Cave entrance

Cave entrance - Really wanted to focus on pushing values and light with this one after receiving some feedback on where I can improve. To do this I painted a bit differently opting to start in black and white until I was happy with the values, composition and light.

Before adding colour and duplicated everything and moved it onto my second canvas so when adding in colour I could use a black and white adjustment layer to make sure the coloured version matched the values of the black and white version.

Concept idea - The two hunters are entering a beach side cave and discover the skeleton of a large sea creature. It's a mystery that can only be solved by venturing further into the cave.

Here's the  split canvas set up I was using in order to match the values and keep the desired lighting through to the final image. I added a large skeletal object into the painting that wasn't originally planned but still used the black and white image to gain ques. for example I liked the reflective water giving some form of light in the B&W version so I translated that into the bones receiving bounce light. This gave the final image the same result but with something a little more interesting to look at as a result.

I was using the split canvas method in a different way for this concept in order to get the idea down on the first go. I started with a quick block in and duplicated it onto the separate canvas. I took one into colour but used the second greyscale image to test and experiment with what would look right and work well before spending time adding it into the colour layer. I found it faster using this greysacle layer as a way to test composition and values as I knew it wasn't going to be a final image so I would try things and be more careless with this layer but end up with results I wouldn't have tried while being in a more careful mindset where I didn't want to take risks.