The Visual Mastery of Apex Legends

The new kid in the block has taken over the neighborhood and how! Apex Legends is the new console and PC based Battle Royale created by Respawn Entertainment and published by EA Sports. And with it’s advent, the Battle Royale market has been taken by storm, with the previous rulers of the market falling remarkable short in front of this giant.

Set in the Titanfall universe (but with the Titans), Apex Legends is a game where 20 squads, each comprising of 3 members, fight tooth and nail to become the last team standing in a gradually shrinking sci-fi induced map.

For us, Apex Legends stands out for the amazing visuals they have managed to create, an even greater feat considering this is ping-based battle royale. We took the time to sift through the concept art and 3D outputs which eventually makes this game so beautiful. Through this article we also congratulate the team at Respawn Entertainment and everyone else who worked in making this game the visual treat that it is.

1) Concept Art – Characters

2) Concept Art – Environments 

3) Concept Art – Props and Weapons 

4) Illustrations

5) 3D Renders – Characters 

6) 3D Renders – Props and Optics 

7) 3D Renders – Weapons 

8) 3D Renders – Environments 

 

Artist List: 

1) Concept Art – Characters 

Kejun Wang – https://www.artstation.com/kejun66

Liam MacDonald – https://www.artstation.com/liammacdonald

Prop Wang – https://www.artstation.com/progwang

2) Concept Art – Environments 

Danny Gardner – https://www.artstation.com/dannygardner

Jung Park – https://www.artstation.com/jungpark

Liam MacDonald – https://www.artstation.com/liammacdonald

Tu Bui – https://www.artstation.com/2buiart

3) Concept Art – Props and Weapons 

Danny Gardner – https://www.artstation.com/dannygardner

Kejun Wang – https://www.artstation.com/kejun66

Prop Wang – https://www.artstation.com/progwang

Tu Bui – https://www.artstation.com/2buiart

4) Illustrations 

Autumn Rain Turkel – https://www.artstation.com/arturkel

Campbell White – https://www.artstation.com/campbellwhite

Liam MacDonald – https://www.artstation.com/liammacdonald

Luca Xu – https://www.artstation.com/lucaxu

Tu Bui – https://www.artstation.com/2buiart

5) 3D Render – Characters 

Dixing Sun – https://www.artstation.com/dixingsun

J Hill – https://www.artstation.com/jhill

Patrick Yeung – https://www.artstation.com/patrickvdk

6) 3D Render – Props and Optics 

Brooke Olson – https://www.artstation.com/brookeolson

Eric Simard – https://www.artstation.com/ericsimard

Kevin Neal – https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdG954

Paul Tran – https://www.artstation.com/paultran

7) 3D Render – Weapons 

Alessandro Giulianelli – https://www.artstation.com/giulianelli

Brad Allen – https://www.artstation.com/magnethead

Corwin Paradinha – https://www.artstation.com/corwin

Eric Simard – https://www.artstation.com/ericsimard

Kevin Neal – https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VdG954

8) 3D Render – Environments

Brooke Olson – https://www.artstation.com/brookeolson

Marcos Shih – https://www.artstation.com/mshih

Paul Tran – https://www.artstation.com/paultran

Tragan Monaghan – https://www.artstation.com/tragan

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to Respawn Entertainment and EA Sports. We do not hold any claim to these artworks.

The Art of Rising Sun

 

There are traditionalist gamers all around the world who love to invest their time and interest in the genre of board games. But the popularity of this trend is in a decline, now with mobile and computer games mimicking the gameplay of the board games. Many may argue about the difference in the experience, but statistics show the marginalization of board games, as compared to it’s digital competitors.

Entering in this milieu, is a company that has dedicated itself towards creating high-quality board and table top games featuring amazing miniatures and fun, engaging gameplay. CMON (Call-Mini-Or-Not) entered this market in the year of 2011, and has since created some of the best brand related board games, such as A Song of Ice and Fire: Tabletop Miniatures Game, Dark Age, and Wrath of Kings. Other notable titles in CMON’s library include Potion Explosion, Gizmos, and The Grizzled to name a few.

