CRIMSON REVOLVER 2 - Underworld WIP

[pnate]

This week: Environment of the Week!

The cloaked figure rowed without making a sound, the ferry swaying as the dark waters of the dead lapped against its sides. After what felt like an eternity, the boat slowed to a halt and its passengers beheld the grand yet terrifying sight before them - the last stop they will ever make.

Your task: Design the Gateway to the Underworld.

Guidelines:

• The focus of the illustration must be the environment and its design
  
• You may include characters or creatures but they must not be the focus
  
• Photo textures, 3D, and traditional mediums are allowed.
  
• Studies are recommended, but not required.
  
• There is no restriction on image formats (horizontal, vertical, square).
  
• Keep in mind you are not required to strictly stick to what is in the passage. It is more of a guide in terms of mood.
  

Rules:

• You must post at least one WIP in the WIP thread to be accepted into the final poll.
  
• Finals must be posted in the finals thread before the deadline.
  
• Only ONE final entry please.
  
• Sketches, WIPs, or rushed artwork will not be accepted into the poll.
  
• No fanart. We want to see your original, unique interpretations!
  
• Have fun!
  

Deadline is Sunday, March 1 @10pm GMT

[Patrick Gaumond]

Haha, you might want to change "environment backgrounds are optional" :P Maybe a character should be optional in this case since it's environment

Cool topic by the way! My mind is ruminating already

[ZombieChinchilla]

Ahh nice! I want to dig out my copy of James Gurney's The World Beneath for inspiration but sadly I do not have it at school with me. :(

But I was able to find these as inspiration for everyone:

[KurtJeremy]

Im going to this. im going to do this im going to do this.- just a note to myself that i should do the challenge. i was so caught up on procrastination on the last challenge that i was never able to finish it. well that and discouragement because of all the good work around. just need to suck it up and finish it no matter what cost.


@patrick awesome article about discipline building , just read it.
now i should try to follow this not just read it and not care about it the next day.

[crackedskull]

[Adrian]

ugghh .. I'll see what I can do about this with the extremely little basics of light I know.

[KurtJeremy]

trying to see where this is going.. nope cant find it ! XD

[Bag]

Lets do this!

Going to try to do something heavily inspired by dark souls OSTs and beksinski's insane dark artwork :D

here's a thumb /Sketch, lets see where this goes...

[Patrick Gaumond]

Some thumbnails. Will probably do some more of these!

[Patrick Gaumond]

More thumbs

[Lyraina]

Really trying to take part in this one, but that's all I've got to show for like 3 (late) evenings of thumbnailing! So slow, not sure if I'll be able to get something done in time.

[pnate]

Looking good everybody! Looks like we'll all be pretty much punching it on the deadline haha

[KurtJeremy]

I am so tired , got no time to finish this and it still need alot of work so yeah im just tried . this helps me realized what i need to work on though. wich is visual library , lighting , perspective , environments and rendering.
i dont usually go environments so im pretty satisfied with what i came up with. but yeah im still at the rendering stage the very beginning rendering stage.

[Jaik]

Didnt see this till yesterday. Wasnt going to try, but I had a few hours spare today so I gave it a shot.

Just watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 recently. And the arctic stuff in that was just fantastic, loved it. So thats what I channeled with these.

Ran out of time sadly. But heres my WIP that I'll probably never finish.

[ZombieChinchilla]

Ahhhh man Jaik that's suuuper good. Kudos, dude.

Everyone's stuff is looking great! Not sure if I'll be able to do something in time, but I might have time tomorrow. But I will certainly be cheering from the sidelines!

[KurtJeremy]

Didnt see this till yesterday. Wasnt going to try, but I had a few hours spare today so I gave it a shot.

Just watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 recently. And the arctic stuff in that was just fantastic, loved it. So thats what I channeled with these.

Ran out of time sadly. But heres my WIP that I'll probably never finish.

awesome ! havent watched HTT your Charizard yet, anyway im curious as how you gone about this. do you used texture and stuffs? im only trying to get around that workflow. i was thinking of putting in textures to my work , though im still a newbie at those. probably got a little ambitious to my underworld having it as a structure of some sort...

[Jaik]

awesome ! havent watched HTT your Charizard yet, anyway im curious as how you gone about this. do you used texture and stuffs? im only trying to get around that workflow. i was thinking of putting in textures to my work , though im still a newbie at those. probably got a little ambitious to my underworld having it as a structure of some sort...

Thanks :) Highly recommend the movie, the amount of thought and work thats gone into it is amazing. Im normally not a fan of sequels but.. well this definitely pulled it off.

As for the texture in your own work. I do use texture, yes. I use photos to give myself some tooth when working and to riff off for ideas and then again for some final texturing. But in your piece, I think that you should focus on using some texture brushes as sort of an intro to texture. Because with photos, you get a whole lot of information, way more than you need for just texture and if you dont know what to do/how to handle that extra information is hurts your rather than helps.

A lot of people say that your values have to be on spec before using photos and that the tighter and better worked out they are the easier/more successful the texture will be. I think thats true but in my experience its more about the form you are putting the texture on. Edges play a big part in working out how a texture will sit in perspective and also making sure it works with the underlying forms. This is really hard to do when first starting with photos (I struggle like hell with this) because if you dont have everything basically rendered underneath you have to mentally juggle form, value, the photo, scale, perspective all at once and it is very confusing.

If you like, give it a shot and send me the result and I will see if I can help you out with it :)