I was inspired by a painting of famous artist Vasily Vereshchagin “The Apotheosis of War” (1871, Oil on canvas).
“Dedicated to all great conquerors, past, present and future”.
Any war bring only death, destruction and degradation of humanity.
Please comment which one is better. All done in Blender.
I like the concept. Although the first one has a better light setup to match the scene, I think both needs to be adjusted to look more plausible.
The first one has shadows that you can not explain where they come from and that breaks the feeling of realism. That’s not a big deal if you are looking for a surreal look and make things a bit less realistic, but you need to be certain of what your intentions are.
In the first scene, I would not expect to see hard shadows due to the environment.
In the second one, I would use some kind of fire around to explain the light coming there and make the light warmer.
Now, looking at the original painting from the artist, I think he pictures a sunny day in a desert place. So the light could match that atmosphere unless your intention was really to reinterpret the scene. In that case, I think it would be nice to create elements that recreate the lights of the original in a different context, like the fire I said before. It could be interesting, with a sunset horizon behind keeping some ambient light to justify crows flying around.
Very interesting to see an evening and a night version of the bright sun original image.
Also very interesting to read the comments about light and shadows… … maybe would have never seen this…