But this article will focus on their game which was funded by an explosive Kickstarter response, Rising Sun. Set in legendary feudal Japan with the Gods descending upon the sacred land to change it’s landscape, in Rising Sun, you play as one of the 5 shoguns aiming to take over the lands and become the next emperor. Massively strategic, this game revolves around military strength, as well as, negotiations with the enemy. Here’s a look at their Kickstarter promo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=858cYONO4fQ

CMON started it’s Kickstarter campaign on March 8th, 2017 and it lasted till April 4th, 2017. They created their ‘Pledge’ brackets and laid out an enormous array of Kickstarter exclusive goodies, many of which were beautifully crafted miniatures of characters, creatures and troops. For the 27 day campaign, CMON set the goal of three hundred thousand dollars. What they received, however, was an astonishing 4 million two hundred and twenty eight thousand dollars! In only 27 days! Here’s a look at their Kickstarter campaign – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cmon/rising-sun/description

The art for this game, ofcourse, is awe-inspiring. Illustrator extraordinaire, Adrian Smith has created these stunning depictions, pure to the traditional visuals of Japan. Before diving into his brilliant work, a small introduction to those who do not know the artist. Adrian Smith is a British Illustrator whose digital and traditional renditions became the face of the early Warhammer and 40K concepts and illustrations. It paved the path to the mammoth collection of art that is now specific to these games. He has also created a number of Comic book covers and has lent his immense talent to the creation of Magic: The Gathering card sets. He now works with CMON and continues to make illustrations for their board games.

Smith’s illustrations for Rising Sun is a unique blend of the commercial art aesthetics that we see in mainstream media overlayed on the traditional Ukiyo-e backgrounds, the traditional print making technique native to Japan. He has created renditions of Japanese Gods, demons, monks, clan-folks and Shoguns with Ukiyo-e replications of the same, set in each of the illustrations.

Each of the works shows a deep involvement with the subject, on Smith’s part. Starting from the physique and pose of the characters, all the way down to the costumes, the materials, the color codes set for each character, their weapons, their instruments, their props, and the Ukiyo-e illustrations to go with each them, makes the amount of research evident. So much so, each of the illustrations even reflects the lore of the characters, especially the Gods. Research and an immersive involvement with the project is paramount to become a successful illustrator and Smith makes this evident through his work.  Without further ado, here are the brackets of Illustrations he created for Rising Sun.

Japanese Gods

 

Japanese Demons

 

Monk Clans

 

The Seven Gods of Fortune

 

The Shoguns

 

Mythology holds such an immense capacity to bring out the most versatile visuals. Think of something like this were to be created using the Indian Mythology!

If you want to buy Rising Sun, you can find the link here – https://cmon.com/product/rising-sun/rising-sun

And if you love Adrian Smith’s work, you can follow him here –

https://www.artstation.com/adrian-smith

https://www.facebook.com/artofadriansmith/

https://www.deviantart.com/adrian-smith

 

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to the artist – Adrian Smith and CMON. We do not hold any claim to these artworks.

Digital Artist Guide – 10 BIG Names!

One of the major essentials of learning to be a Digital Artist is following the right people, or rather, following their art. Seeing the right images day in and day out can not only be used to inspire yourself, but also, understand how far you have to go and what you can learn from the people who you will eventually call ‘Masters’. Here’s a look at some big names in the Commercial Art industry from around the world.

Boris Vallejo 

Boris Vallejo is not a digital artist. This is not to say he hasn’t inspired an entire generation of artists, both digital and traditional. Vallejo was born in 1941 and started painting since the age of 13. His hyper-representational paintings in the Fantasy and Erotic genres are considered to be the classics of vintage poster paintings. Vallejo is the master of anatomy, color, light and composition and for years, students of art have studied his works to gain art based knowledge.

Boris Vallejo now works with his wife, Julie Bell who is an amazing artist herself and works in both traditional and digital mediums. You can follow their works her – http://www.borisjulie.com/

 

Craig Mullins

Craig Mullins is the Boris Vallejo equivalent of Digital Art. He is the true master, the man whose works resound with proficiency and excellence. His visualisation and colours are on point and his way of using the digital brush is so versatile and efficient that he can depict a larger than life scene in just a few strokes. Craig Mullins has created the concept art for some ground-breaking movies and games and is considered to be a legendary Concept Artist. He also shares his brushes freely for people to use.

