Making Of 'Shroom Valley'

Introduction

My initial thought was to paint something with a very strong emphasis on lighting; a moody environment with lots of depth and contrasting colours. I wasn't too concerned about the subject matter, except that it had to be organic and a little abstract so I could easily change, adjust and cheat the lighting. I do enjoy direct lighting and an environment heavy in atmosphere, so that's what I was trying to achieve in this painting. The process was more or less how I paint most of the time; I tried to use the majority of my usual techniques and methods in order to show how they help with the process.

Step 01

After a number of quick scribbles for some ideas, mostly to sketch up something that would cater to my needs, I decided to go ahead with this one - can't go wrong with exotic mushrooms! It wasn't the most solid sketch, but it would do for a start as the sketch was only a guide (Fig.01).

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

Step 02

The next step was to block in some quick colours, but more importantly, I had to work out the light source and the overall mood of the environment. I wanted to play up the reflecting light from below with warm lighting, assuming that the top of the mushroom caps were warm coloured. I ran the lighting through the centre and added depth to the valley with mushrooms (Fig.02).

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

Step 03

Here I added a new layer on top, and continued to block in and shape the mushrooms. I introduced some cooler diffuse lighting from the left, as this helped to lighten some of the darker areas. I flipped the image horizontally a lot, to check that nothing was too out of place, and I also often worked on the flipped image for a bit before flipping back (Fig.03).

Fig. 03

Fig. 03

Step 04

At this point it was time to add in some random textures to help with the rendering process. Some photo textures were used to spice things up a little and to help speed up the process. The textures were just some fig tree trunks, which I placed on top as Overlay layers. This probably doesn't show in the final image, as it was used more as a guide - I just picked some random shapes from it (Fig.04).

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Step 05

The painting was looking a little dull from all the blending at this stage, and so I used a Colour Balance adjustment layer to brighten up the whole painting, and I also moved the colours into a warmer region. This had the added effect of helping to bump up the contrast and saturating some of the dull areas (Fig.05).

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

Step 06

Some texture brushes helped roughen up the painting here, since I'd only used one round brush for most of the earlier paint work. Again, I used this to add variety and to work from the random shapes. The mushrooms needed something more; they were looking a little generic and so I spent some time working them up a bit, in terms of their design. I went online and did some research on mushrooms to help me out (Fig.06).

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

Step 07

The next step was the longest part of the painting - the rendering began here! I usually open up a smaller duplicate window on the side so I can oversee the bigger picture whilst I work on the details. Since digital images are more likely to be seen at a smaller scale than their actual size, this helps me to not lose sight of the "big picture". I had just a smaller window showing the whole picture, and I also cropped the image down a bit, too (Fig.07).

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

Step 08

After cleaning up the image, I knew I had to add something in the foreground so that the painting didn't run straight down. The idea was to bring the viewer back into the painting and to keep the interest there. I roughed out some options, and after a few sketches I decided to add in ridges and a figure. The figure itself is not so significant, merely a scale reference at this point (Fig.08).

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

I then asked some friends to critique the piece for me so far.  After staring at something for a long time, you tend to forget the simplest things.  I had some good pointers, including the image being too busy, which led me to push the depth and cut-out a better shape for the eyes to follow down.

Step 09

I tightened up the bottom and tied up any loose ends. I realised it was too hard to push the depth with such bright colours; while it may look prettier in this area of the painting, overall the highly-saturated reds and yellows weren't translating too well. So I just killed the saturation with another adjustment layer and added in more of the colour balance (Fig.09).

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

After much critique from friends, I decided to add in some flakes, and at one stage I had so much that I could barely see the mushrooms behind them! I quite liked it without the flakes, but I went with it - just a little bit of it anyway. 

I adjusted the image some more using adjustment layers, bumped up the contrast, sharpened up the image, and then blurred the objects closer to the camera. A final crop tighter to the main focal point and all was done! Here are some detailed shots of the image at 100% (Fig.10 & Fig.11).

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

Conclusion

I am rather pleased I haven't turned this into a complete mess and that I managed to achieve most of what I was after. If anything, I wish I had thought more about the designs of the mushrooms and added some other plant life, too.

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