A lot of fairies in this contest, nice blending. GL!

"...could not stand to sit on the computer ..." Of course not, because then you'd be standing, not sitting...lolol!
Sorry you're feeling bad, but your image is lovely!

Thanks guys!

MossyB Thanks, I corrected the word! Sorry for my bad English!

And thank you for the esteem, Mossy!!

I took medicine, I am much better!

And now, I'm sitting in front of my computer and will be for a long time!!! Hahaha...

There are indeed a lot of orange fairies here. What I like about this one is that she is bright/saturated rather than muted/dreamy which then provides a dramatic contrast with the black in the background. (I would really like to see an SBS as I think your recolored version of the model is better than the source—which however is nicely very white so very amenable to recoloring.)

Dan, thank you for your strong comment!

The color was very simple, but I will provide a small sbs for you to see!

Wait!

Very instructive SBS.

Gorgeous gold and orange fantasy

Thank you, mircea. It's been a while since I illustrate something as detailed as this. It's quite interesting for me to print this illustration in a large format (let's say 60 cm square) later & hang it up to the wall. Although it will definitely reveal the secrets & illusions from this illustration. It is not insanely detailed in the larger pixels format for sure. Lol.

This is definitely my favorite illustration so far!! great job author

I envy your patience and effort on this work, and it should get very high score. Details, brush patterns, composition, and colors are awesome. Maybe there are many artworks out there with greater amount of details but considering this is the new entry for a weekly contest, not much people can do the same as you did. However, still there is a 'however' (please forgive me if I'm too strict on giving that critique), each layer of character is quite flat to me, you can work more on shadows and highlight to give more depth to your work, to reach the perfection. Still, elite work!

wonderful piece of art! Raw illustration as its best. However agree with langstrum, the only weakness is the flatten look of the image, it just makes it look more cartoonish, but that's just our opinion that we think a lil' depth would make it even better, maybe this is just the way you intended...

BTW signature is not that hidden... i seriously suggest to remove it for contest purposes, since precisely viewing the details is an important matter to vote...

Thanks for the comments & critiques, esp for langstrum.

Hey, man. Where did you point about the quite flat figure? Is the characters (fairies) or the guardians? There are already so many works on shadows & highlights upon every characters in this work, man. Might be not perfect, but consider this is done because of another jobs coming to me & however... I'll make another depth if I had such a time.

Ofc, I'll boost up my painting speed to another contest for sure. Once again, thanks for reviewing my work so far, everyone. Good luck on your entries too to the contestants.

@ Mike. Uh-Oh! I'll do it right now... completely 'hidden' after this update. Thanks for reviewing that~!

EDIT: NO SIGNATURE visible freely now.

Okay, since you asked I'll give a scale to judge whether you need more depth or not. Focusing on the faces of the fairies, they're very close to the light source, right? comparing the highlight on their face and the midtones, they're dramatically different, so your light source is strong in the center but becomes weaker considerably as the distance increases. Therefore, the shadow and highlight on the dragon and the tree should be more dramatic also. The green and yellow fairies seem to be on the same plane and the two fighters are on top of them., etc.

I understand your situation, that's totally similar to me. You don't need to do that for the contest because you can win it easily and get high score. My critique is for the case if you want to improve and even commercialize your work. Thank you for your effort, if you didn't do that, we can't have this kind of work in Pxleyes ^^

very good work, i like it a lot ,only one small thing,you left the line in the upper left corner of the horns, GL

Great suggestion, langstrum. I'll take that POV from you. Bear with me since I've been working this whole key lighting illustration just a week lately (inspired by Dimitri a.k.a Karaflazz from pxleyes photography contest). No serious lighting matters at the hand like this for the illustrations I've made around concept arts just with the two lights, but you've made my eyes quite open for the depth of colors.

I'm sure you know about manga, the origins of them; they're not bother with the lightings & depth of colors too much. They're seem so flat for instance. But FYI, I try to leave that manga area & follow the realistic approach like my friend, Stanley Lau from IFS. It's kinda like your art, langstrum. A hybrid of manga & realistic called manga realist.

Thanks for your opinions on my work, friend.

@ vexycon: whoa... you notice that?

EDIT: Re-submit the entry.

Just want to say that your entry is one of the best DD I have seen this week. I think you have the talent and the creativity to do works and illustrations like this particular. I have seen your work and I am happy that you posted it here. I think by using Photoshop CS5, Wacom Intuos 4 and Cintiq, gives you the advantage of create a good Illustration, but remember that there are members who do not have all the fancy stuff you use for your work, and are limited to use just a Photoshop program, not even a CS 3! You are a professional, and yes, we like to see work like this. Hope to see some of your tutorials, if you post one. Good luck!

