I created this illustration for an art contest organised by the studio Mooncolony. The theme was ‘Boss Battle’, so I didn’t brainstorm for long and went for a dragon vs warrior type of scene.
The key element of this artwork is the boss design, and this is where I started. I established rough guidelines in the form of a concept sheet, using a lot of references for each design element I wanted to incorporate. With the design sorted out before the illustration, I was able to focus on storytelling through mood, colours and composition to make this showdown as epic as possible.
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01. Layering and composition
I started in 3D, since I was provided with some 3D hero assets for the main tanks and aircraft. The team at Greifenmaer also sent their initial in-game layouts to help kick off the creative brief. I quickly moved on to blocking out the full scene in Blender (see our guide to the best 3D modelling software), building the environment and placing basic rigged soldiers.
02. Translating 2D knowledge into 3D
I had to plan all VFX effects and post-production from the start. Blender’s Compositor lets me control and tweak colour balance, exposure, lens effects, etc. For most of the additional VFX, I used 2D image planes either with emission (explosions) or alpha planes (dust, particles). This saved a lot of resources.
03. Final steps
I could then render high-resolution passes in Blender and polish the image in Photoshop. I was given the creative freedom to introduce some 2D touches, like brushstrokes along the edges and subtle painterly effects to soften parts of the ‘fake’ 3D look.
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