The second one does have some nice qualities though.

Might be fun to load them both up into seperate levels in pshop and play them against each other.

scratch that, I see you moved some stuff around
Mark

[3Dan]

The second img has more depth, altho you could make the tabletop a bit more illuminated to show the projected shadows. I'd rate it a fiver if you work thoroughly on that spider which looks misplaced in the scene atm.
The textures are really outstanding.

[Marcia]

Thanks, Dan. I can bring up the mid-tones and highlights a bit, which should address the lighting concern.

Could you be more specific about what you mean by working thoroughly on the spider, so I can improve it? The model is pretty fully articulated and I studied and tried to duplicate a portion of the walk cycle (which, unfortunately, isn't obvious from this angle). I've got to go out, but I'll post some wires when I get back.

I'm pretty committed to making this a fiver. Thanks for your advice.

[Marcia]

Here's the black widow model. I used photo references when creating it, but there was no single photo that showed everything in detail, so there may be some inaccuracies, although I tried to avoid them. What can I do to make it better?

[Phynius Gauge]

Great scene. Something about the renders makes them seem a little bit low quality to me. I hate spiders .

[3Dan]

Well the spider is artfully modeled to the tiniest detail but i don't think it belongs in the scene. Perhaps it's the bluish tone that makes it unreal, like a plastic replica.

[Marcia]

@Phynius Gauge: People have been commenting on that, so I'll be sure to fix it. The problem is fractal noise, the dust textures in the scene. I'm going to try removing it from the paper stuff and pencil, see if I can keep the aged feeling without triggering crits about texture inconsistency. Thanks for letting me know.

BTW, I hate spiders, too... especially poisonous spiders. The research and modeling literally made me feel queazy. LOL.

@Dan: Oh, okay... I see what you mean. I really want to keep the spider though; I think it helps balance the composition. Symbolically, it's supposed to represent revenge taken by the spirit of the woman the writer killed (symbolized by the ****** voodoo doll). Notice he hasn't been around to finish his novel. Sort of weird, I know.

The blue I can fix. I didn't want to use pure black because then it would look like a hole in the desk, so I added a layer of blue and a layer of dark magenta and mixed them all together to add richness. The texture looks black until you get a light on it. Also, I made the specular highlight light blue, which probably compounds the problem. I wondered if people would find that objectionable, so I appreciate your sharp observation. Maybe I'll make it a tiny bit smaller, too. See if that helps integrate it into the scene better.

[Marcia]

Update: I brightened the image some and made the spider about 30% smaller and black. I also futzed around with the desk texture, and now think it's too saturated, plus some of the dust seems messed up. Does it look that way to anyone else? C&C?

[claWda]

you know what, that first image is great, second is worse, third is just overworked

when you have something good, LEAVE IT BE!

if you still have the first version, take it into photoshop and just add a little contrast, bring down the grain, and use the current haircolor and your image is done

when your lighting is as dramatic as the last image, the whole meaning and impact of the motive is gone, because it distracts from the actual content of the image.

great work anyhow, it's your decision but I think you should go back