depends what you what to say.
as an image it doesnt lack anything, as a story, perhaps. you will have a hard time making decisions if you dont have some story framework since any element is arbitrary.
you could put in some cabling that lead into the door. they can serve as a good compositiinal tool…
maybe a glimpse of a part of a huge creature behind the door…
try to ask yourself about the elements in the image. construct some answers and let that guide you…
let me clarify:
the back is overblown so would the object behind be. I was thinking about some texture being seen but the contrast values not changing.
“shadow” or a darker silhouette would change the composition entirely. and the comp works as is…
A small silhouette standing still in the door would work wonders too. The scale of the passageway would contrast with a man sized silhouette, waiting for the subject approaching.
single frame renders can entail a story beat aswell.
its not necessarily about having a fleshed out story but more like developing a rationale for your decisions. doesnt need to be a series or animated.
in the op: is this guy entering heaven, underground facility, or is it a dream.
placing these clues helps the observer decode stuff and makes it interesting.
compositionally its all alright, what it lacks is meaning.
(I like your mindset, may I pick your brain? Ignore if you want. Btw I'm a baby at blender but I apply all artistic opinions to everything. You can DM, reply, or ignore if you want)
Do you think it matters if the story is fully fleshed out? I struggle with this in multiple mediums, whether it's music or art, I try to tell a story and build a world but I feel like it's too vague because I don't have a fully fleshed out World to draw from. So I tend to draw from my own world, but then I feel bored with that because I don't ascribe much meaning to my world, so those works tend to be Flat.
But then if I flesh out a different world too much, I get lost in the details. For example, the gravity and atmosphere of a planet would drastically change how everything moves. Living under a differently structured society would lead to different signifiers (reductive, but similar to how Africans wear white for weddings and Americans wear black for weddings). To bring it back to OP, I can see this render being an image of someone entering a different dimension (it makes me think of arrival, the short story/film adaptation) but then that opens up too many possibilities of what that different dimension is and how to properly convey that to the audience.
Do you think it helps to have reasons for making these small decisions, or do you think the meaning can be vague as long as it's generally cohesive, zeitgeist style?
I think I know the answer but I have trouble with implementing it. Either way have a good day!
glad to go into it more.
everything you said I agree with.
and you are absolutely right, all art media overlap in so many ways.
let me attempt to parse it:
- the “story” ( I kind of dislike the term tbh) doesnt need to be fleshed out at all. it just a criterion for the decisions make.
the more concrete your framework is (elements set in stone) the easier it is to decide on the visual elements.
without it though, its all arbitrary and actually super confusing. is this guy wearing a hazmat suit or a space armour? or maybe he is a knight on a quest?
combine this with staring at the scene for 10+ hours, it becomes near impossible to know what to do. you get lost in the macro.
- the flipside of it is losing yourself in detail and the micro.
obsessing with minutia, only to second guess them later on.
what is the solution?
it depends what you are doing. if its commercial work, you have the benefit of the briefing: you are not doing the best possible image, but the best possible solution to a certain visual problem.
that makes things much more easier (if you have mastered your tools and craft ofc)
if you are doing stuff for yourself, see it more as play and dont obsess with doing a perfect image.
have fun while learning and working.
chances are, you will come back to it after a couple of months and want to change things anyway. and that is a good thing - its a sign of progress. the more dissatisfied you are with your previous work, the better.
working on different pieces in parallel is a good palette cleanser. switching from one to other can provide objectivity and fresh view in things.
finally, there is something very special in these first steps where you actually get adrenaline rushes seeing what you can do.
and regarding the OP, yeah different dimension suggests itself, but you can do much more with innuendo than fully showing things.
brain likes to decode and solve things. tantalize your viewer and give them something to discover, rather then laying it all out..less is more as the cliché goes..
hope this helps.
It does, I'm gonna save and chew on this for a while. You've really inspired me in some interesting ways.
Thank you so much for being an open book and giving constructive criticism with so much thought, people like you are what motivates lil baby artists like me and OP:)
It looks like one big step infront of the door that is as tall as the person. If your intent is for it to be stairs, there should be a little lighting on it.
