FMP Weeks 10 to 12

Dan lent me his professional modelling skills today, standing in for the Diplomat in some photographs which I intend to use as a basis for the final pieces. The main purpose of this exercise was to experiment with different angles and compositions, as well as setting an example of scale. I knew that I wanted a piece featuring the Diplomat being escorted into the main palace, and so you can see most of the images focus on this idea of the grand entrance. The final photograph was taken to serve as an example for what the interior of the palace could look like - simply a form of inspiration, if you will.

Work has begun on the final pieces! The "realistic" Halo style one was first, as I thought it best to get the piece which required the highest fidelity out of the way. Above you can see the process I went through in order to create this composition. I started off with a screenshot still from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, as I liked the sort of "landing pad" that the characters were standing on, and thought it could easily provide a decent angle to show off a drop ship and multiple characters. The entire process took around two weeks, as everything that wasn't already in the scene had to be painted from scratch, along with the fact that the original background the piece was based on needed the entire lighting re-worked.

If I could dedicate more time to this piece, I would probably direct my attention to the top right-hand corner, which is quite bare compared to the rest of the piece. Perhaps air traffic or an alien skyscraper would fill the void. However, I need to move on to the next two, and I believe there are still plenty of focal points in the piece to grab the viewer's attention, whether that be Kanan himself, the guards, the ship, the sky or the architecture. I'm very happy with this piece, but I had originally set out hoping for a much more natural and painterly style, whereas the end product is very clean and careful. That said, it's the first piece of this caliber and outright scale that I've ever produced, and that's good enough for me at the moment.

On the side I have been doing some "mockups" for the Disney Infinity style piece, which I intend on starting next. Relatively low in quality, they're basically there to help establish the initial look and feel that the painting will have. Already we can see that it is shaping up to be a much brighter and blockier composition than the first one, but I will continue to challenge myself in other ways, such as trying to achieve some gorgeous sunset lighting.