Pilgrim in the Woods visiting a Thanksgiving Dinner near you.
Pilgrim in the woods is visiting a Thanksgiving dinner near you. Halloween is over but are all the spooks really gone? The ghosts aren’t screeching and the werewolves aren’t yelping but the woods is not empty of danger.
The Pilgrim
How is it this pilgrim is here and what does he want? It’s been many long years since the Puritans first came to America and shared the first Thanksgiving. Was someone left behind or is this would be wanderer plagued with unfinished business? Time will tell when the truth is finally uncovered. I could write horror stories all year round. My goal this year is to come up with a horror idea that ties in with every major holiday. I don’t know if I will ever write a full story or not but ideas are where more ideas come from. Let me know if you have any special requests out there.
About this Design
I hope you are all enjoying my latest design. Please let me know what you think by commenting on this post or dropping a note through a form.
I used 13 different layers to design this scene. I didn’t start with a pencil sketch. In fact, I clicked on the oil paint tool and went right to work painting out the scene. The scene background was painted with the oil paint flat brush tool. The digital oils provided a nice blending affect to build the background just like playing with Play dough. I alternated shades and used the blending tool as well to get the lighting effect I wanted.
Tips and Tricks
Below are some screenshots of layers that I used. The first one is a 33% opacity layer that I drew the trees on in the distance along with some shrubs. I used a very light brown within the pallet that I was working with. This effect created some of the white noise that comes with designing wooded areas. A G-Pent was all I needed to design the trees. A darker bleed tool brush was used for the shrubs. I like to keep things murky and then pull the details out.
Background
This next section is of just the trees themselves. See how they are on their own layer? I can manipulate the depth of the piece easier this way and control the highlights and shadows without creating digital mud. Using the selection tool helps to keep the overspray from going out of control. I still have a little. Through color discipline practice, it becomes easier to paint in this fashion. The airbrush highlight and shadow tools create nice textures on the tree. I selected where the light was coming from and then I just stayed consistent until I got the trees completed. Additional texture was created by using a darker pencil to enhance the bark.
Foreground Trees
As I go over each part of the tree, I can slowly pull out the natural texture of the tree along with other minor details such as the roots and growth defects in the tree that make it look more interesting.
I used the ink pen tool to design the Pilgrim and then I sketched out lightly what I wanted and then filled it in. I already knew that I was going to use a silhouette so I didn’t worry about every detail with the character. Extra grass created the mired affect. The woodlands known to be wet.
The Pilgrim Design
I used the polygon line tool to detail the parts of his outfit that I felt viewers would need to see to understand he is a pilgrim. I used Google to find a some good ideas for what I wanted the pilgrim to look like. Again, not a lot of serious detail required. Using my G-Pen with white pigment, I colored in some wrinkles and added some buttons. If I did my job well enough, you can tell that it’s a pilgrim.
Some additional details I added were the sun beams shining through. The line tool is awesome to get this detail. I changed the opacity on the beams so they look more transparent and played around with the color. True yellow just wasn’t covering it.
I designed the bridge with just blocks of grey matter that I blended together. I used references for this too because I just couldn’t picture the bridge the way I wanted in my head alone.
Summary
That is all for tonight. If I left some things out that you may want to know more of, please ask. I am always happy to help everyone out. Also check out my book. You can find it here. Amazon Prime holders can get it for free. It is available in hard copy and E-book format. The book has a lot of these types of tutorials designed to help you come up with design ideas.
Free Art Available!
Free art available! I am celebrating my newly published book on Amazon by giving away some FREE original art files. The files are available in Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint formats. Why am I giving them away you might ask? The premise of the book is all about how to create new and different concept art designs from initial ideas to the finished piece. By giving away some companion art, I am hopefully inspiring and visually assisting you to create your own. All of the layers are available for editing in both formats. You can easily go in and reconstruct the designs however you want. Besides, who would turn down some free art?
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New This Week at Society 6 Ghost Collection
New this week to the JHUNTGRAPHIX Society6 shop is the Ghost Collection just in time for Halloween. The Ghost Collection is another Halloween themed product to enhance your seasonal style or just show off to your friends. The design work is all original and digitally designed using Clip Studio Paint. The design has three layers with an emphasis on inking. The black and white spaces were carefully balanced out to support an open composition while also defining the look of the Ghost Collection.
Ghosts in the Night
Halloween ghosts fly through the cold air on trick or treat night passing through buildings or lingering in graveyards. These are the conscious embodiments of lives that were taken too soon or were lost during the passing of time. Always present and wanting to interact with you but hidden from the naked eye except to only a gifted few. You can see a faint glow off in the distance and may even here a slight sound or too. There may be sudden movements from the corner of your eye that you might not clearly see. You might get a tap on the shoulder that you dismiss as chill. Did you see an extra shadow on the ground peering up from behind when you are walking alone? All of these are indicators that there is a presence near that you were not expecting.
