Torn ( Part 1)

Continued from the previous entry, a thumbnail was chosen, this is the bare-bones of the image. Thinking it best not to start with a blank flat canvas I hopped into ArtRage and played around with the paint tool before importing it into Photoshop and overlaying it with another stony/paint texture in my resource files (I've used it many times before and certainly a favourite).

Also, with this type of landscape, it seems best to be loose with the brushstrokes, to imply detail and to help prevent distracting over-detailing. The city-scapes in the graphic novel, Pride of Baghdad by Brian K.Vaughan, was a great inspiration (as it is about the true story of four lions escaping their zoo and into war torn Baghdad) along with Mike McCain's brilliant tutorial in ImagineFX magazine (issue 054, of his painting Ancient Crash Site)



Starting in black and white, so that I can concentrate on forms and not worry about colour, I have just begun to build up some detail in the foreground, with the cracking road and the girl with some sort of parakeet on her arm (this might be changed later if it doesn't work). I have remained at 25% zoomed out, so that I have the whole image on my screen, to avoid the hazard of concentrating on one small section that'll, in the end, look out of place from the entire image. The blue box (below) is the proportions of the single cover, so I get the idea on what to focus on for the clients final version. This is can always be fiddled with as I go along.