CREATE STUNNING LANDSCAPES

Blake Rottinger breaks down the core elements that help bring this beautiful fantasy vista to life

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Photoshop

Artist PROFILE

Blake Rottinger

LOCATION: Australia

Blake is a freelance concept artist with seven years of professional experience in the AAA games industry. He is currently working on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for the PlayStation 5. blakerottingerart.com

When starting my personal paintings, such as this one, I tend to theme them around a specific colour wheel and general mood. I always try to change the environments I paint and don’t usually do similar colour schemes throughout recent pieces. My professional work also influences my personal work, so I found myself looking to change it up from the dark and dreary work my clients are asking for at the moment. For this image I started with a photo plate I found online where I found the colour and lighting appealing.

I tend not to plan too much with these types of pieces, allowing myself more creative freedom. If I’m working on a specific skill I will plan the image more – however, for this piece I knew I wanted a detailed figure in the foreground looking over this vista, so I came up with a travelling merchant peddling strange curios on her way to a trading hub of sorts. I knew I didn’t want to have too many compositional elements and keep the read of the shapes fairly simple, instead focusing on the lighting and details of the figure as well as the water in the foreground. I personally find set dressing a space really fun, so I knew the figure would be the focal point and I would spend a lot of time on the items and patterns shown there.