You can find his works here – http://www.goodbrush.com/

 

Justin Coro Kaufman 

One of the first Concept Artists I started following because of a documentary called ‘Draw or Die’, Justin Kaufman is a monster. With such incredible variation in his ability to illustrate, Coro (which is his ‘concept artist name’) is now the founder and art director of the critically acclaimed studio ‘Massive Black’. His notable works include not only the work he does for Massive Black, but also famous graphic novel, Transient Man. Recently Coro has been been active on social media with his beautiful and hyper-realistic oil paintings. You can check out his work here – http://coro36ink.com/

 

Kim Jung Gi

Kim Jung Gi is an a traditional/digital artist based in Korea. Known mostly for his sketches using Traditional Brush-Pens, Kim Jung Gi is what other artists believe to be a guy playing the game of Life on God Mode. His visualising skills are unparalleled, his perspectives are unimaginable, his accuracy is intense and the man is beyond the need of guidelines and checkpoints for his work. His work-in-progress videos shows a modest man tracing across lines visible only to him (or so it seems when he works). Kim Jung Gi’s compositions are extremely crowded and spans a fish-eye landscape. He has worked on gigantic illustrations as demos or installations and has also contributed to internationally acclaimed comics. You can view his works here –

http://www.kimjunggi.net/

https://www.kimjunggius.com/

Marko Djurdjevic

With Coro, followed my obsession with the amazing Marko Djurdjevic. Having featured as one of the integral artists in Draw or Die along with Coro, Djurjevics work is as illustrative as it gets, with a particular Oomph in the way he provides a finishing to his works. It is no surprise that Marko was one of the key illustrators for Marvel Comics and is also ex-Massive Black artist.

Marko now runs a renowned Concept Art studio in Berlin knows as Six More Vodka along-with his wife, Jelena Djurdjevic, who too is an incredible illustrator. You can find Marko Djurdjevic’s works here – https://marko-djurdjevic.deviantart.com/

 

Terada Katsuya 

Terada Katsuya has become a name synonym to Pop Culture in Japan and even parts of America. His personal illustrations are hypnotic in nature, in it’s detail and the beautiful symphony in the lines. In the professional sphere, Katsuya has handled multiple renowned projects like the character design of Blood: The Last Vampire and the production designs for Zelda (Nintendo).

You can check out his works here – http://katsuyaterada.tumblr.com/

 

Ruan Jia

Ruan Jia is young (I don’t know his exact age). I start the article saying because he displays art of a man who has spent a lifetime mastering his craft. He is already deemed as one of the greatest digital painters alive, and for good reason. Every genre of fantasy/sci-fi art has been covered in his works; all of which are pure masterpieces. Whether you talk about characters, or landscapes, or mechas, or whatever else, Ruan Jia has not only made it, he has excelled at it.

You can find his works here – http://www.ruanjia.com/

 

Riccardo Federici 

Riccardo Federici is a comic book artist. But unlike most comic artists today (and this might come as a surprise seeing the quality of his work) Federici creates everything traditionally! That’s right, pencil, pen and paint! This simple fact elevates him to be one of the greatest commercial painters out there. The pages that you see above are from his comic book, Saria Volume 1 and 2 published by Delcourt.

You can check out his works here – http://riccardofederici.blogspot.in/

 

Stanley Lau (Artgerm)

One of the most commercially famous illustrators, Artgerm started of as a Deviant Art phenomenon. From there on, he is taken up multiple Internationally acclaimed projects, one of which was to become the official DC Comics Merchandise Illustrator. He is famous for his female characters, his elegant understand of female anatomy and his beautiful sense of colouring. He is presently a faculty at 3D Sense, Singapore, mentors students from all around the world and also continues to work on various projects.

You can check out his works here – http://artgerm.com/

 

Dave Rapoza

Dave Rapoza is one of the younger artists on the block but in a short duration, has made a big name for himself. His illustrations are vibrant and full of mood and a surrealistic lighting sense. His works are characterised by a patchy rendering style, something that he maintains even in his traditional (watercolour) works. One of his famous works includes the graphic novel ‘Steve Lichman’.

You can find his works here – https://daverapoza.carbonmade.com/

 

 

Anyone else you feel we should include?! Let us know in the comments of the artists you have been following from the beginning and are still following.

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to the individual artists. We do not hold any claim to these artworks.

 

The Works of Stepan Alekseev

I have been following the art of Stepan Alekseev for over 2 years now and without a doubt, this man never ceases to amaze me. Another artist from Russia (possibly. I do not know of his origins and can only guess he is from Russia, since Alekseev is a common Russian title), Alekseev has made his own distinct style and trademark with that beautifully finished look, amazingly composed scenes, those interesting facial proportions and body postures and the eerie feel he brings to his art. Here’s a look at Alekseev’s beautiful art –

1) Sketches 

The very first undeniable feature I found in Stepan Alekseev’s characters is the way he treats the nose. Unlike other illustrators, Alekseev does not bother to give those sharp, perfect nose to his characters and would rather make them pudgy or thick – something that you won’t find for the perfect hero, but at the same time, it is something that is true to life and makes for a rather unmistakable focal point for the face.

