The submarine forest creation

This is my process of creating my submarine forest (We will get to that later)

1:

Using the guide I posted yesterday, I started to fill in the spaces. I wanted to make sure the path through the middle was the main focus of the scene. The meaning behind this is this chapter is all about an expedition therefore exploration. I wanted to give a sense of 'what's round that corner?'

2:

I focused on the foreground first so I could experiment with depth using colours. The bushes have a mixture of pink and green leaves so I tried to blend the two together but I didn't want it to be 'tonelly bland' (not that mistake again).

3:

More colour added to the scene with the bushes. This would be applied to the 'Mid' Layer to make manourvering easier.

4:

More filling and I've added detail to the foreground trees and ground. Still using the guide obvoiusly.

5:

Not much to say at this stage of the process. KEEP IT IN THE LINES CHILDREN!!!

6:

I filled out the colour some more and started to experiment with the background colour to make it feel underwatery. Not quite yet...

But I have removed the guide to try clearing it up.

7:

This is where it starts to take place. I continued to edit the background to give it a 'deep, murky' look. Atmosphere was added to the 'mid' layer by using colour dodge and an opacity change causing a mist effect. I also used colour dodge to create beams of light coming from the trees.

8:

More detail in the objects and I added a shark in the background to simbolise the underwater and the chapter does include a shark.

9:

A scale image has been added so I can get a sense of size. The details not finilized yet. Not till the final one...