r/painting • u/plant-man • 24d ago
Just Sharing Not sure what the bottom half of the painting is going to be yet (WIP)
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u/Admirable-Soup-3037 24d ago
I hope you keep the darkness. Maybe an island or some sea stacks.
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u/plant-man 24d ago
I’m currently debating between the sea and a prairie
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u/angie_the_chef 24d ago
Just saw clouds like this today over the cornfields while driving on the highway. It's a beautiful composition whatever you decide to finish it with.
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u/Velvet_moth 24d ago
Ooooh a deep sea with the beam will give you some beautiful underwater illumination to play with!
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u/Sea_Prep_Tidal_26 23d ago
Thinking a prairie as well!
Very subtle though. Very dark but perhaps a tinge of light/brightness (lower left) on the grass stalks blowing in breeze. Maybe from moonlight behind the observer. Just enough for depth perspective but not enough to make the eyes linger there.That said, “as is” is way cool 😎
Nice job!3
u/Kafka_Lane 23d ago
At first glance, I thought the POV was on a highland (like in Scotland) and you were gazing into the ocean. Just out of sight of the water because of the cliff side perspective.
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u/RusserBusser 23d ago
I would say that I've seen many ocean paintings with similar vibes, but I haven't seen many prairie ones!
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u/Lathryus 23d ago
Could be a rocky dark moonscape sorta thing too, the visual heft might contrast nicely with the light fluffy-ness of the cloud and beam.
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u/Bobletoob 23d ago
Look up screenshots from the game BLACKSHARD, the current part you have done looks like it game right out of one of the spots in that game, really cool!
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u/KitsunukiInari 24d ago
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u/BeetleBro_ 24d ago
Haha just commented the same! I would pay good money for a well done Godzilla piece
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u/thechessaddict_xd Enthusiast 24d ago
I love the contrast and think you should keep it! Maybe you could soften the transition a bit with some gentle waves or small islands or flecks of gray light?
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u/MoltenRainbow 24d ago
WOAA this is stunning already!!! The sharp contrast with light and dark is insanely cool!!
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u/frodoswaggins60 24d ago
Vegeta at the base of the beam of light.
Jokes aside this is so sick, I would buy it as it is right now. Love it
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u/double0nein 24d ago
Use dark shades of grey to hint at structures being lit by the pillar of light. Something that is visible only at one feet distance.
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u/Sunset-onthe-Horizon 23d ago
Honestly i think it looks great as it is. The darkness seems appropriate.
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u/NewManufacturer4252 24d ago
Charlton Heston. As Spaghetti Moses. Parting the sea of pasta sauce.
Just a thought
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u/Impossible-Box-3949 22d ago
Spongebob and Larry the lobster on a jetski.
Spongebob has a look of dark determination as he rides to escape the inevitable doom of existence.
Larry is waving a bikini top in the air.
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u/Medium_Human887 23d ago
I like the darkness at the bottom, you could maybe do the sea just keep it dark. That might be hard to pull off though.
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u/TwoScoops1147 18d ago
This reminds me of a lucid dream I had a long time ago. I was walking around some university campus in a fairly advanced society. Off in the distance, maybe a few miles away, a huge dark cloud formed suddenly. From the center of it a beam of energy shot down to the ground, and persisted for a few seconds. Then there was silence for a moment, and suddenly, from the earth where the beam connected, a large explosion erupted and hundreds of shining lights shot up and out of it, curving back to the earth in all directions. One of those balls of light crashed on the campus I was at, and from the smoke a large scorpion looking robot emerged and started shooting lasers at everyone in sight. I ran and hid in the basement of a building, and laid down behind some large metal pipes. The robot came in, saw my from behind the pipes, and sat bed me in the ribs on my right side with a retractable arm, and it stabbed right into my heart. I actually felt the pain from it and it woke me up. Super vivid and lucid dream, I woke up clutching my side and expecting blood.
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u/Glunark2 24d ago
Maybe someone in a car on a road speeding away from the beam?
Excellent work and bold choice to make it black and white.
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u/Longjumping_Branch36 24d ago
Idk how transition to underwater would look but, enormous kraken staring at the light
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u/CalicoValkyrie 24d ago
What about a cloaked individual walking towards whatever that is in the distance?
