StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Is it okay looking? Is there any way to make it look more 'dynamic'? Anyway to improve it?

I tried to put more of them in and have them fighting in the background, but they became difficult to distinguish when I scaled them down/moved them further back.

Is there any particular rationale for them looking like that?

Huh. Just noticed that. Weird... Totally didn't mean to make the purple ships look like that.

The grey ships look like wonderful supersonic bombers, while the purple ones look like a B-29 mated with a Syreen Penetrator.

Great composition, however.

Just try to add some blurring to it if you want a sense of action to it. Otherwise it is great; not that I love those purple ships...

It looks like they are all about to crash into each other.

Needs work on the composition and lighting, right now it's just a bunch of flatly lit models scattered on a flat plane. There's no depth to this pic, no drama or action or movement.

You need to decide what your models are going to be doing and then arrange them to best effect. If they're just about to do battle then array them one side against another and stick the camera over (or under) the shoulder of one side and build some tension byshowing the other side in formation, ready to attack. Try and make it tense, like it's all about to kick off.

If you want to show the midst of a melee then you need to show action and movement; use motion blur on some and weapons fire or explosions to let us know what is happening. Once again it would help to pick one protagonist and have that ship well in the foreground and arrange the rest to give depth and action.

Remember the 'rule of thirds', light it starkly with a lot of shadow and bright weapons fire or engine flares to add drama and you're done.

Here's a quick illustration of what I mean. First picture is simple side-on of a few fighters and a few baddies. Flat, lifeless. The second is from a better angle and with a couple of volumetric lights pretending to be explosions, a little motion blur, slightly more interesting lighting and a couple of big ships in the background. It has more depth, better framing and a bit of action but only took a few minutes more to make.

Fighters side on

Fighters with depth

I'm not a big fan of these things, it's very hard to make a static picture which conveys a lot of action without it becoming very cluttered and busy. Good luck to you.

Okay, I've set the purple ships in the foreground and the gray fellows in the background(Putting them in a similar position to the ones you have). I put a bunch of red lights where the 'explosion' is, which I ineptly added in Photoshop. I'd added motion blur effects, except I don't know how(I don't even know how to make the render window bigger). I also don't know what the 'rule of thirds' is. Thank you for your help once again, Kenny_10_Bellys. And thanks to everyone else who commented in this thread. I super appreciate it.

Make the top-right bomber rolled to the right a little and try remove one of its missiles from the racks.

Cosmic, go to the wikipedia and search for the rule of thirds, they have a nice article and image describing it.