 

Alekseev’s greyscale rendition is spot-on, even at a rough stage. The rough patches are able to define a source of light, scale and volume and makes for a ready base to continue forward, into color. The anatomy is overwhelming in it’s sense of  motion and calm and they feel like snapshots of his imagination, captured on a 2D surface. Speaking of which, Alekseev also maintains a traditional feel in his digital sketches, allowing the viewers to get that charcoal feel across the lines.

2) Portraits 

Alekseev’s rendition, whether it be in greyscale or color, holds a tremendous of light and shade but it also have a level of finish which is found rarely. They way he blends shades and tones allows to him to impart a picturesque quality to his work and with that, an illusion of life. Skin tones has been treated under different levels of lighting, different colors and different understandings. Same goes for other materials like armors, helms and cloth. Alekseev’s training in materials has, evidently, been extremely rigorous and he throws light on how well these renditions can be made.

3) Character Designs 

Alekseev’s character designs seem highly inspired from medieval and fantasy oriented ideas. The use of armor, medieval weaponry and fantastical features are abundant in his character designs. Not only that but some of his characters has absurd proportions – absurd, but his understanding of anatomy creates concessions and still makes it believable. For example, some of his characters have immense arms, almost gorilla-like. To compensate for that though, Alekseev gives him extremely broad and rigid shoulders but reduces the size of the chest, thus shifting the centre of gravity upwards to balance the body for the massive arms.

As mentioned, Alekseev proves his impeccable grasp over materials through these sketches as well, clearly defining the thickness of cloth, the age of the armor, the texture of the cloth and steel, and weight of the weapons and even the kind of climate the characters are used to, all through both the greyscale as well as the colored renditions.

4) Scenes/Illustrations  

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This section is where Alekseev’s abundant skills in photo-compositioning, story-telling and world-building come into play. There is no doubt how well Alekseev can narrate whole situations through single images – Images immersed with characters interacting with each other, interacting with the environment, in war, in relief, in action and preparation. Alekseev has gone far enough to even illustrate war scenes, reminding me of the paintings of Renaissance and Baroque masters of Europe.

Through all of these illustrations, Alekseev does not abandon the fantasy themes or the eerie ambiance which highlights his style. Most of them have an excessive use of blues which compliments and contributes to the fore-mentioned ambiance.

5) Work – in – Progress 

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In this WIP, Alekseev started off with a sketch and a flat greyscale. Over the greyscale he puts down the shades and tones and then the respective colors. The lighting falls in the 3rd step and then last step is the amplification of that lighting and pushing the piece to the final look, which is trademark to Alekseev’s work. These steps are a very straight-cut and simple breakdown of his work but it hides the intricacy of his work.

Contrary to the previous WIP, Alekseev starts of directly with color in this one, but essentially still follows the same steps of sketch-flats-shades-tones-lighting-amplification-final rendering. This ofcourse, covers much more, in terms of steps, than the previous one.

Here is a video of Stepan Alekseev painting his  North Maiden. The best understanding of his process is in this video. Also, here is a gallery of illustrations he has done for Applibot.

If you like Stepan Aleekseev’s amazing work, you can follow him here –

https://chosac.artstation.com/

https://drawcrowd.com/chosac

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to the artist – Stepan Alekseev and Applibot. We do not hold any claim to these artworks.

PREY Concept Art – Fred Augis

Concept Art for games is one of the vastest industries, when considering pre-visualisation as a core structure in the entertainment industry. It is an extremely challenging process of putting together visuals, dynamics and the physics of a game, even before it’s made. With the world-wide revenue of games reaching a whooping 91 Billion dollars this year, the task of visualising a game has reached a new level of significance, and for good reason.

Conceptualisation involves way more than just defining a few characters and backgrounds. It is an in-dept understanding of an imaginary world, it’s inhabitants and a story that binds all of this together. It is about being a third person understand the crux of this world just through a series of images and sometimes, simple animations, and as simple as it sounds through these words, the task is an endearing one.

To explain the colossal scope of this task, I took up the 2017 game PREY developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda, and the visual creator behind this game, concept art extraordinaire, Fred Augis. Now, before I go into the nitty-gritty of the concept art, here’s a look at the trailer of the game.

