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Griatch-art β Out of its element
Published: 2007-05-19 14:25:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 8428; Favourites: 184; Downloads: 7
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Description
Did you know dragons can swim? Of course they can! This is an ancient monstrosity walking ashore after unnamed business in the deep. Everything living nearby is trying to get out of its way as quickly as possible ...I really, really recommend the full size view for this. There are a *lot* of details.
The dragon is known as "Ebb" and is a character I use in roleplaying on UV www.unicornsvisions.com/phpBB2β¦ (it's a nice place for roleplaying any character you want. Pray you don't come across Ebb on a bad day though
). The design of the dragon is all mine, Β©Griatch and all that. This was done fully in the free graphical program GIMP (www.gimp.org/ ), only work outside the program was creating a very simple 3D-model of the dragon in the free modeller gsculpt (gsculpt.sourceforge.net/ ) so I could quickly try out some poses. The model was only used as a very basic reference though, all colour, textures and so on were done in GIMP 2.3.15.
The image is overall an experiment in water, light and reflections. Total work some 14 hours in total I reckon, so if you like it I would appreciate a fav.
Comments -- and most especially critique -- is highly appreciated!
EDIT: Thanks to comments in the thread and elsewhere, I have made some considerable changes to the image, changing the water considerably, as well as hopefully merging the boat better contrast-wise. Also the jaw and right wing should not blend together as much now. One thing I didn't change was the rower. He's now officially just grabbing the oars from the first guy who dropped them in shock, trying to grab hold of them and stop them from getting away ... it's just not practical to start redesigning the whole boat in order to turn the rower around, so this is how it has to be.
Anyway, let me know what you think.
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Griatch
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Comments: 123
I had a little play with it (hope you donβt mind), and here are my thoughts: I think things donβt look good when they βtouchβ the edges. The corners of his wings and the bottom of the boat are too near the edges for me. I tried cropping from the top and right, losing the edges of the wing, but although I found that better compositionally, I felt it lost the sense of scale somehow. I found it worked better to add a little extra to all four edges of the canvas. This also allows for a bit more beach, which I preferred. With the boat I turned down the contrast on it a little because I felt it stood out a little too much. I also tried moving it upwards a little, so the guyβs head is above the horizon line, which I think made their predicament look a little more dramatic.
I hope Iβm not out of line playing around like this, I just wanted to see if I could learn something from it, and thought you might be interested. I can upload it temporarily to my scraps if you want to see what I did. I probably ruined it but perhaps youβre curious hehe.
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@Ade350125
No, I didn't notice your reply, you only get notified when people reply to your own posts.
Cool, I appreciate you helping me out! I have included some of your suggestions into a new version of this image, hopefully fixing some beefs with it. Lowering the contrast did indeed do the trick with the boat, thanks a lot for that idea, I feel it fits much better now!
I haven't tweaked the edges of the image though, that's a little more work than I'm ready to put into this right now. But I'd love to see your suggestion though, so if you give me the link I'd love to see it! I appreciate you spending so much time on this! Greatly appreciated!
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Griatch
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Oops hehe I got this idea that it notified you of all replies on your work.. ah well I'll know in future
Here's the link to my rough and ready tweaked version as I described: [link]
Man, it's no problem at all - it was cool to have a go with someone else's work because I think I'm always too involved in mine by the final stages to see it clearly.
The only change I felt confident would be better was the reduced contrast on the boat, but you already did that 
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Oh, I'm very pleased about your suggestion on the boat, I think that works much better.
Thanks again for your tweaking suggestion! Hmm ... I agree that the added distance to the edges of the image changes the balance and possibly improves it. The dragon does come out a bit better balanced I think, at least when you look at the zoomed-out image. I however don't think the up-lifted boat works very well as it is, mainly because of perspective issues relative to the dragon. It might be that I could expand the borders a bit, but I won't think the boat. We'll see though.
I think I shall let the image "rest" for a while before I do any more changes to it. Thanks for your efferts and suggestions, commentary and help like this is invaluable!
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Griatch
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Oh I forgot to mention that your fix for the problem of the wing looking like an open mouth totally works
You're very welcome
I think you're right about the boat. I think it's good where you've got it (although I still really think it shouldn't touch the edge).
Anyway, it was fun to get involved, thank you
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Good to hear the mouth/wing fix worked. As said, we shall see about the edges, but for the moment I lean towards not doing more on this in a while. Time will Tell.
Thanks again, added you to my friends list by the way.
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Griatch
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Cool, thanks. Glad you like it.
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Griatch
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no problem xD
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~Hellclanner
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very very nice man, i really like the falling water and all the details, +fav for u!!
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That is a beautiful piece Griatch! *jaw drops* OO;
Holy smokes XD just the small thumbnail is like, whoa. Very nicely done!
But yeah XD that's an amazin' piece Griatch! Awesome, awesome, awesome! 
~Blue
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Thanks Blue!
Interesting touch with the rower grabbing for his oars, maybe it could be saved that way, but I still need to change a few things though, since I didn't really intend it that way. I'm not sure about the water, I've heard opinions similar to Gaeva's from other people too, so probably there is something that needs to be fixed in there.
Thanks for the comment and the fav! Appreciate it.
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griatch
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This one. As a print.
I will buy one. Maybe two and give one as a gift.
The only thing wrong in this pic is the guy in the boat who's rowing. He's facing the wrong way. You pull the oars through the water, not push them, and you don't want to fight the flat face of the boat while rowing.
The sky looks good, the water looks great, the little bit of land back in the distance there on the left edge looks well faded for a hazy overcast day. The water flowing off of Ebb has a good look to it. Really, it's about damn time he took a bath.
Priiiiiiiint, or I save it to disk and take it up to the nearest kinkos and have a print made that way XD
Actually, I probably couldn't. They've already seen what my artwork looks like up there.
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@Sithrazer
Lol, you're right! I have even rowed myself, so I should know how to place the rower properly! Shame on me, this is of course something that has to be fixed. I have no idea how I managed to miss that!
Thanks for the comments, glad to hear you'd want it for prints; we'll see if I'll so something about that. After fixing the rower, for sure...
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Griatch
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Very nice work! Thanks for sharing your talents!
Art
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Thanks, glad you like it.
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Griatch
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Wow!!! I think it's your best yet!! Awesome job man!
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Oh. My. God. This is unbelievable! I would say this is your best work yet that I have seen, but that would be such an understatement! It's beautiful!!
Critique...critique...well, if you must have some, maybe the water could be shinier...though with all the commotion underneath from a huge monster walking through it, it's understandable that it's not 
Ah, here's a fun little extra: my mother just walked into my room, saw this image while I was writing this text, and literally gasped
It's awesome Griatch!!
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Thanks Gaeva!
Thanks also for the critique, that's very useful. I agree on the mouth-issue; I will do as you suggest and improve contrast.
The water is a more tricky thing, it's hard to tell why you think it's looking unrealistic. Maybe it's simply too "bluish" and should reflect more of the sky ... yes that might well be it. I'll look into that too. Thanks for the fav too!
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Griatch
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Definite improvement. I can't do the first glance anymore, but I think there's enough contrast between the wing and the mouth now. Whatever was bothering me about the water is gone now, lol...that's some waves! It fits that rocking little boat much better now! It's impressive. Godzilla impressive
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