The Travel Companion

Artwork Focused Critiques
#1

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Whenever I do a project I always get to the point where I forget what I initially wanted to say. This is usually the moment I throw yet another project into the pile of unfinished .blends. - But not this time!
I showed this to my dad last night and he didn’t seem to be very impressed. However, I decided to post it anyway.

Enough of the edgy stuff…
Thanks to the new and awesome built-in denoiser this was rendered with just 256 samples - And the render didn’t even need more than 64 samples to look good to be honest.

I would love to get some feedback on the project.

I did most of the props myself, but I modified and used a couple of models from BlendSwap as well:
Ford Mustang: https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/82339
Bag: https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/77871
Bush: https://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/67789
http://gifmaker.me/PlayGIFAnimation.php?folder=2017091903odP4zsHt9XMrebKUzsO43N&file=output_rRGRv8.gif

http://gifmaker.me/PlayGIFAnimation.php?folder=2017091903odP4zsHt9XMrebKUzsO43N&file=output_rRGRv8.gif

Clay/Solid render: (Looking forward to 2.8 with real clay rendering)

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Link to “Creation Gif”:

Thank you!

Attachments

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#2

Very nice. Great style.

You missed your chance to enter in this weeks Weekend Challenge, the theme was guitars!

#3

Thanks!

Nooooo, are you serious! I Didn’t even know. :frowning:
But I started the project a long time ago so I don’t think I was allowed to join the competition anyway.

#4

Asside from the fact that this is completely amazing-looking project and concept, the wood grain on your guitar is not nearly fine enough.

#5

Very Nice looking scene…nice work on details…If your aim was to create scene which look like part of a game or an animation movie it look great.

#6

Richard: Thanks! Really appreciate it. :slight_smile:
Oh yeah, I see… I’ve scaled up the texture on the updated render a bit. I still want the surface of the guitar to look a bit rough - Just preference I guess. What do you think about it now? Scaled up by 170%.

Tapan: Thank you. Initially, I wanted the scene to look photo-realistic, but it turned out to be a bit stylish/colorful instead I guess. :slight_smile:

Update:

  • Resized guitar wood texture
  • Fiddled with the color grading (Made it a tiny bit more green-ish)
  • Added some fake, subtle rays of sunlight to ‘hide’ the background a bit more and get the guitar in focus
  • Bumped up the ‘vibrance’ a bit

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Also… I think the car is quite important for the story (That it is a roadtrip), but I tried cropping the image to see if that works better. What do you think?

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#7

I think it works both ways honestly. Without the car it makes a message of roaming. Down and out. No car. Hitchiking. Or even if by choice going for the adventure.

With the car it is a mixed message though. I mean why would you stop there? Normally you’d look for a nice secluded spot.

But regardless. I like the location. Nice scene.

Regarding the guitar texture. Not sure what you mean by scaling. Now it looks wider?

To be clear. The grain needs to be finer. Closer together. They don’t make them like that. And for me it distracts from an otherwise very realistic scene. But that is also because I have owned and played them all my life… Lol.

Wear and roughness can be added to the finer grain. As a layer on top. Not sure what you are using for texturing.

For a great - arguably the best - example of a worn guitar made of fine wood, have a look at Willy Nelson’s old guitar.


#8

Thank you so much for the in depth feedback! I found a new texture for the guitar and I think this one is more accurate compared to the old one. I also tried to create some subtle worn chunks like on the image you attached. Not very noticeable, but it adds the effect I was going for.

Furthermore, I decided to get rid of the car. As you pointed out, story-wise the car was a bit misplaced and I also think it ruined the composition a bit. It was fighting to get the attention. I tried to fix the story-part by adding a tire and a wrench, indicating the car had a flat tire, but it just felt too far fetched.

Again, I changed the colors a bit - More yellow/orange this time.

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Edit: crap… I just realized the guitar now has a quite noticeable seam issue down the middle of the body. Gonna fix re-render asap

#9

Sorry for spamming the thread, haha…

Fixed the seam issue:

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#10

I actually liked the car in the image. That gave some explanation to how all the boxes got there. ^^ It also added to a “roadtrip feel” which I though was nice. - If you think about the story, in my opinion the guitar stand should be removed though. Who would carry a bulky stand like this around on a trip, just to protect a beaten guitar? - I think the guitar would be better leaning against a box or the sleeping bag. Thinking this further … maybe you can make a follow up rendering, where the guitar is back in a nice clean home environment, safely stored on the stand, but showing all the marks and stickers it got during the trip.
Apart from that great scene and lighting. :wink:

#11

Thanks! I love the idea about a ‘back home’ render! :smiley:
Well… I kinda miss the car too, but I really think it was placed very poorly (in relation to the composition). At the moment I am trying if it will fit in, in the other side of the image.
The stand is foldable. Yeah, it is still a bit bulky, but I always carry one with me when I am travelling with my guitar anyway. Actually, I never wanted the guitar to look beaten up, but just a bit old and worn.
Anyways… Thank you, I appreciate your feedback!

#12

Cool man. Keep it up. Looking forward to seeing this in the finished gallery.

#13

Thanks! Actually, I posted it a couple of days ago, but I think I need to rethink the entire story/composition. It still doesn’t work. Maybe I will repost it later. For now I think I need a little break from the project.

#14

I am not a great compositor. But I feel free to give my two cents. I think the vignette is too strong.

#15

I like it better with the car. More story then. I think the composition should be slightly different though. If you move back a bit so the guitar is properly in the middle you could perhaps move some junk a bit closer so you get proper foreground, middle and background. That would give a bit more depth to it and make it more compelling.

#16

@usernew: Noted… Thanks :slight_smile:

@Oskar-A: I didn’t even think of foreground middle- and background when I worked on the project. That would probably improve the feel of depth in the image a lot. Thanks for the feedback!

#17

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Hey

I gave this project another shot once again. Don’t know why, but I cannot just let it go. I like it a bit more now and I think the story is less messy - Still not perfect though. The character is based on a mesh from MakeHuman.
What do you think?

1 Like
#18

Looks amazing how long have you learned blender.

#19

Looks great, but you can barely see her eyes. If you’d fix that, I wouldn’t know anything you could do to improve this image any further. Great job!

#20

Munno101: Thanks man! I discovered Blender five years ago.
Sorry, I didn’t see your comment before.

CGI Visuals: Actually, I didn’t want the viewer to see her eyes, because I wanted her to focus completely on the guitar - Just my thoughts when I made the choice. Her eyelashes are covering her eyes as she is looking down the neck of the guitar. However, the decision to not make her eyes visible might have been bad. Maybe the eyes would make the viewer be able to connect with the character I a better way. - Dunno… Anyway, thank you so much for the feedback :slight_smile: