Evaluation

For my project I wanted to make some form of landscape concept art for a game. When I first started out the project I didn't really know where to start as I had no brief for the artwork. Usually if your working for a company they will tell you what they want in the artwork, or at least ideas, or a brief which I didn't have. So I decided to make a questionnaire which I would get my class mates to fill out. The questionnaire would cover several things such as the setting/ environment, weather, race and time of day etc.

After receiving  the results, 2 things had the same results so I decided to go with the one I felt most comfortable with which was a fantasy forest. The other option was an elvish mountainous setting. The reason I chose the forest was because I haven't had much experience painting mountain ranges.

I started out looking for reference images of forests and plants and the things you would expect to be in a forest. I also looked at other artists work on this topic and put together a mood board of images which I used while I was painting to refer to different colors and ideas.

Then I jumped into sketching and thumb nailing to generate different ideas and compositions for my painting. This process didnt take to long as I found a setup I really liked. Once I had the idea I went in to start refining where objects would be and getting all the forms while making sure I had an interesting composition. Then it was just a matter of putting in colour and details. I used several colors from my mood board using the color picker in Photoshop. In this painting I used several texture techniques I've never used before. They were techniques used by some of the artists I researched, one of them even had a tutorial on how to do it which I find very helpful. I think using this method added a very nice sense of realism to my image, it gave it just that bit more depth to it.

Altogether I spent roughly 6 -7 hours on this piece which I'm quite happy about because its probably the most detail I've ever put into a concept. One thing I wish I did was paint it at A2 resolution because I printed it out on A2, whereas I only painted it on A3 which meant I had to scale it up when printing it which would result in less quality. I did print it out in A3 as well for my portfolio.
I didnt feel this painting was that challenging as it was very similar to what I'm used to painting. but I did learn a few things from it which I'm really happy about.

I also finished this painting early, so I decided to go back to my questionnaire and do a painting relating to what got the 2nd most results, the elvish mountain range.

For this painting I didn't really do any thumbnails which isnt really a good method of working, but I had a rough idea of the layout in my head and wanted to start painting straight away. This actually effected me in the long run as I found the composition and colors very hard to get right. I ended up using the color balance a lot to change the color of the image. Once I had my forms and composition fixed I started applying the same techniques used in the forest painting. I found painting this image was much harder as I wasn't used to it, I had to push myself a lot more to get what I wanted, which I think is a good way to learn.

In the end the painting took roughly 4 -5 hours, it isn't as detailed as the forest painting but I prefer it because I feel it has a much better mood to the image and a really dramatic on the edge feel to it.

If I was to change anything about my project I think I would of done more research into the mountain range setting as I think it would've saved loads more time painting it. Also I would look into changing the program I used to render my speed painting videos because the one I currently kept on making my computer crash.

Other than those things I'm really happy how the project went, I feel like I've learned a lot of new techniques for my paintings which I will now adapt into other projects. I also liked looking into the pre production phase as I've never really experienced it for concept art, which is what I want to do as a job in the future. I also think these techniques will help me in a few upcoming projects/ commissions I have over the summer holidays.

Final Pieces

Below are work in progress screenshots of my final image.

The final image took around 5 -6 hours to complete using photoshop. I used a lot of different techniques I've never used before, for example a lot of photo textures were used as im starting to get more confident using that method. I also learned a few tips about doing it through this video ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQvDl0TkLKc I think this is one of the most detailed concepts I've ever done which I'm quite pleased with as sometimes I find it difficult to take paintings further. Overall I am really pleased how this has turned out I really like the detail I managed to put into it and all the photo textures give it a really realistic feel to it. I also like the pools of light I added onto the foreground tree and vegetation. The thing I found most challenging about this painting was painting it in a close up view, like you were actually in the forest where as I'm used to painting more open landscapes on a more epic scale instead of close ups. 

I managed to finish my final image with a lot of spare time left, so I decided to paint a 2nd image.

As on the questionnaire I created the settings forest and mountainous get the same votes, so originally I chose forest, so for 2nd piece I decided to keep to my questionnaire and do a mountainous image. This image was more of a challenge than the forest painting because I dont have much experience painting mountain ranges. I wanted to get a real sense of mood in this image so I spent a lot of time working on the clouds to give a really dramatic effect on the image. Painting the image as the sun sets helps with this also. 

I tried to embed an elvish feeling into it as that was in my questionnaire, I decided to go for an elvish ruins look with the architecture as I think it feels really mysterious and suits the setting.

Below are the work in progress screenshots.

I actually found this image really hard to paint. I found it quite difficult to determine the colors so i ended up using the color balance a lot. I also couldnt get the right composition I wanted so I spent a long time trying to fix it and figure it out. Flipping your image often helps with this. Once I had everything in place and was happy I could then start detailing, to do this I used the same techniques used in my other painting; which involved a lot of texture brushes and photo textures as well as applying basic drawing fundamentals. 

Overall I'm really pleased how this image turned out, I felt like I learned a bit from painting this and had to overcome problems which I never really faced before. I prefer this painting to my other one because I think this has a much better mood and setting to my previous one. I think the forest painting is more for details and not so much setting and mood.