Fate/Zero Wallpaper: Choose Your Champion

First off, wow. I don't think it can be expressed how much effort it looks like went into this piece. I can literally imagine just how much time it took you, and the fact that you were able to finish it deserves a round of applause. You should be proud of yourself.

Now, time for the critique!

With that said, I'm always hesitant on recommending people to do scenic pieces. The main problem is the sheer quantity of work that goes into a piece, and even then it's also about properly blending everything together. I rarely recommend it to anyone who's looking to branch out in style unless you have years upon years of walling experience, or have a good plethora of artist/graphic design experience.

Sadly, one of the biggest problems this piece suffers from is how out of place the characters look in comparison to the background.

The biggest problem itself comes from the shadowing. Or rather the significant lack of. With scenic pieces, it's so important to follow the rules of lighting and while you've got lighting on both the statues and the servants themselves, nothing in this wallpaper casts a shadow. The end result is the servants look like they've been placed on the background as oppose to blending in with this piece. To be honest, I find it surprising that with how good you did with the lighting itself that you didn't fully follow through with the shadowing.

Secondly, I'd actually recommend removing the characters. Mainly because in comparison to the rest of the piece they just completely do not match. Mixing 3D with 2D is always a huge obstacle. You went through great, painstaking lengths to create this visual treat of a background, and sadly my eye is immediately drawn to how poorly the servants fit with the rest of the background. I don't mean to come across as harsh but you put so much work into this that I want to be as honest as possible.

Another big problem is the statues. Generally speaking, they look like an odd combination of early 90s CG and clever design. They look like each piece was made separately (on servants like Gligamesh, Rider and Lancer this is especially the case) and then assembled together. Sadly, the end result shows that while a lot of work was put into it, it ends up pulling the viewer out of the piece. There's no doubt you put a lot of work into it. I tried building something like this in 3DS Max a few years back and it's more than complicated. I can tell that your source was this scan, but I'm not actually sure what you did to achieve the effect you got. It looks like tried to vector them in a blocky format, but judging by how your vectors of the servants turned out it looks like two completely, separate individuals did the vectoring.

The background itself is the true hero of this piece. While it definitely shows that you are new to creating scenery, for such an ambitious effort and for some one who hasn't submitted a piece like this before it certainly works the best. You deserve a great deal of praise for that alone, and should be proud of the work you did!

I hate offering such critique when it's so obvious you worked so hard on this piece, but I personally feel it could be so very much more. I, myself, am no stranger to taking on ambitious projects that I'm not terribly familiar with or am quite a novice too so I not only sympathize but I also admire your determination. Definitely falling short, but with what you learned from this I can only imagine what you'll create in the future!

Fate/Zero Wallpaper: Choose Your Champion

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