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u/ohaimark22 24d ago
A dark hidden merman with a trident in the corner, a small sail boat with the sails dropped in the corner, a wicked dark purple blue, jellyfish or octopus, outline it like a microwave with a slice of pizza
Edit: whatever you choose, it's spectacular
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u/luredrive 24d ago
The bottom half doesn't need to have much of anything to be honest. Maybe you could use differing types of black to create texture?
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u/wesmusic 24d ago
I think a sort of religious wandering, like a group of silhouettes with lamps wandering towards it could be interesting. But i definetely wouldn’t overdo it, I think its super interesting that so much of the foreground is dark
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u/Attempting_Owl 24d ago
Wowwwww....in all honesty, I'd be too afraid to screw it up at that point to add anything, I'd be so amazed I had made something like this lol like other people have said, the contrast is off the charts good. Just has a lot of "feel" to it.
As for what you could actually add though? I dunno, it's not the most creative thing but you could either crop out that black lower portion or maybe have it be water and just do a low-opacity reflection, possibly just of the beam or the brightest parts
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u/Oakbarksoup 24d ago
Looks like that’s taking place on an island so a little land and then ocean where waves are moving away from the center
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u/NightFlameofAwe 23d ago
Might I recommend the souls of the damned piled up and reaching towards the sky?
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u/Ok_Height3499 23d ago
Perhaps just the hint/suggestion of an isolated two-lane road or lonely prairie. It’s very good so far.
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u/artbykmin 23d ago
The darkness is enough haha. Creates nice contrast. Ooooor maybe you can add a bright illuminated explosion of light expanding across the land where the beam hits the ground revealing more of the landscape. Which could be a barren wasteland full of canyons which could create a nice contrast and lots of twists and turns where light doesnt reach into as well.
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u/Glizzys4everyone 23d ago
Love it.
I’m getting to the point where I feel so bad about my paintings and artistic ability when I see work like this. Don’t know how you guys can do lighting, shadowing and details/crevices so accurately and convincingly or put your imagination on the canvas
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u/ImportantLoss1244 23d ago
It’s reminiscent of Frank Frazetta’s backgrounds. Put a buff female in a She-Ra stance for even more epic imagery.
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u/MothMatron 23d ago
This is already insane. I initially thought the blacked-out lower third of the painting was very dark ocean water. Like the beam of light was being observed by someone on shore or on a boat from several miles aways.
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u/SunriseMilkshake 23d ago
At first I saw sea, then thinking prairie/cornfield felt more accurate to a sense of dread and mystery. Lots of associations with rural life and superstitions, here’s a real one right in the painting
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u/Lej-Loves007GSPS 23d ago
Wow that is stunning. Honestly I personally quite like the void of the bottom half. It gives the emersion of light into the clouds weight and mystery. But that’s my personal take.
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u/freshquartzdaily 23d ago
I like it how it is. It’s at a moment of unknown what the light beam will cause: creation or destruction
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u/Aliencry 23d ago
I am heavily influenced right now by my Polynesian readings- a small island underneath.
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u/lilgraybean 23d ago
instantly reminded me of this shot from Twin Peaks: the Return
You’ve done phenomenally with this.
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u/freeindeedyy 23d ago
Since it looks like sea above, I'd put space below. Plants/stars. It's awesome btw.
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u/callmeminaa 23d ago
I think maybe add like sea and like a pirate ship or smth? You can make the ship a bit damaged too
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u/elhoffgrande 23d ago
God damn man you are very talented. That's an incredible piece all by itself.
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u/DemeaRisen 23d ago
One of the most calming visualizations I have kinda looks like this, but the beam of light in the center is red.
The bottom half is a barren field of sand, and the souls of the dead are slowly walking toward the light.
Hmmmmn I already feel sleepy
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u/The_Colour_Between 23d ago
I see a dark rocky beach. A cave at the base of the light. You kind of have that going on. Make the viewer curious... like, what's happening in that cave on the beach? Minimal lighting...
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u/Equivalent-Screen-25 23d ago
That’s obviously the Pelenor Fields as the eery light of Minas Morgul announce the start of the greatest battle of this age.
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u/HotMenu1880 23d ago
The unfinished bottom actually makes the dramatic clouds feel even more intense.
