Gift to the gods - Futility - Jackvi

[jackvi]

Yeah, I didn't bother putting this up until the last minute, but I am going to touch up the lighting some more so I suppose it technically still is in progress.

Original idea: A statue surrounded by the ruins of a society that extended itself too far to build it and subsequently perished.

Concept behind the idea: The futility of exerting effort to win the favor of gods at the expense of your survival.

I initially wanted to do this all in 3dsmax, but felt there was a little too much to put together and went with 2d. Since I generally shy away from landscapes, this would likely become interesting regardless of my choice.

First task was assembling a mental image into a layout that conveyed the idea best.

[jackvi]

I picked two layouts, detailed and quickly decided against them (one quicker than the other).

[jackvi]

Settled on this layout and drew up a rough sketch that would be the basis of the piece.


Then I bought a wacom tablet and waited until the 15th for it to arrive before I could do any work.

In the meantime I researched some material for reference, then finally installed the tablet and drew up the final base illustration.

[jackvi]

This was followed up with base color, that was then given basic shading highlights and shadows, in various stages. Sky was added, statue put off until I had the rest of the image done.


Next came foliage splotches along with motivated lighting and color as well as texture detail used from a combination of brushes and photo texture superimposed.

Finally foliage fleshed out, lighting detailed and intensified, statue colored and detailed.

[jackvi]

Finally, I specifically wanted to capture an overcast sunset, so back over all the meticulous color and detail with bright orange red for direct sunlight.

The more controversial change, but nevertheless, needed.

Thus we have a 99% done piece that just needs some fine tuning in the sunlight to bring out some objects (glass) and fine tune the color a little more.

Final will be uploaded later today.

[evilllama]

I actually like this piece alot! The lighting on the last one is way better, although the lines looked more intense on previous one, making whole image sharper, but still, I am very glad to see ending result like this! :)