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.