All the work I’ve put into this picture over the past – oh I dunno – 10 days or something, really paid off, eh? I’ve pretty much said it in every post since I started this Horizon: Zero Dawn project, but I’m super happy with how the process went. I truly don’t believe that there’s anything going on in this picture that, at this time, I could of done any better. So, I’m quite proud of this one in particular.
So my drawing time today ended up being a little more condensed than I thought it was going to be. Not that it’s a big deal or anything, it’s just going to take me another day or so to get this picture all finished up. That being said, I was still able to get a bunch of that ground finished up today. I still believe that I’m a day or two away from completion, however.
I finally feel like I’ve nailed down that perfect sky! I think it looks pretty spectacular. I used the actual Photoshop Render Clouds option to get it started. Then I used a fluffy brush to spread some different colors around. This is what I came up with. It actually looks like storm clouds, and such. I couldn’t be any happier with it.
Every single time I post an update for this Photoshop painting, I change the sky in the background. I just can’t get those clouds to look exactly how I want them to. It’s not frustrating as of yet. Nothing like that. I’ll just have to keep messing around with it until I get it right. I also added a lot more rain, but I’m not sure if that was a good move or not. All I know is that the background looks separated from the rest of the image, and that’s no good.
Now it’s all starting to come together… I don’t think there’s been a project that I’ve worked on during the past year where I’ve learned more than I have with this one. Since the start of this Horizon piece, I’ve built up a bunch of new techniques (and learned some valuable lessons) that I will most definitely be using in future projects. Building layers upon layers, blending with the mixer brush in subtle ways that I haven’t tried previously, etc.
Only worked on this for about an hour today as time just flew by faster than I anticipated and I have other things to do today. Even so, I was able to paint a nice background sky, a mound for the lovely Horizon protagonist to stand on, and I connected the mech creature’s head to the rest of it’s body. I also removed the black outline from the creature, and I’m shocked at how much better it’s looking this way.
Hey there. A few days ago (maybe it was a week ago actually) I got a newsletter from Crystal Moody about how being creative and making things is oftentimes hard work. Yesterday, I mentioned how my favorite part about creating art is the discovery aspect of creating my art. Once that first bit of discovery is out of the way, it’s time to get to work. You already know what you have to do, and you know it’s going to take you oh so many hours to finish it, you just have to get to it and work.