This design will be available with all of the other Halloween designs I am currently offering at my JHUNTGRAPHIX store. If you haven’t ordered yours today, what are you waiting for?
Feedback
Do you like these themes? If so, please let me know. If you don’t like them, let me know that as well? What would you like the next Halloween design to be? I look forward to hearing from you.
Please enjoy the Ghost Collection and have a safe holiday season.
The Concept Art Idea Book!
Concept art is a wonderful way to flesh out larger ideas by creating simpler designs. If you have a compelling story to tell but haven’t worked out all of the story telling elements such as the locations, the characters, or the props, using concept art helps you to visualize all of the elements together so you can see how they work together. Last month I published my first book, The Concept Art Idea Book. to share my lessons learned and creative processes to help other artists.
Are you struggling with an idea? Are you looking at a computer screen or a blank piece of paper wondering what to do next? All artists struggle from time to time when translating their ideas from a concept in their mind to a completed piece of artwork. The Concept Art Idea Book is a collection of my own original designs over the past year and an explanation of my creative processes. I discuss how some of my pieces were imagined and the methods used to bring them to life. The goal of this book is to turn frustrations into inspiration.
The Concept Art Idea Book is out in e-book format and located on Amazon.com. This book is for all artists at any level to benefit from. Experienced and amateur artists will benefit from this book. The book can be purchased absolutely FREE if you are an Amazon Prime member.
Below are some samples from my book. All artwork was created using Clip Studio Paint (formerly manga studio 5). This is the most cost effective and flexible design program out on the market.
Ghost Orbs Concept Art
Ever walk into a forest and see ghostly orbs fly around you? This is what it might look like if you do. I imagine a lot of activity all at once as if an energy burst is suddenly being released until finally pulsating out of existence. This piece was designed in black and white to create a spooky mood accentuating the darkness and shadow of the night. The orbs are a bright contrasting white so they are able to communicate their presence, movement, and let everyone know they are there.
This piece was designed using Clip Studio Paint and consists of four layers. The initial pencil layer was later converted to detail layer toward the end of completing the piece. The other layers are an ink layer, background layer, and shadows layer.
To create a more 3 dimensional appearance, elements of shadows and highlights were placed throughout all of the layers with a proper amount of blending where needed to fuse the elements together.
The trees were created with a thick inking brush with fine detailing afterward. A tree texture tool was used to give more of a bark look to the skin of the tree. This also allows for more interesting shadows as they were placed with an air brush tool. The bushes in the foreground were created with an ink wash set to a grey tone much like taking a sponge to a piece of paper with ink. Just enough texture to provide the look of bushes without much more but it helps to frame the piece together.
In the background I placed a slow moving mist moving throughout the trees again to provide some more depth and make it seem as though the orbs were traveling through the woods. The far background has a number of different tree and grass designs making it seem dark and very difficult to find your way through.
The Castle on the Edge of Tomorrow Concept Art
This was my first real attempt at a digital landscape. I really enjoyed putting this one together. Imagine yourself looking through a portal at a castle that divides the point where one world ends and another begins. Is it keeping something in or is it keeping something from getting out? Only your imagination knows the answer to that. This piece was inspired by looking at pictures of old castles.
Dark spooky nights and visits from ghosts. Who could ask for more fall fun? Lots more coming your way as my imagination takes off. Stay tuned! Follow my blog! Something specific ...
For a limited time only you can download for FREE some original artwork from my new book called The Concept Art Idea Book. You can get both Wizard Spire and Space Station in both ...
Good evening everyone! Spirit Falls is my latest concept piece that I have developed tonight for your viewing enjoyment. What do you see moving through the waterfall? Ghosts? Spirits? Magical energy? ...
Ever walk into a forest and see ghostly orbs fly around you? This is what it might look like if you do. I imagine a lot of activity all at once ...
This was inspired by the increased size of the waves as a storm approached. It was easy to visualize someone riding the top of the waves (not me) as ...
Another Clip Studio Paint Image created from multiple layering and blending. This started out as a concept for a forest but I decided to make it a bit more dense and dark and add a magical glow.
As with most of my styles of digital art, it is not a typical process. Most layering consists of each element existing on its own layer. As an example, a pencil layer followed by an inks layer, followed by a flats layer and so on and so on. In my work I add flats directly on top of my inks and mentally I separate more by graphic element than by construction element.
If this was for a client, I would have used a more traditional approach. Nothing worse than a client asking for an adjustment in an element that exists in multiple layers. It would be a hunt to find the layers that need to be changed, change them, and then hope you didn’t change something else in the process.
As fore me and this piece, my brain works a little differently. I like to flow back and forth between layers….and since I am my biggest critic here, the only person I have to please is myself.
Have a great night!