This one I found much harder than the nightscape I posted yesterday, and I am not yet really happy with it. Since I am basically colorblind, the colors in this one were really hard for me (I accidentally colored the top of the dune in green at first... I hope they are all nice and sandy now), and matching the "shadow" gradient at the tip of the dune wasn't as easy as I had thought. I used solid color gradients; I think instead it would have been more clever to create two identical shapes on top of each other; one with the solid basic color, the other with the gradient fading out via the alpha channel.

The dune probably needs shadows on the lower part of the images as well, and I think I should probably darken the blue sky a little for better contrast. Oh, and the bright part at the top needs to be a little less bulgy.


- Nils

Looks great. I'm not sure if the colours need strengthening. I guess it depends on how it will be used.

It's just drawing for the sake of drawing

Colorblindness must be such a challenge for artists. But wow! You sure seem to have got a handle on colors, despite the challenge.

micro mentioned the simplicity of the other image you've posted, 5-minute night. And I have to say that you certainly seem to have a knack for eliciting reality in all it's complexity, with very clean, simple, yet powerful images. Well done!

Aw, thank you. That made my day.

Colorblindness sucks. I usually bounce my drawings off friends to check for mismatches, and so it was a buddy of mine who detected the green, not I.

Updated:

I think that's much better. Nice work.

Thanks.

Seriously, no one would ever suspect you're colour-blind if you didn't tell us. I truly love the composition of the picture, and of course the simplicity. From a purely scientific view, people with colour-blindness are usually better with shapes, forms and compositions, because they are not overwhelmed by colours (which is also why some photographers prefer black-and-white photos). Looking forward to more of your illustrations!

Just some random idea: add a silhouette of a man on a camel and it will become a very nice wallpaper.

Thank you for the kind words.

I am not sure if this graphic would work as a wallpaper, it has the wrong format for that.

The color thing is really tricky. What I do is I usually go with RGB values. "This should look like a dark orange". I mean I can see colors, it's just that I know I see them very different from other people. For example, take a bright green and a yellow - look pretty much the same to me. Or certain shades of gray may look pinkish to me, or the other way around. Browns and reds are difficult to distinguish too, and so on. We once did an internet test at my company, just for fun, with like 20 color blindness test plates. If I recall correctly I got 14 wrong and could see two only partially. Out of 20, I guess that's a pretty bad result.

When I think something is roughly done I'll have whoever of my non-colorblind friends is available check the colors. Hence you guys were spared a green top of the dune.