1st. Place:
PrinceYaser (93 pts)
Review: I remember when I saw your first WIP I got very excited, it had attitude and atmosphere like it was nobody's business, and then something was lost along the way toward this final entry. Don't get me wrong, I do think it's a very good piece overall, there's still a lot of attitude and atmosphere left, but now it also has an identity problem in the mix. A little like with Azurot's piece, I feel like you overcrowded it, there are just too many things to look at, and too many doodads that doesn't really compliment each other too well in terms of texture quality and/or contrast.
I do absolutely appreciate the creativity here, just like with FeelsGoodMan you found a way to completely change the scene without breaking any rules, which I always like seeing. I really like the big statue in the background, though I feel it would've been more of an impactful set-piece if it wasn't contending so much with all the other details. The sky is really nice, and the background, although a bit too bright for my liking, is also really nice, even though the "sunset/sunrise" almost seems like its more on the surface of the water rather than on the horizon, which kinda makes it look more like an explosion than a sun. There are some odd decisions here and there in my opinion, like the three boats in the foreground sort of "floating" and the vanilla ship model in the middle left, but yeah. All that said, I do have to appreciate how you managed to throw so many details together, and yet while I lean back and take in the whole scene, with the statue, the dawn, the sky and the warm lighting and nice feeling of the tranquil nature to the sides, it's a damn good piece.
2nd. Place:
FeelsGoodMan (91 pts)
Review: Cudos for a very creative execution, and a lot of daring ideas. Knowing that it is practically impossible to make a torrent look good in wc3 I commend you for trying, but sadly I cannot say that I think the river looks good. As it stands it's just too much noise, too white, and lacking in detail. There are some really good techniques where you use a flattened cloudbox in conjuncture with waterplanes and the "bubble stream" doodads placed strategically to make "foam" effects to make a pretty convincing torrent, raid1000's
waterfall castle comes to mind. Other than that, I also really like that you found a way to completely change the overall appearance of the terrain without actually breaking any rules, to be fair, the "similarity" score should probably have been set to 0 here, but then I feel like 5 really is the most balanced score I can give. I like the color-palette, it has a very haunted-ruin vibe going, and I like that the overall aesthetic has a very old-school touch to it. The doodad placement is very good, the details are good, but the overall impression I find a little bit lacking regardless. Mainly, this is caused by the background with the ships, the fog there is way too bright, almost to the point where it seems like there's some kind of explosion going on behind those ships. But the main issue with the brightness of the fog is that it causes a discrepancy between the lighting surrounding the fire and the lighting in the background, both are equally attention-drawing and thus creates a conflict in regards to what the focal-point should be. I think the background would serve this terrain way better if it was darker, honestly almost to the point where the ships would be almost indiscernible, like impending shadows in the background. Sadly I also think the flowing water torrent is too eye-catching as well, further adding to the conflict of noise. But the composition is nice and the execution is very creative. Good job!
3rd. Place:
Azurot (86 pts)
Review: This is very mixed bag: The lighting and fog and background are very well executed, overall color-scheme is good enough, doodad placement is on point, but it is
way too crowded. I really like the background, it fades nicely into the distance, the details are great, and especially so because I know how much of a pain backgrounds are in the reforged editor, but the foreground is a complete mess. It honestly looks like you tried to cram as many doodads into it as you possibly could with a dash of indecision on what theme to go with, or rather, an overflow of ideas. The color-palette is also kinda weird, on the one hand you have green and foresty plants, then there's the big trees with the way too dark leaves, the middle seems to be very deserty-themed, while the edges are more foresty. Dialing down the amount of doodads in the foreground by 1/3 or even 50% and playing around with the "light" model in relation to the trees and general area on the right side of the scene could potentially make this terrain a lot better. It is quite nice, but it could do with a little tidying up.