WIP: The End Came Swiftly

This one is evolving much more than just putting the original B&W version in color. There have been a lot of happy accidents, and I’ve figured out how to do small details and lighting better. I’m getting away from my more “impasto” painterly look and mostly using a brush that looks like pastel or chalk when seen up close. This is allowing a bit more control and flexibility, while still keeping the look of a traditional drawing or painting. That big claw like tentacle in the middle is not up to the rest of the image, because I am trying to figure out how I want to render the one above it first, and then I will do the one below similarly. I’m still figuring out how to best do the vein-like things on top of the machine in front. I’m having to learn some lighting and shading techniques to give this more punch, things like reflected light and back lighting. I have to think about how to render cylinders, for example. I went outside and made sketches of the rails on my balcony to understand where the shadows and reflections fall better. And the top of the ship is too light. Needs some gradients like the bottom…

I didn’t learn this stuff in school, and didn’t use computers at all. Most my art education has been conceptual, and if anything was rabidly against this sort of imagery. But, now I’m developing these techniques to achieve effects I want, which I can combine with my Fine Art background to make what I think are original images. This is a kind of Fine Art, Sci-Fi art hybrid.

[Note to art history: Stop believing that image making is dead, or that originality and authenticity are impossible.]

~ Ends