Painting An Atmospheric Sci-Fi Scene

- Morten Solgaard Pedersen

Find out how to color match textures…

In this making of I will talk about my process – from initial thumbnail to fully rendered final image. Some of these steps are crucial and something that I will always do, others are specific to this painting; no painting is approached in the exact same way. I will go through the most important parts of the process and focus on the most useful techniques, including matching the colors and values of a photo to my work, and how to design a painting like this. I will do my best to explain my decisions and thought processes; in my experience tools and techniques can only take you so far, you need to know theory as well.

01 Thumbnail and color: The first and probably most crucial part of creating any piece is exploration and thumbnailing. My idea for this piece was to convey a feeling of arriving at an unfamiliar place in the early morning. With that in mind I drew several quick sketches focusing on the composition rather than working on the building and character designs; getting the values, mood, and colors right according to my concept is more important. Basically if it will affect the final image I wanted to get it figured out now rather than at a later stage, there is no point moving forward with something that doesn’t work.