Density
Under the black hood
The scene: a gothic city street shrouded in fog. The night sky, inky black. It's the 15th century. A hooded figure in his travelling cloak walks down a lonely bricked road save for the only other kind of nocturnal beings around: bats. Holding his lantern out, the only other source of light comes from a dimly lit street lamp and the moon itself. It's a cold night and fog covers the street and surroundings encasing the city in a patchy white cage. The Density of the fog is almost overpowering, washing away any colors untouched by light. Par for the course for this city is to lay seemingly asleep, before striking like a predator. Locked doors, shut windows and lighted streets merely give the illusion of safety. But only fools would sleep through the night believing all is well. And the hooded man thinks to himself that this, just like any other night, is going to be a long one.
Ideation
Wanting a gothic inspired piece, I knew I needed buildings that resembled cathedrals, accentuated architecture, a dark atmosphere, and the main subject cloaked with a hood. Researching goth architecture led me to realising that churches, gargoyles and spires were the staple of the goth style. I wanted to initially go full gothic but I also realised that a lot of the finer details would be covered by fog in the final piece. So I decided to not go overboard with the goth elements as the details would mostly be lost anyway. It was important to have a good general idea of the final product and realising which elements aren't important and which are, in order to make the most of my recently limited editing time. So I came up with the following things that I needed:
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a hooded figure holding a lantern (either find or create from scratch)
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a street road with bricked tiles and buildings on either side
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a cathedral
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artificial light created from scratch
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artificial fog created from scratch
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a black and white image with white as the predominant color (Only light sources would be the exception)
assets used
Sketches
Drafts
Draft 1: Got the general foundation down. Turned the images from day to night. Added the street and cathedral at the end. Then the night sky. Didn't pay too much attention to minor details because of the fog later that I knew I'm about to put
Draft 2: got most of the picture down. Now just need to add the light sources. Gonna manually add them by using the brush tool. Also need to find bats and add them too. But overall, I've got a pretty good idea what the final outcome will look like based on this
now That's Fogged up
After starting work, I knew I wouldn't have as much time to commit to my work as I did previously. No more meticulously detailed cyberpunk pieces that took almost 2 weeks to make. No more ambitious ideas that I wouldn't be able to bring into fruition with the limited time I had in the day. So that meant I have to adapt and do simple things now. The goal for my art has always been to go bigger and better but goals change and I needed to change mine. So going back to simplicity was an unfortunate but necessary step for me to continue on this path of weekly releases. All in all though, I'm happy with how this piece turned out. I'm glad I was able to deduce which parts I wouldn't have to put too much detail in and more glad that my choices paid off.