Still figuring out what element I want to use.
Dec 18, '19
Feb 8, '20
10 days later
I spent a lot of time over the past week mentally creating my hero, lore and final image. The hard part is doing it all physically. Haha. My element is fire, and I plan to depict a strong female warrior fighting against werewolf/wendigo-like beasts, in an snowy and cold arctic environment.
Much of my visual influence and mood comes from recently watching The Witcher, as well as being a fan of the Underworld films (well, the first two anyway), and even Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
I added my mood board, and hopefully soon I'll start adding some sketches and WIPs.
Also, I want my final image to have the type of style and vibe seen in League of Legends splash art. Anyway, I have my work cut out for me.
I've been trying to continue working on my submission in lieu of the holiday craziness. I didn't spend a lot of time on Solveig's appearance, as I designed her appearance mentally about 75%. I did a few pose sketches for the final image, as how I wanted to portray her using her abilities to fight her enemies. I have some changes/tweaks to her appearance I'll show in the final image that fit more inline with her backstory...which I'll add in detail at that time.
I don't have a whole lot of time during the weekday to draw or post, but hopefully I will try to add more interesting stuff as I work on the main illustration. Thanks for watching.
These are two test renders of Solveig. Basically my purpose is to figure out what's the most efficient way to color the final, while acheiving the desired look/style. I still have much more to do. 
She does look very witcher-esque (amazing show btw I watched all of it in two days) and the final thumbs look promising. If you were to lower the camera just a bit to really make it seem like she's winning a losing battle, that could really add to the suspense of it O:
Thanks! Very, very wise advice. I started on the background over the weekend and was struggling, and went with a lower angle. Still have things to work out, but I like that "winning a losing battle". I'm trying to portray a small mountain village overrun by these creatures, and she's in the thick of it.
Ahh I'm glad youre going that way with it and I'm super excited to see what you do with the idea 
So, after browsing various artworks from professional illustrators, my idea for the setting of the image started to come together. My previous image of the snowy creek wasn't 'doing it' for me. Lol. I had an image in my head of my hero fighting off these creatures in castle ruins up in a mountain, kind of representing where they dwell. Therefore, I hope to make the image more intense by suggesting Solveig is surrounded in enemy territory. I suck at making step-by-step images, but i tried to include my initial thumb, and a few shots of how I got to where I am now. A lot was trail and error so I really didn't have a method I was using, just seeing what works.
*excuse the slightly blurred final background, I was testing how much blur to use while still allowing the details to be shown.
Oh this looks wonderful. Certainly better than the older environment too, which lacked a lot of depth and structure. The colours are also far better (including the aurora which was a nice addition)
