Introduction

I’ve been asked to write a “making of” my last work “Winter blockade”. It is always tricky task for me because usually I don’t printscreen or record  my process, except  situations when client ask for that from start like ImagineFX or CGSociety challenges. Even then is not easy because once I get into work it is hard to stop and make printscreen, write a note and go back to work – sometimes it kills all fun I have with painting.
From the other hand I understand  there is lot of people who may find those guides as very helpfull, hah! I could save few years myself if I only have that chance to reach that kind of tutorials on internet, when I was young and learning illustration or maybe not. Just keep on mind not just stay on tutorials, try your own tricks and do lot of experiments, modern tools like photoshop gives you countless methods to get the same or even better effect then I am going to describe here. Plus, you would have much more satisfaction discovering your own painting methods than just follow others.
Ok, as I said I didn’t make any screens during my work, so most of this material is reconstruction – but almost 100% accurate to orgial.
All started many years ago when I get into Age of Sail fascination. This was always one of my best subjects, howerver I can’t remeber if I ever had a chance to paint something like this either as a freelance task or just for fun. Lately I have decided to quit my job at last so finally I had some time to paint my favourite battleships.

Sketches

I started with simple speedpainting made for  new TW fans(been one myself) calendar.  Few days later I decided to get deeper in that scene. I’ve looked back to one of  C.S.Forester’s  novels and build up background mood for my work. I don’t write this all just to tell you how boring my life is, but to show you how important to have a reason to start a work. How good you will perform your task as an artist it is very much depending on what story is behind and how deep you’ve sank in it.

On this new illustration I wanted quite new composition and wider view, so let just leave first image as reference. Here is new composition ,as you can see I already set basic colors ,distance fog  and lighting –try to deal with those at the very begining of your work .My goal  was to show a very unpleasent envirorment and people struggling both with nature and  human against.

Try to figure out the overal color pallete ,lights, atmospheric effects and mood at this stage and create them as separate layers . The image still has less details ,all changes requires small amount of work, don’t be afraid to experiment with different color palletes and tones ,it would be much harder to change something later when lot of new objects will apear . When your scetch will be ready then just turn all effects off and work on detailing and finishing the image.

Basic process of this work is to pant with simple flat round brushes, then smaller its sizes and adding more textures in dual mode to get an effect or illusion of details as we would go farther in the process. Lets just take a closer look how this work on few examples.