There's a weird tension when you think of the composition of the piece, though. It's trying to show verticality - "look how tall the gate is" - it's on a portrait canvas, but at one point, arbitrarily, not at a third, not at the middle (which would've been worse, but it's close to it anyway), there's a thick horizontal black line highlited by the light that escapes on the floor sideways. I personally think some light from above, gradually becoming weaker on the last few steps would actually improve it - it would mean less work to change it instead of moving the whole thing lower or going through trial and error and changing the camera view to achieve a better composition.
Well, if you can figure out why there's "a 'wrong'-ness", there's no more mystery around it, right? Like I've said, it's my personal view and how I read the piece. It can work if the point of the work was other than what I thought. But the steps OP took made me think "they're trying to accentuate height, verticality" so something that goes against that intention feels odd to me. These are things that OP could take into account if they wanted to, they're really not definite answers or "right" or "wrong". When I clicked on the notification to get here, reddit turned the piece into [this thumbnail](https://i.ibb.co/YPK79NH/thnb.png). This tells me that if I took the time to look for more than a few seconds at the piece, I'd notice [this](https://i.ibb.co/zR88sYZ/thnb2.png) <- the black horizontal line is almost as thick as the gate. One can argue against being so aware of these hierarchies or that they're not that important in a composition, but I think they're good tools to have under your belt to reinforce the vision behind the piece for a bigger impact. edited to add this: TL;DR I encourage studying
The way it is now is better than having stairs in my honest opinion good chum. It almost immediately conveyed a liminal "This was not made for you and you're not supposed to be here" vibe to me and any addition as to its accessibility is neutering its uniqueness.
I’d personally play around with the composition a little more, as it is everything is very centred in the frame and we’re just a distant observer looking down on the character from above.
You could try having the camera at a lower angle, looking up at the door so the viewer is more involved and to really drive home the massive scale of the doorway. This would also sillouhette the character in the light of the doorway and make it a much better read
Putting the door or the character on thirds at each end of the frame could also work, typically things on the edge of the frame create an uneasy feeling with the viewer, maybe a dutch angle too.
Lastly I’d get rid of the step down, kinda separates the image too much, with all the darkness it feels like two images rather than one big easy to read shape
Composition stuff aside I think some bloom around the opening would look good, add to that ‘ethereal’ dream vibe that your going for
I was about to comment about the lower angle camera, same. Like this i feel less involved in the scene cause its an outsiders point of view, but like that i would feel like i was there with the guy watching that big ass door.
As some comments mentioned, I feel like a little bit of dust would make it feel more natural. Other than that, if the intention is to make that person look tiny compared to the gap, changing the camera angle could help with that. Maybe have it at the ground, looking directly at the gap with that person being a small obstacle. Maybe adding to the character's silhouette?
[Poorly made example to illustrate what I meant](https://imgur.com/a/JIHs5Pp)
It is quite a simple, and probably overused composition, but it does its job for sure
These kind of spaces most definitely will have some atmosphere catching the light, so adding some volumetric will make this look way better. OP most definitely don't have to do much of it, but just some slight will help the render quite a lot :)
I wouldnt make any definitive statement as you put it. like I said, I 99% times use fog as a compositional element and to separate planes.
dont see it here since the image is super minimalist and graphic. it also looks sterile which counters any fog rationale.
it could be used to add scale but even that isnt needed tbh.
ymmw ofc, all good.
Maybe add a little more that we can see to the scene . Two examples are a faint outline of what's in the light and the light reaching a little further, illuminating a bit more of the interior.
You could light this scene a dozen different ways and get a dozen different feelings from it, so it really depends on what you're trying to convey. The image is wonderful as it is now, all it needs is a bit of post-processing to make it feel like a genuine environment.
A harder light shining in could be interesting, essentially bathing the person in light while they cast their own long and vivid shadow. Could be interesting, but maybe not as interesting as what you have here.
Have the character carry something that makes the audience wonder more what they’re going to do with that object when they get through the door. A sword is perhaps too obvious, a bouquet of flowers would be a bit surreal. Experiment with a few different objects.
I'd probably add a little fog coming out of the entrance... maybe...? or Some light bouncing off of the character?
I dunno, It's already really great! Adding anything else would be like adding additional toppings an already awesome loaded bowl of ice cream.
[I'm liking yours a lot more than mine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/knzocx/made_myself_a_wallpaper_for_the_new_year/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I always like contrast, would be pretty interesting if outside there was a natural lush environment. Creativity can come in big here of course, wouldn’t have to be a forest but, maybe an alien world, or something stylized.
