ConceptTutorial

Thumbnails:

One of my biggest problems as an artist is that I get too caught up in details. As a result I fail to see the big picture. If you look at most of my paintings you will see it for yourself...the texturing and details are highly intricate, but my shapes and forms are often quite basic.

For a painting like this I needed to take an impressionist approach. One way of doing this was to work on a small scale...so small that it would be impossible for me to get lost in details. This would force me to focus on form, colour and tone only.

Working at a size of 400x300 pixels, I began blocking in the main features of the painting - hell, heaven and the chasm between.

Next I started adding some form, including the jagged rocks and peaks. I also added in a firey sky.

I could go from here to adding in some more features. At such a reduced scale I was still working with an impression rather than intricate details and it was allowing me to see the full picture, as if from a distance.

However, as I continued to develop my thumbnails I felt as though I was straying from my vision. It was looking bright and colourful, almost cartoonlike, whereas I held a much more sombre picture in mind. I also felt like the tower and the bright lava stole too much attention, which would cause a big problem once my figures were painted into the scene.

Luckily, a thumbnail doesn't take long to paint so it's not so hard to scrap it and go back to the drawing board... which is exactly what I did.