great work, pitch fork is amazing, and wheat is terrific.
Poppy is right, I would change the focus to the face
Really great picture. I’m also particularly fond of the wheat and DOF. I agree with Poppy, the sky is slightly at odds with the character. The sky looks good, dark and foreboding, but distorts the pictures focus IMO. Love the tanned/non-tanned touch on his right arm 
Good luck with it and remember the deadline has been pushed to the 2/2. No rest for you this weekend 
Hey people
Thanks for the encouragement and input.
The sky has been a real struggle for me and I was not fully happy with it either but had reached a point of resignation. Your comments have given me the spur to continue.
Poppy: thanks for the specific suggestions - every one is spot on (seeing the thumbnail hammers this home).
In addition, I am going to crop off the ‘blank’ canvas on the right. Although the guy’s head sits squarely in the middle of the picture, the composition makes him look uncentred.
But first I have to file my tax return, which is making me feel very creative :rolleyes:
The wheat was a cheat. I made one stalk (polymesh), textured it and then made about five different variants using the sbend deformer and move.
I then placed each in about five different orientations on a canvas and rendered it (this gave me around 25 different views). I used cut and paste to build up layers of the wheat in Photoshop.
I could have done this in ZB but chose to do it this way to avoid huge render times. In PS I was also able to grab clumps without the background and duplicate them to speed the process up.
The DOF is just a decreasing blur added to each layer.
Looks great!
Hat’s off to ya!
Poppy and TVeyes are right on target methinks.
It is a great piece though!
Have a good one,
Michael
Wow 
bonecradle this is amazing. you are very talented. props from wgtn
Brilliant again!
Wonderfully done, Bonecradle. 50.
Thanks people 
Here’s the update. I’ve incorporated the suggestions of Poppy and cropped the right side, which make the pic better. The composition still has issues, but I have to call it quits. No major changes are possible and I could push pixels around from here to there forever and wind up back where I started.
It’s zipped and thrown to the ether.
Erg, the jpeg has done horrible things to the pitchfork :rolleyes:
Hi Bone
Ok for the clouds
But I am not sure that reduce and crop the right side for close up the scene should be good thing :rolleyes: (it’s just my
advice, you had previous more depth
A rectangle must be more large against reduce toward a square
You have before a better rythm on the four interval (one more time it’s just my own advice)
Pilou
Hi BC,
Wow, an admirable effort. Good luck with your submission…
Very cool process to watch, thanks for sharing.
Sven
Would you try an experiment for me?
Blur the texture of the wheat on the foreground.
I downloaded it and tried it.
As is, there is conflict to the eye.
Two fighting textures.
I am prejudiced when looking, having seen it from inception till now.
This was an idea thrown out by two impartial viewers.
edit: was going to submit my download first, but I didn’t think you had that good a sense of humor.
Bonecradle I have seeing this post and the update is just a MASTERPIECE ART WORK¡¡¡
I am happy when you post here because you are a great artist that share your knowlodged and the way you reach your wonderful image¡¡
Thanks for post
Andreseloy
This is “GREAT” Ilove this one, more of this
Great job…
An absolutely STUNNING and ORIGINAL piec of artwork. Depth, colour and texture (aswell as atmosphere) make this one of the nicest pieces i’ve ever seen.
Did you do it all in ZBrush? Or is there some Photoshop magic in there too…?
Nice job Bonecradle this image works for me.
If you’re interested in doing some further study in the effects of lighting look to the paintings of the Old Masters, Rembrant, Jean Froganard etc.
Hey Bonecradle
Brilliant piece!
I have to say seeing the progress of this piece gave me great inspiration to produce my own piece (see Gnome Fisherman).
Just to let you know that you make people like me want to produce better art.
…and that’s a compliment.
Congratulations!
Wonderful image.
I submitted this picture to another online art gallery but had it rejected because of “inconsistent or poor lighting” 
Rather than just touch up the old picture I did another render trying for a different ambience. It turned out as quite a different picture.
I thought this might be interesting from the point of view of how much lighting and colour/contrast can change the nature of a picture.
Maybe this time they will accept it :rolleyes:
well, they better should - thats hall of fame stuff, Davey, all of them but i love this latest update in particular! kudoskudoskudos!
i have watched this project develop with constantly increasing awe. the new fantastico lighting and “new” sky made me think even more of boschs apocalyptic/hell images - i bet theres one tiny apocalypse going on towards the left
kudos once again!
- juandel
If “Kudos!!” = Wonderfull then I agree ! :))