Hey all,
I'm going to submit an artwork for a contest today or tomorrow and I just finished up the piece I think I'm going to put forward. It's a quick contest, giving only a day or two, so it's not meant to be perfect. Since I love Solus, I thought I'd feature it in my artwork. The prompt for the contest was "Upgrade."

Now that I've been staring at it for too long, I definitely need another set of eyes. Would anyone mind giving me their critiques and two cents on this artwork?
Everything was created in Blender.
Thank you!

Staudey Good thoughts. I added some saturation on purpose, but some of it also came from lens flare and film grain. I'll consider dialing it down a bit.

      Staudey Or maybe let the full moon illuminate that desaturation for a quarter of the logo then make the rest prominent? It definitely needs some pop as you said.

      Bhibb I'm beyond tickled at the ash heap of window machines. Throw in a couple Apples too? A Norton or Macafee box? Some repair CDs. Word Suite? Adobe Creative Suite box? Would a penguin be cheesy? I can't help thinking it was not Windows I left behind so long ago, it was the lifestyle of everything getting fubared and having to buy endless, unaffordable software. But maybe that was implied🙂?
      But that would ruin its nice simplicity, which is always better. Love the intense blue and the post-apocalyptic vibe (all subjective, I know.)

            brent The 'pop' you mention is definitely what I'd like to focus on. The desaturation over only a portion of the logo is an interesting approach... I'll mull it over.

            Also I'm glad you were tickled over the Windows machines 😃 I could expand it to a bunch more things on the heap, but like you said, simplicity is a nice less-is-more approach to focusing on the one image.

              Very cool! I'm not a designer, so I wouldn't necessarily trust my own 0.0002 cents, but here they are anyway:

              1. The solus laptop (?) is a bit too square-ish perhaps? To me, it doesn't look like it has the correct proportions of being a laptop/monitor, which made me require one that extra moment of "compilation" before I got the metaphore.
              2. Maybe it's too much against the notion of less-is-more, but the solus machine doesn't seem to "stand triumphant", but more like it was casually thrown at the top in some sense. Maybe it's the slight tilt, and maybe it's better as it is now, being understated, but if there's a way to make it seem just slilghtly less as though it just landed on top by chance, maybe it would make a more visually pronounced statement. I have no idea on how to do it without messing up the minimalism, or if at all this is a message you'd want to convey more strongly, so please feel free to disregard me. 🙂 These are my thoughts, anyway.

                YoniV Alright you motley crew, thank you for your great thoughts and feelings on the piece. Along with the feedback from some others, I've made a new rendition. Please tell me what you think could still be improved!

                    Bhibb Please tell me what you think could still be improved!

                    I think the solus logo on the laptop should be a bit smaller. Not too small, but a bit smaller than the current size. Everything else looks really good! And you did all of this in blender, that is awesome. (and here I am still stuck with a donut model in blender)

                        Infamous711 Thanks for that feedback. I’m having trouble resizing the image of the logo because it’s a specific size with alpha and Blender tries to tile it. I’m sure I could just use GIMP or something to put it on a black background but I haven’t done it yet. Might take a stab at it.

                        And yes I used Blender for this entire scene! I’ve learned a whole lot about compositing on this piece and it was a great excuse to fit Solus into a contest brief. Thanks for your insight!

                          JoshStrobl changed the title to Unofficial Contest Solus Artwork - Critiques Please .

                          I think the klieg (sp.?) light on the solus could come at an angle not straight down, and unsure about the words. The font mimics outdoor neon lights which is cool. Unless it's an optical illusion it seems the garbage heap is bigger which I like. Almost there. Can't put my finger on what would make it perfection, though.

                          3 months later