I had an image in my mind of a wide, expansive landscape showing a large amount of depth. I wanted to paint a scene with an alien-looking object of interest to help draw the viewer into the fantastical environment and give them a sense of wonder.
The final image looked a lot different from my initial concept of the landscape, as I expanded my ideas on the canvas to really sell the space and depth of the piece.
I wanted the alien object to be curvy. This is echoed in the design of the round dwellings, to help with the overall flow of the piece.
The people who live here made the structure their place of refuge and built their homes on the land surrounding it. I wanted to heighten this contrast by indicating that the town and the alien object are constructed from two distinctly different materials.
Turning my attention to the colours. I wanted the piece to convey the sensation of taking a deep breath of fresh air. With this in mind, I incorporated mainly vibrant colours – greens and blues – to show the presence of nature and that invigorating outdoor feeling that we can all relate to.
I placed a small orange dragon in the mid-ground to serve as an accent colour, just to finish off the overall look.
01. Building up my house designs
I rough out the architecture. I want the houses to be made from the surrounding materials: wood, clay and stone. As I build them up I use bigger, chunky brush strokes to feel out my shapes, staying loose and not committing to anything until my final comp is set. Initially, my main focal point is a big house. Perhaps someone important lives there.
02. Time for a rethink
The composition has changed quite a bit. I’m happy with the houses that make up the town, but the vastness of the world itself isn’t represented as well as I had hoped. The solution is to expand the scope of the scene.
I move my colours in a more vibrant direction by pushing the saturation in the greens and blues. To create more visual interest I place the round alien object right in the centre of the composition.
03. Finishing touches
I make sure everything reads and flows together as a whole. I alter the shapes of the mountains, trees and houses to help create visual rhythm, add people and birds to give a stronger sense of scale and highlight a few things such as the blue window to call attention to the main building.
Tips
Economical painting
Sometimes there are a lot of details that need painting, but time is short. In this situation, prioritise what you want the viewer to see. Focus on tackling key elements by introducing more details to those areas and less to others.
A small illusion here is achieved by giving a bit of detail to the flowers in the foreground and using a simple Round brush to depict the remaining flowers in the background.
The hand-crafted look
To continue creating visual interest I try to make every circular object within the scene a different size, as well as ensure that all the designs in the windows are different. I don’t use the Ellipse tool because I don’t want the windows to have a ‘copy and paste’ feel. Instead, I paint each circular window frame imperfectly, to give each one a unique and individual look
Object placement
Including a variety of different circular elements can help push not only the visual interest, but also the depth of a piece by having the same object in the fore-, mid- and background. This technique enables the viewer to grasp just how big certain elements are in a scene, from their placement alone.
Focal points
You can lead your viewer towards points of interest in your composition. This is achievable by having elements flow into one another, maintaining a constant sense of movement within your piece and having points of visual interest at major stopping/resting points. This ensures that the piece feels whimsical.
Vary your visuals
There are many ways to achieve certain effects. I achieve the texture for the alien object by using a textured brush over a basic ball. I then fade the edges to blend the textures in.
With the Selection tool you can pick a value range of colours and shift them around using the sliders in Photoshop to produce a range of interesting looks.
A sense of scale
It’s important to keep track of micro compositions – areas in an image that can be viewed in isolation – in a painting. These details really help to bring an image together.
In this example I place the man riding the dragon next to the birds to indicate scale, by having large and small creatures near each other. Different levels of scale can be achieved depending on how you arrange such elements in your scene.
For more tips and advice, see our roundup of Photoshop tutorials. Need new kit for the new year? Check out these deals on drawing tablet’s we’ve tested.
This article originally appeared in ImagineFX. Subscribe to ImagineFX to never miss an issue. Print and digital subscriptions are available.
