Exploring the Lands

The final

And here it is the final with all refinements, which I did later through the day.

I'm very satisfied with the colours. Even though it is more greenish, it is sunny and warm, and inviting for exploration and adventures.

I hope it looks nice and I throw enough light on my creative process. Thank You and my Best Regards!

And perhaps..., I did some adjustments and slight sunbeams for more moody piece with a better focus in light on the exploring balloon. It looks nice also.

Drawing approach

Ok, fellows.

Due to the short time, I jumped straight in drawing. I used a mixed technique - drawing and photobashing. Here I can show the process.

For the textures I utilized only one image. That way I saved myself from value and colour differences and issues to solve coming by the many images. 

Composition thoughts

As a composition, the city happened in a sweet spot, so the bigger fight was to drive the attention to the other element of interest - the balloon. I've tried to lead the eye towards the balloon indirectly, using the slopes, lines and elements from the environment.

As overall the composition looked fine with Rule of thirds. But the air balloon somehow was not in the right place. So I looked for a try with dynamic composition grid. Which led me to repositioning of the balloon. Also I conformed some of the shadows and the slopes of the environment with the grid.

Architecture designs

This is how I imagine the architecture with clear straight forms and in rich ornaments at the facades. From the reference I like the top corners of the buildings and the horizontal lines that cross the windows, which I used to build my design.

Air Explorer

OK. I changed my first choice - airship - to a hot air balloon.

Like I said, very often I distract myself with unnecessary work. The balloon is small in size in my composition, so I don't need too much designing there. Even though, knowing that I'm loosing my time, I did a quick and simple design sketch of how I imagine it.

My limited refs

So, these are the refs I picked at the beginning and used for inspiration.

My Thumbnails

The result is all of these thumbnails. I worked zoom out, cause I'm interested mainly in shapes and the overall picture. I'm kind of satisfied. I see good opportunities in most of them.

Later through the day I picked these three pieces. I did push just a little the tones and did small over paint. I tried also to establish perspective grids, to catch the camera angles. Marked the places of the buildings in simple shapes to get a better picture of the ideas.

OK, down here I saw an interesting opportunity to experiment with the camera angle and the position of the airship and the city in this piece.

In #1 I like how the city looks up high and glorious.

#2 looks good. It works as a good establishing shot, I like that one also.

#3 is good also. It seems that the accent is more to the balloon here, approaching the city. I kind of miss the pit of the waterfalls here, but still it works.

Introduction

Hello everybody!

My name is Vladislav. I would like to participate in the contest.

I'm going to try an environment. I imagine something which is hard to reach and thus the city and the culture there happens to be lost and forgotten or forbidden and hidden.

For the environment I imagine something that is with lots of waterfalls, green and tall hills or mountains. For the city or the architecture, I'd like to try and use something Persian or perhaps elements of the ornaments, don't know yet. Very curious how it will fit.

As my drawing software, I'm gonna use Krita, since I'm on Linux the last couple of years.

There is not much time till the end of the contest. I work slowly. I may not finish my work, but lets see what will happen, I would like to try.

Environment Planing

This is my plan or more like starting guide. I tend to distract myself very often, going in wrong directions, so writing keywords keeps me on the right path most of the time.

Another thing - usually I'm under the passion of collecting too many references and it is hard to concentrate and figure all of the content in my head. I'll try this time for my test to be more consistent. Let see what will happen with less.