Elemental: BALANCE (Progress Snapshots)

I've been working on the Elemental commission series this month in between everything else going on, and I'm particularly proud of the third piece, "BALANCE"! The final work is above; here's a peek at how it was made.

First, above is the finished sketch I worked from for the rest of the piece. I decided early on that I wanted to try using an angular style while still evoking a sense of life and depth in the image. The water intentionally breaks from the angular style to assist with this goal and to evoke its flowing, free-form nature. The composition is similar on either side in many ways, but purposefully not mirrored or symmetrical. True symmetry would have been more stiff and formal than I desired for the piece.

I tackled the character first, as it would be the only part of the image to be inked in my usual way. I got about this far before I had to leave for a convention weekend in Ottawa:

I had transferred the piece to my MobileStudio before leaving so I could continue working on it when I had a moment, and during the trip, I got the base colors down and most of the main shading established:

As you can see by the yellow tint now on the background, I had also put down some first thoughts on unifying the colors in the piece. More color adjustment, shading effects, and lights were still to come once the background was underway.

In the next few WIPs, I've hidden the character layers to give you a full look at the background development. The actual work was done with the character visible as it would be in the final.

The first thing I established was the waterfall, followed by the rocks immediately on either side. The shape of the entire waterfall was drawn in first, then duplicated to create shadows by erasing curved lines and lowering the opacity of the area near the bottom. These duplicate layers were stacked at varying opacity to create the effect seen above. The rocks were initially drawn in as flat shapes, then shaded and given light effects on separate layers. The angular style is strictly maintained in everything from their overall shapes down to the grooves and cracks. I also started subtly applying a texture layer here.

I continued building on the upper area of the background with the addition of maple trees and smaller side waterfalls. The trees were done first with a pair of angular leaf brushes I made myself for this piece. I used color jitter to quickly vary the shades of the leaves, and I rotated the piece back and forth slightly as I worked so the leaves would be at different angles. The smaller waterfalls and additional rocks were then finished in a few layer behind the leaves using the remaining space. The technique was the same as the larger falls and rocks. Later, I would also add a few small bunches of grass.

I moved to the lower area of the background at this point. The river needed water reflections, which I started with a very soft brush and would later emphasize further. I then painted in the grass on the banks and added a few rocks to break up the area a bit more. The grass, like the water, departs from the strict angular style in the rest of the image. You may notice some shadow-like grass shapes against the rock face; this area was made dark to accommodate some larger plants that would be added next.

The final background details are almost entirely present in this shot, including cattails and larger leafy plants in front of the rock face. The dark area at the bottom is the shadow cast by the pole the character is standing on. The river water is much further refined, with the middle area lighter to reflect the waterfall and areas of red cast from the maple leaves on the sides above. At this point, there were only a few minor effects and adjustments to apply, and the image was done. We return to the final piece as first presented above:

The commissioner is also a patron here, and I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you himself how delighted he is with the result! I'm very satisfied with it, personally, and I plan to try similar experiments again to see what else I can do like this.

Patrons with sketchbook access will be receiving the high-res file for the completed work along with some additional materials in the next sketch pack, out early December! This post is Patron early-access and will be released for the public 30 days from now.