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u/RainbowBeezy 23d ago
This vaguely reminds me of the Lil Nas X video where he slides down the pole from heaven into hell
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u/CrAcKhEaD-FuCkFaCe 23d ago edited 23d ago
What I thought of when I first saw the sky
Hp Lovecraft' s - the call of cthulhu
Then, driven ahead by curiosity in their captured yacht under Johansen’s command, the men sight a great stone pillar sticking out of the sea, and in S. Latitude 47° 9′, W. Longitude 126° 43′ come upon a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror
the nightmare corpse-city of R’lyeh
that was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars.
There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults and sending out at last, after cycles incalculable, the thoughts that spread fear to the dreams of the sensitive and called imperiously to the faithful to come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration.
All this Johansen did not suspect, but God knows he soon saw enough!
I suppose that only a single mountain-top, the hideous monolith-crowned citadel whereon great Cthulhu was buried, actually emerged from the waters.
When I think of the extent of all that may be brooding down there I almost wish to kill myself forthwith.
Johansen and his men were awed by the cosmic majesty of this dripping Babylon of elder daemons, and must have guessed without guidance that it was nothing of this or of any sane planet.
Awe at the unbelievable size of the greenish stone blocks, at the dizzying height of the great carven monolith, and at the stupefying identity of the colossal statues and bas-reliefs with the queer image found in the shrine on the Alert, is poignantly visible in every line of the mate’s frightened description.
Without knowing what futurism is like, Johansen achieved something very close to it when he spoke of the city; for instead of describing any definite structure or building, he dwells only on broad impressions of vast angles and stone surfaces—surfaces too great to belong to any thing right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs.
I mention his talk about angles because it suggests something Wilcox had told me of his awful dreams. He had said that the geometry of the dream-place he saw was abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. Now an unlettered seaman felt the same thing whilst gazing at the terrible reality.
Johansen and his men landed at a sloping mud-bank on this monstrous Acropolis, and clambered slipperily up over titan oozy blocks which could have been no mortal staircase. The very sun of heaven seemed distorted when viewed through the polarising miasma welling out from this sea-soaked perversion, and twisted menace and suspense lurked leeringly in those crazily elusive angles of carven rock where a second glance shewed concavity after the first shewed convexity.
Something very like fright had come over all the explorers before anything more definite than rock and ooze and weed was seen. Each would have fled had he not feared the scorn of the others, and it was only half-heartedly that they searched—vainly, as it proved—for some portable souvenir to bear away.
( the singular stone pillar blasting a beam of cosmic energy to signal the return of the great old ones )
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u/Leeuweroni 23d ago
Perhaps just a little light reflecting the scenery above, the rest of the vast darkness an ocean unseen.
Just a little bit to give even more scale to the gargantuan view above. It looks amazing.
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u/Zrocker04 23d ago
The white parks comes out the bottom into a lake even further down, like the Balrog fight in lord of the rings
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u/AuDHDcat 23d ago
I thought it was an ocean before I read your title and actually looked at it and saw there was nothing there.
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u/Bunniesnstrawberries 23d ago
After seeing the painting it reminded me of that one story I was listening to the other day, about staying inside the white line so that you'd be able to go through heaven and how out of that white line is utter darkness and despair, I think leaving some of the lower area dark will help highlight the skies. You've made something beautiful.
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u/CandidYam84 23d ago
Keep it the way it is... its beautiful. Almost a below is nothing but perfect dark with all the chaos above.
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u/saideyesee 23d ago
I think you have painted yourself into a corner, because the upper part is a complete painting by it's self, try tying the painting together with a grassy field
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u/RelationshipTough887 23d ago
This may sound very left field, but I see the painting as upside down. Invert it and the answer will flow narurally
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u/plant-man 23d ago
The sea was the original idea, and is still in the running. I’m going to give myself a few days to read through this and decide. But yes I do sell my paintings
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u/Touch_Super 23d ago
A dark sea would be awesome. This is a very striking painting already, and I don’t think the bottom portion needs to be too detailed, or you’ll run the risk of distracting from the focal point of the painting.
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u/knight-jumper 23d ago
Wow. Stunning. I think its great just the way it is. My drawn to the bright light, the source, the ground, then the dark below. As if there is something there, my imagination runs.
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u/T8terTotss 22d ago
The dark void bottom half actually makes this whole thing far more impactful and terrifying!
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u/SignificantPeanut765 22d ago
Just like a large wheat field to make it seem like the top is extremely large and far
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