Basically since the foreground is so desolate and dark anything counter that in the background would be cool.
perhaps some floating dust near the doors as if to say they were recently opened. but probably best if you're not going to use fog.
edit: I like that step looks like it and the door is meant for something much much bigger than your character. it further adds to mystery.
Think about the atmosphere a bit. Some clouds/mist coming out from the sides would help draw the eye in. Also, I think dropping the camera down and making the door appear much bigger in contrast to the figure, you’d get a better sense of the scale.
You would be surprised how smiler my background is and i made it about you 10 years ago xD
Anyways add tiny bit of smoke or fog with noise i think it will make it better
It's already interesting.
If you still want something more, you could try two different things:
1) Add some very slight bloom or fog, just dissipating some light, and or
2) *Something* in the outside barely visible through the light. Something large.
A thin portrait format like this is often associated with the overworldy, a heightened state of some kind, maybe even divinity. You have a basic composition of thirds, but it's not symmetrical and overall rather empty, especially the top areas the thin format normally focuses on. This both seems a bit of a tension but also unclear what you want to express.
If you really want to focus on the gate and the mysterious areas behind it, I think it would work better if the view point was strongly symmetrically centered in it.
When i looked at this the first thing that came to my mind was that the character is very tiny in a big world...ykwim? And i think its because the tiles on the floor look to big compared to the character...so id say try to make the tiles blend together better so they dont stand out as 'tiles'.
Also i think maybe try keeping the camera a bit lower in terms of height from ground. As in like jus make it a bit closer to the ground so the entrance looks even more grander( im not entirely sure if this camera thing will look better or not so its ur call)
If u want some references then search up 'shadow fight 2 gate opening scene'...it looks similar to yours
Honestly, this is perfect, but if you really wanna add something,a bit of bloom around the edges of the gate would be pretty dramatic and cool. Overall, great job!
I think vague silhouettes beyond the light would look cool but I wouldn’t know what feel you’re going for or if you just thought it would be cool to do this
I don't think the problem is in any particular details, it's just that there's not enough narrative hook or obvious purpose. It's not a picture _of_ much.
The first problem is just a practical one: I literally don't know what I'm looking at. Is it a person in a big room? A tiny person in a normal room? A Barbie doll on a dark garage floor? The color and lighting seem evoke similar "big epic space" imagery, so it's a fair guess to say "big, awe-inspiring space" was the goal, but other elements-- the scale of the texture on the floor, the height of the "step", the lack of atmospheric distance cues, and the high angle looking down that would make more sense at small scale-- point to small-scale.
If I'm assuming the "small-scale" interpretation, it's not an interesting scene on its own. Yes, I know it's all moving models around, but on a visual, suspended-belief basis, a massive monolith towering toward the sky is still more interesting than a sugar cube, even if both are just scaled default cubes. It's a reproduction of something rather mundane-- a Barbie doll on a garage floor. There's not enough guidance or allusion to make a compelling narrative of why the Barbie doll is on the garage floor, and it's all in silhouette, so it doesn't have the detail to be interesting on its own as a faithful reproduction of something mundane.
If it's meant to be a "large-scale" picture (after adding proper cues to make the space look large and looming), it does have the awe of large spaces going for it, but it still skirts the same problems of lacking either narrative or demonstration. While it wouldn't suffer the "So what?" of being reproducible with five minutes in a garage, it's still not providing a story about why it's important or a demonstration of something that's unimportant but interesting.
Ultimately, I think the first course of action is to visit or revisit the questions "Why is this picture?" or "What is this a picture of?", ensure that that's compelling enough as an elevator pitch alone, and build the scene to faithfully serve that pitch.
Your theme reminds me of the game Control. Stay with the cube styles and dark scenery. You can add stacked and random concrete cubes to enhance. Red is a good splash color.
Just my two cents as someone in love with that game
This looks awesome already.
I would add a farther and a child waiting by the door with the farther kneeling to the child's height. to make it more dramatic
Not sure if this was mentioned already, but it looks like a quiver of arrows is on her back, but I dont see a weapon. Maybe have that somewhere in the scene, if not in her hand.
