I tried to get the perspective thing working. Not sure it's quite right, but I think it looks more dynamic now. Any crits?
Here's what I was working from:
"Tethered to a stone pier jutting out into the ocean, it bore the appearance of a four-legged animal, long spindly legs jutting up far beyond the main body of the craft. Kaliss supposed that they were long so that it could easily cross the ocean. One leg was frozen in the act of stepping, the wide 'foot' ready to plunge into the shallows.
The main body of the ship was more than a hundred feet long; it was mainly brass, pipework that seemed organic, almost completely covering the outer shell, as if a pipe-organ had exploded in a boat factory. They curved up from the underbelly, and a smouldering boiler was visible through the pipes, at the heart of the beast. The front of the ship was black, a rounded cockpit jutting out between the front two legs. Meanwhile the upper portion of the craft had an open deck with a brass railing running around it; the two largest funnels curved up and around the entire deck before rising over the front of the craft, as if horns on a bull. Smoke was pouring out of the funnels, and steam was venting from various safety valves; evidently the Captain had expected them, and primed his engines."
2 comments:
In this case dodgy perspective is irrelevant(imo), so long as it looks dynamic. The important thing is to show the length of the legs, towering out of the sea, and you're getting that much better now! Some of the gears don't quite fit in with the rest of the beast, But I still think that's a minor complaint. If the illustrations works, hang the details. Totally loving the graphic, pure white, spray in the foreground too. It draws the eye so that that you travel up the legs to the craft, rather than the other way around. Nice!
~John~
Oo nice! I agree with John in that even though the perspective isn't technically correct (I think you'd see more of the belly of the ship from this position) it does work.
I love the little fish gathered around the leg. Even though there are no people in the scene there's a fun sense of interaction between the big beast-like boat and the fish.
You could probably push the atmospheric perspective in the water by making the legs increasingly occluded by the water the farther away they are. Particularly in the case of the farthermost leg, I don't think you would see anything of the part that's submerged. Since the level of transparency is pretty uniform under water right now it feels rather flat, which contradicts the perspective.
Really awesome illo! I've got to sit down and read this sometime! I like the description of the hull as an organ explosion. XD
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