Prey – E3 2016 Reveal Trailer

In Prey, the player controls Morgan Yu while exploring the space station Talos I, in orbit around Earth–Moon L2, where research into a hostile alien collective called the Typhon is performed. As the Typhon escape confinement, the player uses a variety of weapons and abilities derived from the Typhon to avoid being killed by the aliens while looking to escape the station. The player gains access to areas of the station through a Metroidvania style of progression by acquiring key items and abilities, eventually allowing the player to fully explore the station in an open world setting.

Now lets get to the concept art done by Fred Augis.

1) Character Portraits 

Augis maintains a very rough look in his portraits. He doesn’t compromise with face structures or the complexion of the characters and has detailed knowledge of efficient brush work. And as is evident, he is a master at creating variety. But he does not go into pushing his portrait into a picture perfect output. Concept art requires the artists to put forward their ideas in the most economical way possible.

2) Suit Designs 

These designs display Augis’ adept knowledge of anatomy, understanding of materials and how they fall on anatomy, sound aesthetic execution and professional presentation. But again, variety is key. To be able to put a multitude of options to the clients is one of the pre-requisite of being a good concept artist and Augis is a complete master at it.

3) Interior Designs 

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Coming to interiors, Augis now displays his unparalleled understanding of perspective, colours, lighting and his eye for detail. The ambience created in these sketches are so believable, they seem right out of the actual game itself.

4) Prop Designs

Budding artists do not expect to be told to conceptualise props, whereas prop design is as important an element in concept art as character or background design. Again, Augis displays his impeccable understanding of materials, shapes, and these correlate with light and complex structures.

5) Weapon Designs

In the above sketches, Augis has not only designed the bombs but also shown the application, or how the user would activate the bomb, it’s physics and how it would react on it’s eruption. This thus displays how a concept artist illustrates the rules of the world he is assigned to create. And Augis, of course, does it magnificently.

6) Architectural Designs and Blueprints

Augis creates what looks like a hybrid of skyscraper and a spaceship for the space-station Talos I. He illustrates the materials used to create the space-station, creates variety for it’s design (Here as well!), and blue-print designs for small sections of the interior/exterior of the station.

7) Key Art Sketches

“Key art is the main image of a campaign that conveys the story and gets you to want to see the film in 3 seconds or less. Usually, there are several final images of key art used for a campaign, depending on the size of the film and marketing budget. Key art is used for many things.” – http://losangeleslink.blogspot.in/2010/02/key-art-art-of-process.html

To be precise, these are the roughs Augis created for the promotional artworks for PREY and the last three images are what Augis pushed to a closer version to being final.

8) Final Promotional Illustrations 

So these became some of the final promotional images for the game. As you can see, there is a stark difference between these images and the ones Augis created as the concept art. These seem more polished and also more experimented over, to create a beautiful aesthetic quality and add a ‘wow’ factor to it. Hints or 3D and Graphic Design elements are also a feature in these illustrations.

9) User Interface Illustrations 

One might not expect this but User Interface illustration is also something that seeps into concept art, especially in games. These of course, are simple and very straight-forward.

10) In-game animations 

These are simple but very interesting gif animations that Augis created as in-game features for PREY.

 

Fred Augis is a senior concept artist and a profound creative who has worked many big names like Dontnod Entertainment, Capcom, Ubisoft, Eugen System, Wizarbox, DTP Entertainment, Applibot, Bragelonne Editions, Gallimard and UDC Music. He is currently based in Rennes, France. If you like his amazing work, please follow him on the below given links – 

https://www.artstation.com/artist/fredaugis

https://www.behance.net/fredaugis

https://www.facebook.com/fredaugis/

http://fredaugis.deviantart.com/

http://fredaugis.tumblr.com/

And if you are looking for the creators and publishers of the game ‘PREY’ here are the links-

http://www.arkane-studios.com/

https://bethesda.net/en/dashboard

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to the artist – Fred Augis – and to Arkane Studios and Bethesda. We do not hold any claim to these artworks. 

Ash Walkers, First Hunt – Timofey Stepanov

Timofey Stepanov is a 21 year old digital artist based in Russia. For his young age, the artists is baking some absolutely incredible pieces of digital art. With incredible depth and complexity in his compositions, and noteworthy understanding of anatomy and a very subtle execution of colour, Stepanov’s pieces show an articulate understanding of bringing life into his work.

Ash Walkers, First Hunt is Stepanov’s latest upload on Artstation and he has been gracious enough to breakdown his entire process, from start to finish, for creating this piece.

