FINAL | WORLDS | 2D | Sunken Ruins | Raedrob

Name: Robert Ræder
Email: robert.klabu@gmail.com
Website: www.raedrob.com
Artstation: www.artstation.com/raedrob

Hey!
I was reading about this contest and thought it seemed like something that would fit me very well, as environments and landscapes are what I have most experience with. Fantasy is what I enjoy the most, so that will be my genre.

My story is very basic, but I hope it works out and makes some sense. What's known as the old world has been submerged/sunken due to violent torrents of rain, and now only the tallest spires stretch themselves tall enough to poke through the surface of these newborn lakes and oceans. Any new structure must be built on top of a hill or mountain if it hopes to survive the harsh new circumstances this world is facing!

Below you can find my concept sheet and the final illustration. I ended up doing a bunch of super quick thumbnails, and once I found an idea I was happy with I pretty much jumped straight into the full painting. I did a couple of cloud studies in order to get a somewhat better grasp of how to handle the sky, and I did some basic line art to try and get the castle down more concrete.

CONCEPT SHEET

Concept sheet.jpg2048x2048 1.32 MB

FINAL ILLUSTRATION

Sunken_Ruins_Final.jpg2048x1498 1.5 MB

Got around to do some thumbnails today. For some reason it's always the most difficult to decide on a composition, but I think I've decided on what to do next. I picked out a thumb and started doing some basic color block in. Everything looks like a mess, but that's just my process

The very basic backstory is that the old world has been flooded, so that only the spires are peeking out of the water. The new structures are therefore built on top of hills and mountains.

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Some progress on the image was done today. I realized I was having trouble with painting the dark sky, so I did a couple of quick studies to get a little grip on the value range and shapes found in this type of clouds. I also did some very simple line work in order to try and get the details of the castle done correctly in perspective. Due to the size of the castle and it's details, I found out that it would work better to sort of free hand the details, with the help of some guide lines. Still waaaaays to go!

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More progress on the piece. I took a break from the castle and put some work into the forest in the background and the spires in the foreground. I didn't expect rendering a copper spire would be this fun. Had to do a bunch of problem solving to find an approach that worked for me. I'm thinking I'll be adding a character in the illustration eventually. It feels a bit barren.

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Not too much new, but I thought I'd toss up a new wip regardless. Just some more rendering on the remaining spires and some detailing in the background. I'm also trying to figure out how to properly texture/render the forest on the left in a satisfying way.

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I've been jumping a bit all over the image over the last few days. I should start to spend some time on the character and the castle structure itself!

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It was a really big challenge to render the castle. I wanted the texture to show how it's made of big rocks, but I also wanted it to be subtle enough, as to not look too noisy. I'm just happy that I finally got around to do some work on the castle. It has been the worst part of the image for a while now.

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I decided to do a rework of the water, as I didn't quite feel the almost sulfuric look I went for in the beginning. It's a little lighter now, and it works a bit better with the rest of the image. I also finally got around to start doing some work on the character!

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