Mangrove forest (prev. Tropical and subtropical foliage)

[Mefisto]

I realize that this is trial and error work, that's why I wrote earlier that work on these stupid plants would last probably a few months. I begun with more pronounced roots for plants and sparser leaves but the result was not pretty. I used the picture mentioned by you as a reference, but not my only reference. When you type in google "mangrove forest" and see the picture showing them form aerial view you will see that the canopies of the particular plants are as dense as canopies of the other tropical trees and bushes.
Examples:
http://anniekatec.blogspot.com/2011/04/ ... ainst.html (the first photo)
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2006 ... -21-02.asp (the first photo)
http://talkvietnam.com/2012/11/plan-to- ... MX9-a7Usxw

I'll try to follow your suggestion with desaturating foliage and making root's more distinguishable (they look fine in the water or on light coloured background but on dark background not so much). I'll see what I receive.

[homunculus]

Contrary to LordBob, I think the foliage is great improvement (in my peanut opinion), and probably also a tremendous effort.
So much so (tremendous effort), that I felt like presenting an alternative workflow (derived from the mistakes I made when doing tree houses) in the hopes that maybe you find something useful.

Used vines (I hope this is what it was called) brush (hard = pencil) to create some branches in separate layers (not coloring them with single solid color was probably a mistake) and then:
1) put some light yellow dots (hard) that received direct sunlight (most of the time it was obvious that it is impossible that they wouldn't get direct sunlight).
And colored the rest unsaturated lighter green.
2) light blue dots on what is sky-lit.
3) bright saturated greens where light might have passed through a leaf (the same way skin can get more red because of light passing through blood under the skin, except with leaves this effect seems to be on roids).
4) saturated dark greens that is lit by light passing through leaves above them.
5) darks on what is below several layers of leaves.

so, nothing creative, and before scaling to 25 % it is pixel art, meaning that if, say, the sunlit yellow is too extreme or something, it can be selected and some rather unsaturated light green mixed into it, etc, like recoloring pixel art.

[LordBob]

Don't mistake me: I agree that the foliage is perfectly fine. My point is merely that, in contrast, it draws the eye so much that it sometimes obscures the details of the trunk, which is too bad for such an interesting tree. If Mefisto can produce an easier-to-read trunk without changing the foliage, I'm all for it. (And yes, I admit they work much better on a lighter background. It was really the muddy background in the second screenshot that sparked my comment)

[Mefisto]

Thanks for comments. I need to say that I worked this way, with several separated layers of feaves for each plants but then I had to tweak them because the result was to blurry and stood out to much from the other forest plants. Even now the mangroves seem too blurry and make the eyes tired.

[Mefisto]

I worked on mangroves during last weekend but I cannot say I'm really happy with the result. Something is still wrong. I suspect that the shading on bushes should be finer, in similar scale like on deciduous trees. Right now the mangroves look like they come from the other fairy tale. But I need some feedback before I continue.

[vultraz]

Well for one, the roots are never that violet. Also, the clusters of leaves are always closer than that, like the summer forest.

[Mefisto]

Well for one, the roots are never that violet.

Never?
Besides I need to differentiate them somehow from dark brown mud.

Also, the clusters of leaves are always closer than that, like the summer forest.

That's what I started to realize.

[vultraz]

Maybe a bad pic? Here we have tons of mangrove trees around, and I've never seen violet roots.

[LordBob]

A few possible leads:

- Compared to other trees, the bright green/deep purple creates a strong hue contrast between trunk and leaves that makes them stand out. > desaturate
- The dark trunk colour creates the impression of a pool of deep shadow at the bottom of mangroves that makes their leaves "move up". Such an effect doesn't exist with other trees. > maybe a lighter trunk will work
- The way you've clustered leaves in small roundish shapes with a very bright green renders a completely different kind of foliage, one that looks kind of bumpy compared to other trees.

NB: I am sadly aware and deeply regret that some or all of the above is in contradiction with things that were proposed earlier. I'm afraid that's to be expected with trial and error

[Mefisto]

I think that main problem is what should be root colour. The dark ones were not good so I think this time I'm going to make them really bright to make them dostignuished from both water and mud. An I think I made too large canopies for some bushes, the lesser ones more densely packed look better. and of course I need to make the canopies about as much detailed as deciduous trees so the foliage has more consistent look. But I think I'm going to retain the current palette rof shadows, midtones and highlights.

[vultraz]

I think you should increase the leaf cluster size until they resemble the summer deciduous forest, but keep the current palette/texture.

[homunculus]

[...] dostignuished [...] rof [...]

cheers!

what i see is that the canopies tend to have brightest highlights only at the spot that would have brightest highlights if the greens of the tree were a sphere.
what i would expect, is brightest highlights getting smaller towards the shadow.
that is written in a bit misleading way, i guess.
better might be: there may be a bright highlight on a branch that is more or less on the shadow side, if the light hits it, and it is at a suitable angle.
otherwise the shape might generalize into a ball with a pattern and this might look cartoony.
one of the things i tried in my previous post, btw.
not that mainline deciduous trees are extremely realistic imho (but they serve their purpose).

the smaller trees looking better and the idea to make the largest trees smaller was what i also thought when i saw them, but didn't try it out so i don't know for sure.
and then there is the question about how large mangroves are justified, considering that ordinary deciduous trees can also be quite large sometimes.

about the roots becoming invisible at some background or another, i would not be so much worried about it, and would just try not to draw them wrong.
in fact, i would try to draw them pale green.
there's this green light on them, shining through the leaves, you know. and it is very difficult for them to appear purple unless they glow (even if they were purple rather than gray-brown without the light from the leaves).
lol i remember it might have been the same thing that i attempted to say in my first comment on your drawings (impressed by the linework on your portrait sketches, but seeing that problem in your shading).

[Sapient]

It's too dark compared to the other terrain... just wash it out a little (with desaturation and lightening) and it will blend in perfectly. It looks very nice BTW.

[Mefisto]

Thanks for feedback to everyone. I'll start once again.