April '09 - Critiques from the Jury members!

[kaustavsinha]

Hi Everyone,

Following are the list of critiques from the honorable Jury members, on selected mattepaintings, from April 09 edition of the CGTantra Digital Matte Painting Challenges - Hauntings:


jama



Frederic St-Arnaud: Jama is an incredible artist, technically very good and artistically quite strong. We can see in this matte painting how important it is to create a good composition without too much information but just enough. Here we have the haunted house left side, the grass and crow in foreground and the pine trees right side. Everything is well balanced according the surrounding colors. The overall ambiant colors and integration photos are well done. This is a great master piece.

David Luong: Excellent silhouette, contrast and sharpness of all elements and focus. Lighting is very strong and fits overall on every single element. Hand painted areas such as the FG weeds and foliage work realistically and don't look like painting at all. Atmospheric perspective is really working here and the back lit but overcasty dark moody feel is very apparent in this haunting of a house. Great breakage and wear and tear. The birds are nice, but it's the FG one with it's wings out is what makes this pretty great. Reflections on water very harsh and still in the pond, very believable. Slightly too purple in the bg fog on the lake, otherwise color palette is working well. Grain on the sky gives it a really gritty feel too, makes it fit the theme even more.

From concepts (which look very awesome btw, especially the water colors) to finish, this earns some of the highest marks.

Christer Wibert: Truly a beautiful image. The mood in this piece is incredible, from the intimidating forest, to the lone, shining window at the top of the house. A fantasic job from Jama.

Tiberius Viris: Superb scene, almost nothing to crit. Perfect mood and colors, great composition, maybe you need more haze on the far lighted side of ruins, but other than that good job.


MatejaPetkovic



Christer Wibert: It's no small task, creating a ghost city, but MatejaPetkovic has done it splendidly. What I find really interesting in this image is the warm colors. It feels as if the viewer is inside the haunted house, looking out and seeing the beautiful world outside. The small "I am legend" poster was a fun touch, as well.

Tiberius Viris: This is a great matte painting but fits more with destruction/aftermath theme rather than haunted...

Sedevcic Leonardo: The mattepainting is very excellent, beautiful colors, shadows and lights, and the ambience is excellent too.


guitarsimo80



Frederic St-Arnaud: This is an interesting artwork. The theme "Hauntings" is very present and clear! We don't want to be there for sure! It's a very foggy and dark. My eyes want to see more details in the shadows and dark areas. But it's still a great and impressive matte painting.

Tiberius Viris: You hit the right mood, maybe the most haunted piece from this challenge

David Luong: I think the "Cross Process" version works more due to the color of the sky, it's more consistent with the other colors of the canvas. Lots of fog, lots of atmosphere here, and it fits in pretty well. The black levels are good throughout, except just in the middle where I can't see any detail, it's just painted in black, it would be cool to see some dark windows and such in that darkness (to the right of the orange lit window). Leafless tree, fallen branch, and just overall corrision makes this piece pretty sucessful as a worn down haunted area.

Sedevcic Leonardo: This one is excellent too, it's like one of the background of the movie "THE MONSTER CLUB" 1970 from MGM... really good execution too, good ambience, shadows and fog.


GordonTarpley



Frederic St-Arnaud: Good palette and great scary mood! Left and right side are a bit dark. They could still stay dark but having some highlights or bright elements inside of it. Overall, this is a good matte painting.

Christer Wibert: This image really pops out from the page and demands your attention. It has a very pleasing color scheme that is almost soothing for the eye to watch. A truly beautiful image.

Sedevcic Leonardo: This mattepainting is very good too, excellent colors and lights-shadows, there's maybe some work on the tree...but later, because the edges are too black:they need to be more in the light, maybe a small blur in the picture could be better, too sharp for me...
This mattepainting remembers me, some old horror movies from the MGM in the seventies...


zachm



David Luong: Use of rock textures in overcast environment really works on this matte. I think that the jaggedy rocks give it a nice compositional tool to pull your eye toward the buildings on the left. Some great fog that vignette the piece, but I think there should be some more lifting of blacks for atmosphere on the left mountain area and buildings to show us more distance from the right side rocks. Clouds are working great, just some of the clouds overlapping the left side mountain look too far away to be used as clouds covering the mountain peak there. Also would be great to work on the theme just a little more, as the building itself on the left doesn't look as haunted as the environment could suggest.


halvarado



Tiberius Viris: Another good scene, really gives me some creeps. Watch the light of the top ceiling, should be dark there


A huge thanks to all the Jury members for contributing with these precious critiques of the contestants' mattepaintings! We will update the list of critiques, as soon as we receive more critiques from the honorable Jury members!

The fifth edition of the CGTantra Digital Matte Painting Challenges (May 09), will commence from May 1st, 2009! The topic for May 09 challenge will be posted on May 1st!

[ssmakx]

ah.. such precious critiques... waiting for the may challenge.

[shahnawaz khan]

hthis is realy nice work......
can u suggest me that how can i do this type of work i am student of picasso animation college lucknow

[GordonTarpley]

Thanks so much for the critiques!
I'm hoping to have more time for next month's challenge so i can really dig into the details and, if all goes well, have something that really shines.

Thanks again!!
Looking forward to the next one!!!

[Ackdoh]

Great Job everyone, and glad to see you on that list Gordon!! =)

[GordonTarpley]

thank you DL!
you've been a HUGE help to me! you'll be seeing more soon for sure!

[imothep85]

Great work to all, hope to see you for the next challenge "BRAVO"

[zachm]

Thanks for the crit man! I'll take that sort of stuff into account on my next work!

[MatejaPetkovic]

Thanks for good critics and your time.

M

[halvarado]

Thank you for the crit and I am glad I got to play this round. On to the next challenge.

[sohail12]

Hi friends, I am first time here and really found ti good by all means, Infact the topic is good to read and and sending this page to my other firends because they are always asking me for the good resources to read out

[StaticHF]

Originally Posted by GordonTarpley

thank you DL!

Originally Posted by GordonTarpley

you've been a HUGE help to me! you'll be seeing more soon for sure!

I'm not quite good acquainted with Cgantra. Where can i look for the next challenge progress? Thank you so much.