Behemoth Sea Stryder

Digital Painting

Concept

Equally as captivating as the universe, the ocean has yet to show us all of it's secrets. I decided to flesh out a concept. Heavily inspired by classic horror movies such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, I chose to capture a unexpected encounter. I took some time to play with lighting and mood by working on some thumbnails. Once I narrowed it down, I gave some thought to what my antagonist could look like.

The process here is to decide on what setting and mood I want to relay. I went through many iterations of the landscape, character types and layout before finalizing the painting.

Environment Design Thumbnail

Polished Creature Thumbnail

Scene Layout Sketch

Creature development

Creature development

Encounter Sci-Fi

During my early years at The Art Institute of Dallas, I began to explore skill sets outside of my major (3D Modeling) and discovered a passion for digital painting. Over the course of my last 2 college years, I grew a respectable collection of digital painting ranging from characters, environments and texture paint-overs. This image was one of my first successful digital illustrations.

During a thumbnail exercise, I challenged myself to portray an emotion - but not necessarily that of a human's. Originally, this image came about without the rabbit in mind. The mood set by the color and lighting eventually pushed me to realize that something was missing. I felt that the rabbit's alerted state (not fear) gave the scene a sense of calm.

Concept Environment

Concept Environment (secondary approach)

Line art

Painting process

Habitable Zone

Digital Painting

I've always been intrigued by the unanswered questions that our universe holds. As a self-taught physics nerd, anything having to do with space, immediately catches my attention. My intention with this image was to allow the viewer to decide whether this is a scene of destruction or of creation.

It took some experimentation to get the planet to look right. Eventually, I was able to achieve the "glow" - which proved to be a critical selling point for the image. I decided to give the bright glow a blue hue, hopefully perplexing the viewer into thinking it may not be destruction they are seeing.

Still Life Painting

Color & Light Study

I've always been a fan of classical painters such as Caravaggio. His approach to lighting and moody paintings inspired me to attempt a still life painting using an recourse image (artist unknown). This process took me approximately 10 hours to obtain the right textures on the apples as well as the aluminum cup to capture the way the light would scatter on each surface.