01-18-2014, 08:39 PM
Hey man, was at a loose end, so I did this as an exercise to see what the components were and whether it was trickier than it looked
I went against my own advice and didn't use reference, but I think with some careful colour picking, picking the right brush for the job and using lighting effect layers well, you can come up with something that passes fairly quickly. This was about 15 minutes.
I flatpainted the major structure forms on one layer. Did the foamy splashy bits on another layer going hell for leather, erased out as needed. Dodge and burn on one layer to get subtle value shifts, and overlay layer to get the right colours. I paid particular attention to the highlight, midtone and dark tones of the waves to match. You could tone down the foaminess to get a more controlled kind of effect (which would effect the type of rendering on it...more reflection and refraction, transparency and form to the water) but the key thing to remember is that for it to read like water, it helps that it also acts as water even if it is in a clearly unnatural way.
Hope it helps
I went against my own advice and didn't use reference, but I think with some careful colour picking, picking the right brush for the job and using lighting effect layers well, you can come up with something that passes fairly quickly. This was about 15 minutes.
I flatpainted the major structure forms on one layer. Did the foamy splashy bits on another layer going hell for leather, erased out as needed. Dodge and burn on one layer to get subtle value shifts, and overlay layer to get the right colours. I paid particular attention to the highlight, midtone and dark tones of the waves to match. You could tone down the foaminess to get a more controlled kind of effect (which would effect the type of rendering on it...more reflection and refraction, transparency and form to the water) but the key thing to remember is that for it to read like water, it helps that it also acts as water even if it is in a clearly unnatural way.
Hope it helps