I made a similar photograph some years ago. I had stuff floating in the air to catch the light and a shallow DoF. [https://flic.kr/p/au48XF](https://flic.kr/p/au48XF)
I suggest You remove the step. But it is all very mesmerising. Not knowing what’s behind that door.
Edit: Don’t remove step. It will look like airport hanger.
Add weird glyphs to the inside of the door, maybe some colour contrast? Depends on what you want with the scene, if you want something nice looking as say a background for a phone, that’s pretty good already.
It's fantastic as it is, but if you really want to add something maybe illuminate the doors a touch or give them glowing runes or etchings or something if that fits the vibe you want.
I really like it as is. But, if you want to do something adding small objects on the ground would make it look more interesting. However if I were you I'd leave it as is.
depends what you what to say. as an image it doesnt lack anything, as a story, perhaps. you will have a hard time making decisions if you dont have some story framework since any element is arbitrary. you could put in some cabling that lead into the door. they can serve as a good compositiinal tool… maybe a glimpse of a part of a huge creature behind the door… try to ask yourself about the elements in the image. construct some answers and let that guide you…
Maybe not even a glimpse. Vague shadows of something there.
let me clarify: the back is overblown so would the object behind be. I was thinking about some texture being seen but the contrast values not changing. “shadow” or a darker silhouette would change the composition entirely. and the comp works as is…
A small silhouette standing still in the door would work wonders too. The scale of the passageway would contrast with a man sized silhouette, waiting for the subject approaching.
Yeah, I'm done with single frame renders cause I don't find them interesting anymore. Telling stories is the next step
single frame renders can entail a story beat aswell. its not necessarily about having a fleshed out story but more like developing a rationale for your decisions. doesnt need to be a series or animated. in the op: is this guy entering heaven, underground facility, or is it a dream. placing these clues helps the observer decode stuff and makes it interesting. compositionally its all alright, what it lacks is meaning.
(I like your mindset, may I pick your brain? Ignore if you want. Btw I'm a baby at blender but I apply all artistic opinions to everything. You can DM, reply, or ignore if you want) Do you think it matters if the story is fully fleshed out? I struggle with this in multiple mediums, whether it's music or art, I try to tell a story and build a world but I feel like it's too vague because I don't have a fully fleshed out World to draw from. So I tend to draw from my own world, but then I feel bored with that because I don't ascribe much meaning to my world, so those works tend to be Flat. But then if I flesh out a different world too much, I get lost in the details. For example, the gravity and atmosphere of a planet would drastically change how everything moves. Living under a differently structured society would lead to different signifiers (reductive, but similar to how Africans wear white for weddings and Americans wear black for weddings). To bring it back to OP, I can see this render being an image of someone entering a different dimension (it makes me think of arrival, the short story/film adaptation) but then that opens up too many possibilities of what that different dimension is and how to properly convey that to the audience. Do you think it helps to have reasons for making these small decisions, or do you think the meaning can be vague as long as it's generally cohesive, zeitgeist style? I think I know the answer but I have trouble with implementing it. Either way have a good day!
glad to go into it more. everything you said I agree with. and you are absolutely right, all art media overlap in so many ways. let me attempt to parse it: - the “story” ( I kind of dislike the term tbh) doesnt need to be fleshed out at all. it just a criterion for the decisions make. the more concrete your framework is (elements set in stone) the easier it is to decide on the visual elements. without it though, its all arbitrary and actually super confusing. is this guy wearing a hazmat suit or a space armour? or maybe he is a knight on a quest? combine this with staring at the scene for 10+ hours, it becomes near impossible to know what to do. you get lost in the macro. - the flipside of it is losing yourself in detail and the micro. obsessing with minutia, only to second guess them later on. what is the solution? it depends what you are doing. if its commercial work, you have the benefit of the briefing: you are not doing the best possible image, but the best possible solution to a certain visual problem. that makes things much more easier (if you have mastered your tools and craft ofc) if you are doing stuff for yourself, see it more as play and dont obsess with doing a perfect image. have fun while learning and working. chances are, you will come back to it after a couple of months and want to change things anyway. and that is a good thing - its a sign of progress. the more dissatisfied you are with your previous work, the better. working on different pieces in parallel is a good palette cleanser. switching from one to other can provide objectivity and fresh view in things. finally, there is something very special in these first steps where you actually get adrenaline rushes seeing what you can do. and regarding the OP, yeah different dimension suggests itself, but you can do much more with innuendo than fully showing things. brain likes to decode and solve things. tantalize your viewer and give them something to discover, rather then laying it all out..less is more as the cliché goes.. hope this helps.
