Castle on the mist.

I have been using blender at home for just over a year now and have learnt purely by YouTube tutorials. I started using blender during lockdown as a way to create my own worlds and escape the home despite not being allowed out. That is why for this entry I decided to make a wide open scene with a distant castle behind a layer of mist looming over a lake. A piece of basic concept art.

My first step was to make the scene, simply done by using a subdivide plane, some proportional editing and sculpting. To help make the ground I used a brush from blender kit (A free blender add-on to which includes models brushes textures etc...) 

Next I modelled the castle and a bridge over the canyon because I felt a bridge helps with composition. The castle was made with three circles, each higher than the last and a tower. The bridge basic shape was a cube. To make the arches I extruded the cube down and used a boolean modifier and an arced cube that I made to make the arches. On the actual castle I just added extra parts, like the towers and parts that come out at angles, if you like some greebles for the castle, it didn't need to be very intricate as in the end it would be shrouded in mist    

Next I added textures, I once again used Blender kit add-on to do this. I added the trees with blender sapling curve add-on, the wood texture for that I got from Textures.com and the stone models I downloaded online (I have tried to find where but cannot find it, but they do not require attribution and are free for commercial use) The grass I got off Blender Kit again and used a particle system to make it. The lake is a simple plane shaded as glass with a wave texture added. Lastly the cliffs were also textured from belnder kit add-on. 

The last things that I did was firstly improve the cliff texture with a better texture from texture.com. Then I increased the amount of grass and rocks. I added a river on the right.Then I added the mist to the scene. I tried many different variations of mist and grass and I found this one was the best.  

For the very final scene I dropped the image into photoshop and using a mask and an image from Unsplash.com of mountains I added it in. Then using a fog brush from Brusheezy.com (Photoshop Brushes by <a rel="nofollow" href="https://www.brusheezy.com">Brusheezy</a>) and that is it. It is done!!