Pond underwater background

Final Underwater Pond Background

Final Garden Pond Background

Late progress shot before the final, I looked at Samuel Smiths 'Lighting Principals for digital painting' on Domestika.

This Caused me to change the shadows on the bottom of the pool to be more soft and to increase the saturation of the lily pads because the sun is shining through them. Additionally removed the darker areas below the stones because light would not be obstructed that much because there's ambient light.

Planning the background

Where this work is sucessful: 

1) It looks like its from the same world as the garden shot

2) Successfully achieved an underwater feel

3) Progressed well implementing different aspects of illustrator I'd learnt on Domestika, eg making brushes, using gradient maps, compound paths and shape making tools.

Where I can improve:

Choosing colours, and offsetting that against atmospheric perspective. I've been looking at Mike Azevedos Colour Basics Lecture and for my next work I'm going to really slow it down and be intentional with color. Sometimes it is trial and error, but learning the rhyme and reason for color in the long run will speed me up and take work to the next level. Shadow I need to improve too, I think because the way this is layered and I was trying to get atmosphere I didn't approach shadow too well. I'm going to spend more time on light and looking at other peoples step by step approach to digital painting and illustrating in photoshop. 

I intentionally made these two in illustrator because some jobs require vector image creation, so I am working to have a few examples to show this skill in my portfolio. Theres been moments I thought 'I wish I was painting this' but I want to make sure I have projects in my portfolio rather than random individual ones.

I feel I could do this better already but I also am amazed at how much I've improved since 2 months ago and I took an illustrator course. So I'm doing well!