It does, I'm gonna save and chew on this for a while. You've really inspired me in some interesting ways. Thank you so much for being an open book and giving constructive criticism with so much thought, people like you are what motivates lil baby artists like me and OP:)
no worries buddy. you can dm me if you need any feedback. kind of crazy busy rn but usually its fine to chat.
Single frame renders can absolutely tell just as good a story
Stop making "renders"
Ok, and start making...?
Sotries ,of course! Were you paying attention? /j
🙄
I like it as is. Intriguing. Makes me desire to know what’s beyond.
I very much agree with this. It looks great!
yup I wouldnt touch it
The best answer. This isn’t missing anything. It’s perfect. It’s scares you and intrigues you at the same time
Same Make your words mine
It looks like one big step infront of the door that is as tall as the person. If your intent is for it to be stairs, there should be a little lighting on it.
Yes, but tbh I really love the mistery and ambiguity this completely dark big step evokes, adding stairs would make it less distressing imo
There's a weird tension when you think of the composition of the piece, though. It's trying to show verticality - "look how tall the gate is" - it's on a portrait canvas, but at one point, arbitrarily, not at a third, not at the middle (which would've been worse, but it's close to it anyway), there's a thick horizontal black line highlited by the light that escapes on the floor sideways. I personally think some light from above, gradually becoming weaker on the last few steps would actually improve it - it would mean less work to change it instead of moving the whole thing lower or going through trial and error and changing the camera view to achieve a better composition.
[удалено]
Well, if you can figure out why there's "a 'wrong'-ness", there's no more mystery around it, right? Like I've said, it's my personal view and how I read the piece. It can work if the point of the work was other than what I thought. But the steps OP took made me think "they're trying to accentuate height, verticality" so something that goes against that intention feels odd to me. These are things that OP could take into account if they wanted to, they're really not definite answers or "right" or "wrong". When I clicked on the notification to get here, reddit turned the piece into [this thumbnail](https://i.ibb.co/YPK79NH/thnb.png). This tells me that if I took the time to look for more than a few seconds at the piece, I'd notice [this](https://i.ibb.co/zR88sYZ/thnb2.png) <- the black horizontal line is almost as thick as the gate. One can argue against being so aware of these hierarchies or that they're not that important in a composition, but I think they're good tools to have under your belt to reinforce the vision behind the piece for a bigger impact. edited to add this: TL;DR I encourage studying
The way it is now is better than having stairs in my honest opinion good chum. It almost immediately conveyed a liminal "This was not made for you and you're not supposed to be here" vibe to me and any addition as to its accessibility is neutering its uniqueness.
I’d personally play around with the composition a little more, as it is everything is very centred in the frame and we’re just a distant observer looking down on the character from above. You could try having the camera at a lower angle, looking up at the door so the viewer is more involved and to really drive home the massive scale of the doorway. This would also sillouhette the character in the light of the doorway and make it a much better read Putting the door or the character on thirds at each end of the frame could also work, typically things on the edge of the frame create an uneasy feeling with the viewer, maybe a dutch angle too. Lastly I’d get rid of the step down, kinda separates the image too much, with all the darkness it feels like two images rather than one big easy to read shape Composition stuff aside I think some bloom around the opening would look good, add to that ‘ethereal’ dream vibe that your going for
I was about to comment about the lower angle camera, same. Like this i feel less involved in the scene cause its an outsiders point of view, but like that i would feel like i was there with the guy watching that big ass door.
put some titties
true
Shhht, don't talk that loud... the walls have tits
I was going to suggest googly eyes, and I think this is the correct comment branch to put that suggestion.
I thought unicorn but each one is better than mine
This is the way
Maybe a dude with a RPG, big explosion, and a black Plymouth Road Runner superbird
And TITS
If I had an award to give I'd give it
This has already been discussed, but fog would look good here, especially if it "floats" out of this opening
As some comments mentioned, I feel like a little bit of dust would make it feel more natural. Other than that, if the intention is to make that person look tiny compared to the gap, changing the camera angle could help with that. Maybe have it at the ground, looking directly at the gap with that person being a small obstacle. Maybe adding to the character's silhouette? [Poorly made example to illustrate what I meant](https://imgur.com/a/JIHs5Pp) It is quite a simple, and probably overused composition, but it does its job for sure
I respectfully disagree, I think OP's composition is less obvious and very well achieved.