I do not know what is with me and these lines, but there is another on wolf ear sorry but this picture has to be perfect ,I really like your work, I wish you all the best

oh....you're rocking pxleyes.com....! just another super elite work....!:bow2b)

George, your comments most impressed me & also flattered me as well. I'm not that professionally & fancy guy with the kind of fancy stuffs, it's thanks to God for His blessings, talents that He gave to me & I just 'borrow' all my belongings in this world. About CS5, it's from my company, I didn't buy it by myself. Cintiq & Intos4 bought by myself (helped from my parents) years ago to help me speed up my commercial projects. I'm still young & need to improve myself after all.

Since I found Pxleyes accidentally month ago, I would like to share my techniques of illustrations & concept arts here after. Yet a master, but still enough for everyone to pick one or two techniques. Hope I'll finish & establish my first tutorial in no time. Thanks for cheering me up, George.

@Vexycon: MAN... your eyes so pixelated~! Really awesome details captured, thanks, I've already removed the gutter black shadows on my textured brushes.

@dekwid: thanks, man. Not an elite work, just try to share my works around here... since, I don't really dig the manipulation things with people & objects... EXCEPT matte-paintings for environments.

Beautiful composition, but I agree, the characters appear somewhat flat. The center appears to be taking place in a room with the background consisting of painted large creatures watching. This is particularly because of the shadow behind the green figure.

The creature in the lower RH corner (werewolf?) looks out of place, and almost an afterthought, with the glowing edge of the figure in front of his mouth aligning too much with the profile of his face. The glow itself is out of place and inconsistent with the image lighting.

This is a very entertaining image, none the less.

Thank you, MossyB. Your comment always had an interesting POV. "Painting large creatures watching because of the shadow" I notice that after reading your comment & really... really... really looking at my own image. Wow. Point taken.

Yes, it is a dumb werewolf (lol). About the inconsistent glows & shadows, please forgive & bare with me. I've tried to make it as fast as possible without the worry about the precise or perfect outcome, I tried not to render the glow to much at an early stage, but with the adjustments layers turned on; the glow (because of Vibrance FX) burst out leave some of the mid tones desaturated. Maybe I'll correct this later after take some rest, however thanks to your DEEP comments (as always).

Author: Thanks for your feedback on my comment above. By calling you a "professional" I ment to tell you that you have made the effort to follow the suggestions for corrections, or adjustments to your work. You will see that some entries, do not even make corrections, or follow an advise to bette their work. This is a place to learn, it is true, that by looking at work like yours, will open a huge avenue for those who want to learn. Details are important in an entry, shadows, light, perspective, appareance, color harmony....etc, you have shown us that with patience and taking the time to correct your entries, we can learn from you, as well as from other exceptional Artists here in Pxleyes.

You have to have a commitment to create something nice and appealing to others, as I told you, you have the talent and the artistic creativity in your hands and mind. Forget about what I said about you having an advantage over others, by using fancy stuff, to create Art. It is you, who creates this, and your talent is endless. Thanks again for allowing us to be witnessing something beautiful....... !

Dear George; I really thanks to your kind words, I'd love to see the others points of views & try to understand their criticism about my art & I'd love constructive criticism here at Pxleyes as well. It's just a problem with the time spend if I had no change anything at all, but I'll try to fix or correct my entry if there's a break time to me (taking my lunch break or even while I'm relaxing at the office minutes before going home. Lol.)

George, you do have the talents & everyone got their artistic talents as well, it is my job & also commitment to illustrate something that basically from imaginations of a child (back day, while I'm working on the Studio Ghibli), but nowadays, I move to game art departments to produce concept arts; it's always a world of children if I may say so.

I'll be here for sharing my illustrations, passions & emotions. Sometimes, if I might not be here, it's simply because I have my own life to fight for; "my life for the horde..."

WOW I am amazed! Wonderful work author!

Thank you, lordymail. I'm glad that you like it.

exceptional

Welcome to Pxleyes. Glad you found us!!!! What a future you have!! This is a fantastic entry!! GL

Really, thank you very much for everyone's support on this entry. Though it's still lacks of perfection of shadows, values & depth renderings. I hope, I'll improve my illustration works more realistically next time.

By meantime, I'm very sorry, I couldn't change the depth values of it, MossyB, Mike & Langstrum. But I did a minor changes of darkened, highlighted & removed some unwanted lines thanks to Vexycon with so little time for me back then.

I hope this so called illustration fit the orange theme. Good luck & best wishes to everyone~!

This is so beautiful! A real fantasy! My instant favorite!

Orange... Fantassy and lot of fantassy.... lol... you did the fantastic work, Congrats in advance...... (INSTANT FAV) keep entering....

Great

Magnificent! An instant fav here!

