I am finally done with my "Priestess of Atlantis" piece which has taken six long weeks to produce. This is my first attempt at a "large" detail-filled background and character portrait in ALL DIGITAL medium. It is composed in Photoshop CS4. In order to create the architectural shapes for the temple and some of the other buildings, I either had to draw them out using a masking tool, or create "brushes" which act like "stencils" of pre-made structural elements such as archways, pillars, or windows. Usually this work is done in a 3-D program which builds a "wire-frame" building over which color and texture is mechanically pasted. I built this picture in all 2-D, just as if it were an acrylic painting, and it took just as long. But I was willing to do this so I could learn to create illustrations in Photoshop. The next one won't take me as long, because I know more about it now.
The "Priestess of Atlantis" is inspired by a New Age fantasy called "The Legend of Altazar" by an author who goes by the name of "Solara." I picked this book up at one of the New Age or Pagan conventions I used to attend, and read it recently looking for image inspiration. The model for the Priestess is a lady in New Zealand who posts photographs of beautiful ladies in costumes as well as scenes of New Zealand landscapes, plants, and wildlife. The Temple is adapted from an early twentieth-century World's Fair pavilion.
Now that this one is done, I will go on to other, more dynamic compositions. This was a learning piece, though I may exhibit it somewhere. For now, Atlantis resides only on the Otherworld Wide Web.
"Priestess of Atlantis" is done in Photoshop CS4, 2572 x 3326 pixels, also 8.5" x 11", June 2010.
Click on picture for a larger image.
Here is a detail of the Temple facade:
1 comment:
Wow wow wow! I never seen such meticulous detail in an all-digital piece. I can see why it took six weeks to complete this.
You should be VERY proud of this, especially since this was your first "real" digital painting.
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