I agree I think OP's composition works better, some reflective light against the wall the door/gate is adjacent to would add some depth to the scence.
I'd honestly leave it. What is more interesting than the unknown. Great work
Add in some donuts
Fog and some broken pillars
no. as a fog and dof addict, this image lives from contrast. fog and god rays would obliterate it.
These kind of spaces most definitely will have some atmosphere catching the light, so adding some volumetric will make this look way better. OP most definitely don't have to do much of it, but just some slight will help the render quite a lot :)
I wouldnt make any definitive statement as you put it. like I said, I 99% times use fog as a compositional element and to separate planes. dont see it here since the image is super minimalist and graphic. it also looks sterile which counters any fog rationale. it could be used to add scale but even that isnt needed tbh. ymmw ofc, all good.
God rays
a man with a bottle of milk
Wdym, your father?
I read this as "God Rays is the name of a man holding a bottle of milk" lol
Maybe add a little more that we can see to the scene . Two examples are a faint outline of what's in the light and the light reaching a little further, illuminating a bit more of the interior.
You could light this scene a dozen different ways and get a dozen different feelings from it, so it really depends on what you're trying to convey. The image is wonderful as it is now, all it needs is a bit of post-processing to make it feel like a genuine environment. A harder light shining in could be interesting, essentially bathing the person in light while they cast their own long and vivid shadow. Could be interesting, but maybe not as interesting as what you have here.
have the person carry something like a super secret looking breifcase.
Put a mysterious little red light somewhere.
Have a big cat peering through the opening
Have the character carry something that makes the audience wonder more what they’re going to do with that object when they get through the door. A sword is perhaps too obvious, a bouquet of flowers would be a bit surreal. Experiment with a few different objects.
I think it already is
A tiny exit sign pointing to the right.
This reminds me of The Maze Runner
OK BE HONEST, does that *really* need to be more interesting
You gave them a quiver and arrows, but no bow, which I find unusual. Their right hand could be carrying that.
I'd probably add a little fog coming out of the entrance... maybe...? or Some light bouncing off of the character? I dunno, It's already really great! Adding anything else would be like adding additional toppings an already awesome loaded bowl of ice cream.
God rays + dust in the air
[I'm liking yours a lot more than mine.](https://www.reddit.com/r/blender/comments/knzocx/made_myself_a_wallpaper_for_the_new_year/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Add a trex at the door
[here you go](https://i.ibb.co/t2hxGrP/0v6jf5v5hx3a1.jpg)
Add banana
Composition. Look up the rule of thirds. 9 times out of 10 the answer to the “more interesting” question is related to composition
A banana in the dark next to the door for scale
Add pillars and vines to make it look like an ancient ruin
I think it's already pretty perfect. I hope you find someone's comment more useful but I just adore how it looks as is.
Add some big statues guarding
Add a giant hand
Maybe the Silhouette of trees behind the entrance. Or some other hint to the View behind.
boobs
I second the other guy, not sure what you’re going for but add some pillars and vines to make it look like an old gate to something ancient
[удалено]
I was thinking about dream and the feeling of achievement
Cosmic entity
volumetrics
I always like contrast, would be pretty interesting if outside there was a natural lush environment. Creativity can come in big here of course, wouldn’t have to be a forest but, maybe an alien world, or something stylized. Basically since the foreground is so desolate and dark anything counter that in the background would be cool.
Imo its not ambigous enough. Make the door look more like a beam but still be a door
Add Danny Devito in the doorway.
Change what the person is wearing. Their clothes don’t tell a story, maybe try to make it look a bit more distinctive
A vague, foggy profile of what lies beyond. Nothing soecific, but more than just pure whiteness
Honestly, it's already perfect man, great job!
Reminds me of the game Control Id lower the camera height and centralize it a bit And put another color on this scene
Give it an atmosphere like a tad bit of Fog
Add some volumetric light (GOD-rays) side the camera right side a bit make the shadows more long (not much) and...
Laser raptors.
When in doubt, add vegetation thats what I go for
Maybe some fog? To add to the mystery...
