Hi,

I am a programmer. This is my first attempt to make a concept illustration. Please give critical feedback and how can I improve this drawing? I know there is a lot of room for improvement but I am stuck. I don't know how to fill in all the details.

I spent a lot of time making the hi res trees, animals etc only to place tiny versions of them on the final piece. I made the basic shapes in Inkscape and then imported to Gimp for shading/texturing.

recession. you seem to have it backwards.

Rule of thumb is when things receed into distance they lose detail, contrast and saturation.....whereas you have the same texture in your sky, dark clouds....those two simple things will make your image pop....

I just overlayed one huge grunge texture on top of the drawing. As far as I understood you are saying:

1) Apple the overlay texture only to front clouds and front elements. Apply faint low res overlay texture to farther elements.

2) Make things that are farther less contrasty and less saturated.

Thank you for the tip :)

That grunge texture you used has given the piece an interesting "hand-made" look. I'll keep this in mind the next time I want to make something like this.

If I had to work over it, I would address the following points:
- Add some atmospheric perspective by slightly tinting the back clouds with the sky colour.
- Make that radial pattern on the sky (the rays coming from the centre) slightly stronger, as it may be too much subtle right now.
- Frame the content closer to the edges of the canvas as to zoom in on it, as I think the sky is occupying too much on the picture (a subjective choice).
- See if the Levels tool (Colours -> Levels) can improve the overall contrast. The Levels tool gives more control than the Brightness-Contrast tool because of the middle handle.
- Make sure that the lighting is consistent. The clouds and part of the planet seem to indicate that the light-source is located at the top-left corner of the picture, so the bottom-right side of planet should be in a subtle shade to convey volume.

I like the style this has. the only thing that doesnt sit right with me is the background has rays expanding out on the blue background. this makes me feel like there is a light source or sun behind it. however other things in the picture dont use it as a light source. I would either remove the rays or have them coming from the top left or top right then you can light the rest of the scene properly.

@Kryzon: Thank you for the tips.

@Komatsu: Good idea!

its really cute.

you put way more effort than i ever put into one of my own. im a bit of a quick fire lose interest straight away kinda artist :) but its a plus.... youve got the patience, but youll never get any huge amount of work finished that way.