I started by blocking in the local colors as you can see in the image at the top. I've been working on color composition and lighting effects in the other one. The piece still needs a lot of work in those areas.
So far my major concerns are still with the brushwork. I'm going to try the overlay and other types of layers tomorrow to see if that achieves the effect I want. I will probably try switching to a different brush as well.
I'm also not satisfied with the bolts of lightning so far. they seem to be overpowering the image to much, so I'm going to try to rework that tomorrow also.
This is my second master study. I got the original image from Deviantart.com. The artist is Stanley "Artgerm" Lau. For this study I was trying to do basically the opposite of my last study. Instead of working on using brush textures, I'm trying to make smooth gradations that look like they make sense instead of producing the typical blurry photoshop look that so many digital paintings have. My next project is going to be a concept design for a futuristic looking car. I want to use metallic looking gradations like the study image without any brush work being visible. So far the technique I've been using for this effect is to simply use hard brushes when I'm working near an edge and then switch to a soft brush for the majority of an area. This technique works okay but I think there is probably more I can do to make it look right without wasting so much time going over the same area so manytimes to get it really smooth.