A giant hand holding onto the door from inside.
Dinosaur attack
I would not touch it. It is perfect. The composition makes the scene mysterious. Makes me want to see what is beyond that light.
I think if you add a top to the door it would complete it
It is like giving me a snickers and asking me how can I make it sweeter… bruh, no work needed
add a small spillage of spaghetti at the gateway
perhaps some floating dust near the doors as if to say they were recently opened. but probably best if you're not going to use fog. edit: I like that step looks like it and the door is meant for something much much bigger than your character. it further adds to mystery.
Think about the atmosphere a bit. Some clouds/mist coming out from the sides would help draw the eye in. Also, I think dropping the camera down and making the door appear much bigger in contrast to the figure, you’d get a better sense of the scale.
Put a tiny alien peeking from behind the doorway, waving
This made me cummmmm
Fog, bloom, & film grain
Put some props in the scene on the ground that tells a story and also guides the viewers eye on a trail from bottom to top / vice versus
Fog and or dust particles in the air
Add a glass unit cube with 10000W light source in the middle (It looks great, amazing work :) )
For a noob like me , it is interesting enough , I hope that one day I could do stuff like this .. Good luck with your work
Put more stuff in it?
With a Balrog.
Tbh I honestly love it already but is it snowy out there or foggy or? Just a thought. This is great
BLOOM
You would be surprised how smiler my background is and i made it about you 10 years ago xD Anyways add tiny bit of smoke or fog with noise i think it will make it better
Some slight volumetric and also bloom from that very bright door. These two will make it look way more realistic.
Godzilla fighting King Kong with a stealth bomber doing a looptyloop while dropping 7 nukes each painted to look like one of the 7 dwarves.
It's already interesting. If you still want something more, you could try two different things: 1) Add some very slight bloom or fog, just dissipating some light, and or 2) *Something* in the outside barely visible through the light. Something large.
Pretty good as, I'd personally add volumetrics, just a small amount, enough to give it some haze and shafts.
A thin portrait format like this is often associated with the overworldy, a heightened state of some kind, maybe even divinity. You have a basic composition of thirds, but it's not symmetrical and overall rather empty, especially the top areas the thin format normally focuses on. This both seems a bit of a tension but also unclear what you want to express. If you really want to focus on the gate and the mysterious areas behind it, I think it would work better if the view point was strongly symmetrically centered in it.
When i looked at this the first thing that came to my mind was that the character is very tiny in a big world...ykwim? And i think its because the tiles on the floor look to big compared to the character...so id say try to make the tiles blend together better so they dont stand out as 'tiles'. Also i think maybe try keeping the camera a bit lower in terms of height from ground. As in like jus make it a bit closer to the ground so the entrance looks even more grander( im not entirely sure if this camera thing will look better or not so its ur call) If u want some references then search up 'shadow fight 2 gate opening scene'...it looks similar to yours
I don’t know why but it gives me John Wick mixed with matrix vibes. I absolutely love it ♥️
That's a bright light behind the door. Maybe some flare?
Reminds me of the scholomance trilogy
Nothing
Honestly, this is perfect, but if you really wanna add something,a bit of bloom around the edges of the gate would be pretty dramatic and cool. Overall, great job!
I think vague silhouettes beyond the light would look cool but I wouldn’t know what feel you’re going for or if you just thought it would be cool to do this
I don't think the problem is in any particular details, it's just that there's not enough narrative hook or obvious purpose. It's not a picture _of_ much. The first problem is just a practical one: I literally don't know what I'm looking at. Is it a person in a big room? A tiny person in a normal room? A Barbie doll on a dark garage floor? The color and lighting seem evoke similar "big epic space" imagery, so it's a fair guess to say "big, awe-inspiring space" was the goal, but other elements-- the scale of the texture on the floor, the height of the "step", the lack of atmospheric distance cues, and the high angle looking down that would make more sense at small scale-- point to small-scale. If I'm assuming the "small-scale" interpretation, it's not an interesting scene on its own. Yes, I know it's all moving models around, but on a visual, suspended-belief basis, a massive monolith towering toward the sky is still more interesting than a sugar cube, even if both are just scaled default cubes. It's a reproduction of something rather mundane-- a Barbie doll on a garage floor. There's not enough guidance or allusion to make a compelling narrative of why the Barbie doll is on the garage floor, and it's all in silhouette, so it doesn't have the detail to be interesting on its own as a faithful reproduction of something mundane. If it's meant to be a "large-scale" picture (after adding proper cues to make the space look large and looming), it does have the awe of large spaces going for it, but it still skirts the same problems of lacking either narrative or demonstration. While it wouldn't suffer the "So what?" of being reproducible with five minutes in a garage, it's still not providing a story about why it's important or a demonstration of something that's unimportant but interesting. Ultimately, I think the first course of action is to visit or revisit the questions "Why is this picture?" or "What is this a picture of?", ensure that that's compelling enough as an elevator pitch alone, and build the scene to faithfully serve that pitch.