I only found Pxleyes a few says ago and use Photoshop mainly for photo editing,but drawings like yours give me a boost to spend more time on digital art.I have to learn a lot of course,but picking up bits and pieces from the 'masters' along the road will certainly help me in the right direction.
The Duel Of Oranges comes close to perfection in my humble opinion,it's stunning !

Author, you have incredible talent! This is fantastic work.

Hello everyone... I'm honored that you like my entry. Though it is more like a plain digital painting rather then the skilled photo-manipulation. To be honest, I just want to share my free-time stuffs like this, not trying to compete nor show off. I really couldn't make an adjustments to some of the suggestions. But still, I would like to thank you very much indeed to those who support me, vote me & offer an opinions to me.

@Duhby63; I believe there are NO masters out there or even here in Pxleyes. We're a couple, a community of learning people together. So as for me, I'm still want to learn, adapt, share & could even get something insight from everyone. I am trying to survive.

So, I would like to give my supports to everyone here in Pxleyes; my best damn entries. Sharing is caring, isn't it?

FANTASTIC!!

AMAZING! You make me want to run out and buy a pen-pad....even though I can't draw quite as exceptionally as you!

I seen this coming! CONGRATS!

a well placed 1st.. congrats...

Congratulations...brilliant work

Congrats ... there was little doubt about it!

Congratulation to everyone as well. Though it's quite not perfect with the renderings of my painting because of the tight schedules, still... I LEARN SO MUCH from you, guys. This community is great. Meantime, I'll share my tutorials. It's not how to do this, but how to speed up your creations with custom brushes & such. So there will be no doubt about how could I achieve this complex illustrations in a single week with another illustrations of mine.

Hope this will answer or even prove some of you which try to ask about it.

Thanks in advance, have a nice day!

Congrats, awesome work

Congrats on your super fantastic victory... and of course congrats on becoming the top entry of 2011., keep them coming and waiting for ur tutorial....

thats a lot of work! wow! congrats!

Congratulations,the hard work has paid off !

Congratulations!! Looking forward to your future entries!!.

What can I tell you....... oh, well...... Congrats!!! waiting to see more....

WOW. Awesome work. Congrats

That mjrananum green girl on the vine swing is becoming her own meme...Interesting image, but the lighting of the shoe (LH top) does not match the tree (RH side), nor the cow (RH top)...It does match the green foliage on top of the tree, which is also reversed, though...
You may want to try adding some highlights with the Dodge tool at low opacity on the RH side, or flip the shoe. If you reverse the tree and the shoe foliage, the image will look more consistent than at present...
Light source direction is an important consideration.

Very interesting entry, GL!

I would suggest for future work that you spend a bit more time on your masking. It will help refine and enhance your work. It is a pain to get it right but worth the effort.

It all starts there, no matter how good everything else is, if you have left-over pixels, smudgy bits and outlines it can ruin a great image. You idea is very good, your masking needs some more work. To get you going try checking out this tutorial on how to mask trees ... hope it helps http://www.pxleyes.com/tutorial/photoshop/1272/How-To-Mask-A-Tree-In-3-Minutes.html

shadow on the 'vegetable'...(isn't it?) is wrong... g l

how do you mean hereisanoop?

the light source is coming from the right upper side' you can see it on the wall of the house
the light source on the veg is from the other side and that`s wrong.

The easiest way to solve your shadow and light problem, author, is to flip the "marble" horizontally. I see you are trying to change the light and dark with other manipulations - that is much harder and usually doesn't work too well. If you still have your original image in separate layers (a good thing to do until contests are over, by the way), just flip the marble and you will see a huge difference, and the light and shadows will match. Good luck!

Thank you elemare, I made the change, hope it is better now

You're welcome! So glad you liked my tip. I find that matching and/or creating shadows and light are probably the most common challenge when adding outside elements to scenes.

Very cute...nice job!! best of luck!!

nice idea, however the wings seem out of place everything else is so bright with a softness about it, but the wings look dark and heavy.

I think you right, so have worked on the wings, thank you

Very sweet. The water drops have a bit too heavy of a white outline around them, although some of them only have a bit of the white outline, making them look more "real." Perhaps if you soften or reduce the outline on the tops of some of the others, they will blend with the rest of the image better.

Hi MossyB
Thanks for your constructive criticism it's welcome.
I'll try your suggestion and see if I like the results.
Thank you

think of how the wings of a butterfly would be attached to your figure.. if you angle the wings to follow the angle of the spine of the little girl, might ground them better.. but that's just IMHO (I watch too much Xmen LOL.. good job and good luck!!! (the X Man Angel's wings, always follow his spine)

Worked a lot on it, she got new wings and I would like to hear what you think now?

Thank you