September 2016 Challenge: Cladonia cristatella

[Chashio]

Hey all
Haven't joined in at the Guild recently but decided to jump into this challenge because, well, mixing colors with a limited palette is fun.
After considering the palette options and testing a couple out...
09 06 16 lim palette maps Green SkinHead.JPG09 06 16 lim palette maps.JPG

I chose the British Soldiers mix.
color palette.JPG

I'm using ArtRage software to do this one, to get the feel of mixing real paint without having to bother with the annoyances of color matching actual acrylic paints... and then all the cleanup.

Ok, that's it. I'll be back with a wip pic sometime this month.

[snodsy]

looking forward to this one, love the style so far

[ChickPea]

Well this is interesting. I tried the Greenskin-head palette but felt the colours were much too strong for my taste, yet they look really attractive in the mock-up you posted. It's always fun to see what someone else does with challenge criteria!

[Josiah VE]

I can't wait to see this develop.

[ThomasR]

Had the same idea to give ArtRage a shot but decided time was scarce this month so I'm really looking forward to seeing where you get with this

[Ilanthar]

Already very eye-catching and interesting. Looking forward to see more .

[Wingshaw]

Great style, although it looks quite challenging given the, er, challenge. Looking forward to seeing this develop.

THW

[Chashio]

Thanks for all the comments. I am back to working on this again after spending more than a week in the middle of the woods without a computer.
Before I left I started another test more in line with the direction I want to take this, mixing colors on the digital palette [using Digital color mixing vs. ArtRage's Real color mixing option which allows colors to mix more like they would naturally] and playing with tools in ArtRage to see what would work best for accomplishing the look I am aiming for... loosely.
color mixing diffs.JPGartrage view 1 filled with palette.JPG
It was too loose. There was a bunch wrong with the terrain, etc, and ultimately too much a mashup of little areas of testing without a solid foundation/plan, so I stepped back and made a small plan of the general region I want to include in my panoramic map view. That's the little top-down sketch in the bottom corner. [I'm not following it exactly, just as a guide.]
I pulled the plan sketch into PS and used the perspective transform to warp it into a panoramic plane to work off of, and started sketching up a rough, possible landscape...
view 2.JPG
but I wasn't really liking the angle of view and it was also a higher point-of-view than my original intention. So I stopped, and I took the plan sketch and warped it again, into something between the first and second views, and went about sketching up the landscape a little bit differently than before. [The first time around I sketched the terrain forms in with loose lines and then started shading them on a grey background. This time, I worked transparently on a layer set to overlay above the plan sketch, turning the grey layer on and off to check how it read visually and to see what I missed. It is working better.]
view 3 on plan sketch.JPGview 3.JPG
So that's about where I am at. It's progress, but not an official wip because I am still working on a greyscale under-painting to firm up the terrain and all before I start painting in the color.
Hope some of you will find all of this mess of progression and technique useful somehow. Or at the least, it is fun to see how other people go about doing stuff.

[J.Edward]

Really solid work Chashio
I always enjoy seeing what new things you are working on [which you should show more often ].
I liked the first perspective and the second as well, but I do think you made the right choice with the third one.
It looks great so far. I really like the coast lines and those inner bodies of water.

You're making me want to try artrage for painting. Looks much better than PS for some things.
I also find your approach to this quite interesting. Very different from how I work.
It is always great to see how other people approach their work flow and technique.

Looking forward to more progress on this piece.

[snodsy]

This is a really nice study, I'm sure all this pre work will pay off. I'll have to try that perspective tilt in Photoshop, haven't used that. Really like the water coloring, nice depth. Great job so far