This painting striking for the immerse depth across the field of sight, the layers created to show this depth, the activity among the characters that pulls the viewer into the painting and the colours that are used. The trees all around the composition are used, not only in a brilliant way to create an isolating frame for the characters but also, as pointers to guide the viewer’s eyes around the composition. The weapons on the back of the character’s contribute to the effect of the trees. The point of highest contrast is where the hunt has taken consequence. It is also close to a position that dictates the Rule of Thirds, the diagonal aspect being the character closest to the viewer, leaning against the tree. Now let’s move on to the steps to gather a better understanding.

1) Character Design 

Stepanov has designed these characters in a very straight forward fashion, concentrating more on constructing them than executing them to a finished product. The designs suggests his strength in line art, having created well proportioned body structures while keeping the physics of cloth and armour intact. The Steampunk nature of the sketches only adds to the design. Using mostly midtone values, Stepanov has managed to put forward the understanding of weight to the attire of the characters.

2) Roughs 

A unique feature about Stepanov is that he treats the characters and the backgrounds separately. Having created the background first, Stepanov reduces the opacity of it to a minimal, and then starts fleshing out the characters; such that they interact with the background but at the same time, are not distracted by it. Stepanov’s proficiency with anatomy comes into play here. His initial lines are very flow-y and curved before he lays more concrete lines to create the distinctions of the body.

3) Final Lines 

After finalising on the anatomy, Stepanov starts laying down the attire on the characters, focusing on the girth and width of the characters to lay the cloth, the straps, the bags and the wraps that they are carrying. On the top left of each of these frames, Stepanov has kept an inset of the Wizard-like character who is a little to the right of the centre of the frames. This would probably be to display the level of detail put on the character who is probably the farthest from the viewer. The folds depict that the cape is probably made of a heavier material like wool, while theirs shirts might not be.

4) Greyscale Rendering (Values) 

Stepanov starts to move into the painting in these two frames, in keeping both the nitty-gritty and the bigger picture in mind. In the first frame he simply lays down the value of each element, much like in the character design. The flat values, in itself, distinguishes the nature of the characters, the nature of the terrain and the slight gradient in the extreme background has already started defining the field of depth.

The real action though, is happening in the second frame. The piece is now dominated by rough patches across characters and backgrounds alike. Multiple planes have been created through the use of shades and tones with the tree and the character closest to the viewer becoming a massive frame and a directive for the viewers eye. Dark gradients are creeping in from either side of the composition, which also helps in creating a focal point towards the place of the hunt. In the inset, we can see the amount detail Stepanov has put into the character at the back. But that could well be because he is closest to the focal point and most dramatic in his body language out of all the characters.

5) Colour

Stepanov now moves on to colour and as is evident, he avoids any hue that might seem overbearing. He has tried to maintain the ominous vibe of the composition that he had achieved at the stage of the greyscale rendering. Sticking to mostly hues of browns and dulled out oranges, Stepanov has created a very earth environment while keeping true to the snowy landscape.

However, there is stark change of lighting and a sudden realisation of a focal point in the second frame. Stepanov has shifted the angle of the artificial light source, that being the light of the staff carried by the wizard character. In the previous frame, where the light source was pointing upwards and away into the composition and the ambient light across the composition was brighter and more diffused, in the second frame, the ambient light has decreased in intensity on a whole, and the artificial light now points down at the scene of the hunt, making this the primary focal point because of a newly achieved high contrast. Even you compare the insets of the two frames, you see that the wizard now looks brighter in the second as compared to a diffused first frame.

6) Final Adjustments – Composition and Characters. 

Stepanov now makes some startling changes to the composition to create Balance. What was previously a crowded composition, Stepanov now pulls the canvas horizontally, and creates a segmentation between the crowd of the left and crowd on the right to give way to a plane field of sight and rest for the viewer’s eyes. He creates means for the viewer to glance through all the information rather than having to rush through everything, something that happened in the previous, crowded composition. One other thing this does is create a balanced visual weightage across the painting. Stepanov adds two more across the stretch he created, just to maintain the momentum of the painting. He has used the classic fog technique create distance in the painting but it does not overshadow the importance of the characters at any point. In the final inset, the detail on the wizard is nothing short of extraordinary.

 

Here are some more of Timofey Stepanov’s works. If you like his work, please do follow him at the links given below –

https://www.artstation.com/artist/timofeystepanov

http://timofeystepanov.deviantart.com/

https://vk.com/id172217564

https://www.facebook.com/mrfr2eman

All the artworks displayed in the article solely belong to the artist – Timofey Stepanov. We do not hold any claim to these artworks.