Re: Revamped Website...

[John Conway <john.a.conway@gmail.com>]

Renato Santos wrote:
> Luis,

> There's some rather dodgy details with other images, namely the
> photochopped backgrounds. I guess, though, that you did have a strict
> deadline to meet, and doing everything with one single technique
> wasn't an option.

I agree, the photochopping makes the images look half-baked. Many of 
them look unfinished, and integration of painting and photograph in some 
of the images is quite poor. A lot of the brushwork is not up to Luis' 
usual standard at all. For example 
http://www.luisrey.ndtilda.co.uk/jpegs/new/Cryptocleidus.jpg which has 
what appears to be a standard Photoshop texture filter in place of 
painted texture on the skin.

The drawing in a lot of these leaves quite a bit to be desired -- in the 
image of /Nanotyrannus/ being attacked by a crocodile ( 
http://www.luisrey.ndtilda.co.uk/jpegs/new/Nanotyrannus.jpg ), the 
pterosaur has it's fingers on different parts of each wing! (In fact the 
metacarpal seems to be missing on the animals left wing.) The fingers 
are also sticking out strait forward, which is not how I would expect 
them to be held in flight (or indeed, ever). This is also a problem with 
  the painting of /Eudimorphodon/.

If deadlines were the issue, there are a number of options available to 
cut down on work time. Simplifying backgrounds or adopting a sketchier 
style would have been better options in my opinion.

> On the presentation of the images themselves on the webpage I have to
> say the pixellated "Opening"  and "Eudimorphodon" aren't eyecatching
> for the animals but for their overstretched state.

Again, agreed. Images should be sized correctly in Photoshop beforehand, 
not resized in HTML -- certainly never up-sized, which makes for awful 
rendering.

> My two cents (which is about all the money I have now),
> Renato Santos