Definitely a space vessel of some type - Madman Reliant

[Ryan8bit]

The picture(s) look good to me a fairly "realistically" lit while also acknowledging space is, you know, dark unless you're close to a star.

Sometimes realism when it comes to portraying things isn't paramount. In movies or TV, when it's dark, it's never truly that dark unless they're playing with the element of confusion. For a still image that's a work of art, the lights should be focused to do their job, reality be damned. And even with that said, sometimes even in reality, the best composition can be found working within what's there.

For a good example, you could take what Voyager looked like in the Void. It was more lit by the glowing parts, but it still had an ambient light component, regardless of what it would really look like.

If you want to show off a ship design, light it so people can see what it looks like.

Is that the aim though? He didn't make the models, he just made the composition.

However, if that's the case, I will say that the composition is somewhat confusing. To a casual observer, it may be difficult to tell the relation of the two ships to each other, the saucer being cut off on the left seems like a no-no, and it seems odd from a perspective viewpoint to have one nacelle pointed directly at the camera with the other pointing away.

I think the dramatic lighting is cool, but the composition needs to match.

 

[Manticore]

The picture(s) look good to me a fairly "realistically" lit while also acknowledging space is, you know, dark unless you're close to a star.

Sometimes realism when it comes to portraying things isn't paramount. In movies or TV, when it's dark, it's never truly that dark unless they're playing with the element of confusion. For a still image that's a work of art, the lights should be focused to do their job, reality be damned. And even with that said, sometimes even in reality, the best composition can be found working within what's there.

In this case, the job of the lights was to convey a mood of mysteriousness and possibly a little tension, more than anything else.

If you want to show off a ship design, light it so people can see what it looks like.

Is that the aim though? He didn't make the models, he just made the composition.

However, if that's the case, I will say that the composition is somewhat confusing. To a casual observer, it may be difficult to tell the relation of the two ships to each other, the saucer being cut off on the left seems like a no-no, and it seems odd from a perspective viewpoint to have one nacelle pointed directly at the camera with the other pointing away.

I think the dramatic lighting is cool, but the composition needs to match.

Definitely good advice! I can't change this piece at this point, since I'd basically have to start over from scratch, but I didn't consider the effects of the nacelles. Well crud.

I try to have some part of the main "star" of the ship cut off in any composition I do, because I feel that if you can see everything, it leads to a boxed-in feeling of the composition. YMMV of course, but it's something that I've done fairly consistency: http://imgur.com/a/6uMvk#0. I feel that it adds to the scope of the piece.

The "positions relative to each other" was my way of avoiding the scaling arguments of nuTrek ships. In my headcanon, they're the same size dammit, but I also acknowledge that this isn't really the case.

Besides, I like having a little ambiguity when it comes to scale, as long as it isn't blatant like DS9 could be. Playing with the perspective can be fun.

 

[Richard Baker]

I like your image very much- I can see how much the lighting changes the feel of things.
Just an idea- how about a couple of tiny (scale) spotlights shining down on the BB's hull? It could give the impression that the ship is being examined (I know not totally necessary with the sensors in Trek, but I loved the shot of the Enterprise-D travelling inside the asteroid in 'The Phoenix', which really did not need them there either)..

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I like the render, although it's hard to get a sense of scale between the two ships. For the longest time, I was sure the Botany Bay was behind the Reliant. There's no depth-of-field and neither ship overlaps the other so you cannot tell scale whatsoever. That's my only real gripe.

 

[Ryan8bit]

About the cutting off, I get what you mean by having it be boxed in. But at the same time, sometimes it's difficult in a composition to decide exactly where to cut something off. In this particular instance, because the ship is facing left a little more, for it to be cut off there makes the eye drawn awkwardly in that direction (no headroom). If you wanted to maintain a cutting motif, I think it might work better if the right side were cut. However, then your light source would have to switch over to the other side, and I know you've already said at this point that you're not going to start over. Just some food for thought anyways.

I like the render, although it's hard to get a sense of scale between the two ships. For the longest time, I was sure the Botany Bay was behind the Reliant. There's no depth-of-field and neither ship overlaps the other so you cannot tell scale whatsoever. That's my only real gripe.

Yeah, this is kind of what I meant by discerning the relationships of the vessels to each other. At first, I thought the Botany Bay was behind too.

 

[Manticore]

Both totally valid comments.

I mostly due this one the other day because I'd already rendered all of the elements and just hadn't composited them together yet. Going forward, I'm planning to so more original models work is why wholesale changes to the light or camera angles are outside the scope of what I can do right now.

However I'll do my best to keep your above on the composition and relative placement in mind going forward ... And make whole new mistakes in the process!