Evil Fortress - Tutorial

A few words more about Evil Fortress.

I wanted to paint a snowy environment. At that point I was doing a lot of 20-50 minutes sketches. The majestic fortress sketch was my favorite. You can see some arrows and lines - I was thinking about focal points and path leading your eye, I had a plan.

At this early phase I still add elements and modify composition when I see fit. I used a lot of custom brushes and photo textures. It was something I was training at that point in time. I liked the environment getting more dark and moody.

I did like composition and overall feeling but I felt I can put more love in colors. I did a few color balance iterations, but the brightest idea was painting quickly the changing snowy evening outside my window. It helped me a lot to get the colors right. Plain air can be very useful.

After that it was just simple rendering. I used few new custom brushes, just to learn something new. Also I ended up with overpainting most of photo textures but I did like that. At some point I just stopped painting this Evil Fortress and decided to show it to the world.
I hope you liked this step by step. More to come soon.
Peace!

Virtual Plein Air

Not much to post lately. I've been doing mostly NDA stuff and art exercises.

Still there is something I might interest you with. There is Facebook group called Virtual Plein Air, where artist do studies based on google street view, and post their artworks. So many inspiring art there and the idea is terrific. Here is one virtual plein air study from me and few steps.

go to -> Crete / Greece