Frekrheim Cityscape - Process Breakdown
I had the pleasure of painting artwork for the upcoming Thrones&Bones adventure called Fury of the Forsaken. I don't get commissioned a lot of environments, but when I do, I want to learn as much as I can to develop a workflow I can use again and again. In this case I broke it down to the following stages: thumbnails, 3D mockup, sketch pass to design and final render. The challenge was to show a viking-inspired city that is built on water in wintertime. The central focus of the piece is the whale-shaped temple of three local gods. I hope you enjoy the proccess!
1. Initial thumbnail pass. I looked at the top down map for the adventure module and figured out some cool cam angles. I thought of mood, contrast, scale and main focus.
2. 3D mockup in Blender based on the top down map, so it is all size-accurate! I extruded off of the top down map and did procedural shading to give me the base for the wooden city buildings. I used Eevee engine to render with light and depth passes.
3. Sketch or design pass. I did the shape language for the temple first and hen the rest of the city came easily and naturally. I added crowds and fishing props.
4. Final painting. I took time to render light and shadow and mute the areas outside of the focal point, reduce overall noise. Thank you for reading!