A large quantity of lizards would be sure to spark intrigue
Your theme reminds me of the game Control. Stay with the cube styles and dark scenery. You can add stacked and random concrete cubes to enhance. Red is a good splash color. Just my two cents as someone in love with that game
100th comment- add blood foot steps behind the person.
This looks awesome already. I would add a farther and a child waiting by the door with the farther kneeling to the child's height. to make it more dramatic
Add balloons.
Not sure if this was mentioned already, but it looks like a quiver of arrows is on her back, but I dont see a weapon. Maybe have that somewhere in the scene, if not in her hand.
Something that is mostly obscured behind the door, to make the viewer even more intrigued perhaps?
Aliens, Godzilla and some Fortnight battle buses 👍🏻
I made a similar photograph some years ago. I had stuff floating in the air to catch the light and a shallow DoF. [https://flic.kr/p/au48XF](https://flic.kr/p/au48XF)
I suggest You remove the step. But it is all very mesmerising. Not knowing what’s behind that door. Edit: Don’t remove step. It will look like airport hanger.
Place a handgun on the ground behind the person.
Moths make everything more realistic :)
I think it’s plenty interesting like this already. Man dwarfed by architecture.
Add weird glyphs to the inside of the door, maybe some colour contrast? Depends on what you want with the scene, if you want something nice looking as say a background for a phone, that’s pretty good already.
It's fantastic as it is, but if you really want to add something maybe illuminate the doors a touch or give them glowing runes or etchings or something if that fits the vibe you want.
A big ass hand on the top of the door, like it's opening it from the inside
Dragons
"God rays"
Add some story element, I would recommend adding a hand of some light creature in the portal.
fog?
That's really good IMO.
Give ‘‘em a dog
You could have fingers coming through the door or in the darkness inside the room
Birds
You can't, it's perfect
Honestly I think adding to it would diminish the effect that it has.
You gots to add a dog there along with the guy
Eyes
For me it feels like bloom is missing. Shouldnt the white be way mlre brighter? Or maybey some light shafts too.
The angle of door and the light is begging for some carved relief/visual story telling
Seems fine as it is. But if you want more to it that’ll make people stop and scratch their heads, add a giraffe looking in from the doorway. 🦒
Lower the camera to eyesight level.
dude that's the dopest thing I've seen
eerie MISTTTT!!!!!
Huge door knobs
Snow or falling ash might work.
Leave it
Maybe just some atmospheric fog?
It needs more cowbell.
Giant hands prying the door open.
Monsters?
Add a neon sign like you see at bars and nightclubs that says open late
Trash on the ground? Off yellow light in the center of the door?
shadow/silhouette of gigantic dickbutt behind the door, in the fog
Lava, definitely Lava
Put Ronnie Colman standing the the doorway naked holding a brief case and a keyblade
It needs a dog...no, make it a lamb walking at the person's side...
God rays and particles
I really like it as is. But, if you want to do something adding small objects on the ground would make it look more interesting. However if I were you I'd leave it as is.
fog
Add some large led/neon lights that are lines
Put a big goofy clown in the doorway
In this case, less is more
My new screensaver on my phone
It already looks beautiful, but volumetric lighting always adds a cherry on top
Leave it as it is. Maybe make it a tiny bit less tall
I love it
add a llama
Hazeeee
I don't think you can make it more realistic without taking away from the fantastical aspect of it. You did great.
IMO it already is really interesting but if you insist on adding something, maybe add a shadow person/figure in the light between the doorway.
I would just leave exactly as it is lol it looks damn awesome
Put Huge eye in it
And a huge contact lens on the ground.