You've got yourself a deal there Gurch.

That central character is far too clean cut. So I weathered him a bit.

Weazle: I really like the atmosphere of your image, the darkness, the torch, entering the cave, pretty cool.
 

Ahoy me hearties!
 

Update on my progress? Well, as I said i'd probably be painting just the background  for about a day and half and its been a day and half and i think its shaping up pretty well.

Checking out the WIP below, thats about 12 hours work right there. I can't believe my PSD is like 500mb! Load & Save times => Gah! (Resolution is like 6500x10000)

Theres 24 layers at the moment, pretty much all of it is wood, divided up into three sections. Everything has been painted from scratch using primarily three variations of the hard round, one hand drawn textured brush and two spackled brushes.

If you like the wood i've painted, Henning Ludvigsen provides all the tips you need for great wood on Page 43 of Issue 5!

I've only *just* started the sea and sky. The sea water you see only took me about 15 minutes and was painted using a custom brush i whipped up in a couple seconds plus the blur tool (its not done yet though). For the brush its just a  couple of horizontal tear drop shaped lines I drew and blurred.

I'd say the background is about 60%ish done. Once i've properly started the sky, and decided on the colours, thats when ill go over all the wood and ropes with colours from the atmosphere so that all the elements of this background appear more unified. At the moment, you can see that some elements kind of stand out awkwardly.

Thanks for lookin'!

Eaglecaste:

That central character is far too clean cut. So I weathered him a bit.

Cross between Johnny Depp 'n Bob the Berserker? 

I've only *just* started the sea and sky. The sea water you see only took me about 15 minutes and was painted using a custom brush i whipped up in a couple seconds plus the blur tool (its not done yet though). For the brush its just a  couple of horizontal tear drop shaped lines I drew and blurred.

Now that's a good brush.  I have to do a lot of sea scapes, so tips on what sort of brush would be well appreciated.

Just one tiny thing, and it is so tiny it could be a barnacle on a blue whale (yo ho, er) cos the rest of the image is so stonkingly impressive - and that is that you might want to look at the perspective on the sea.  It could do, i think, with some distance graded colour desaturation which you have in the far ground but not so much in the middle ground, and smaller waves towards the rear.  Sky is excellent.  When I am putting skies together I create them flat, as a huge sheet, much bigger than the final image, then paste it into the image and use the perspective tool, making sure that the 'thin end' stays on the image.

wow some brilliant wips comming along, im having a bash at this myself

crits welcome 

Tector's right 'bout that pirate, Eagle. He looks like the bastid offspring of J Depp and Bob the Berserker. Certainly not to be messed with.

Having said that don't all grizzled looking pirates with goaties look like Depp! 

Think I'm nearing the end of this. PICK HOLES IN IT :D

Charco.
Great work!  My only thing is my eyes are drawn to the island in the back.  It has just as much details as the characters in the front yet it's further away.  Other than that... I love what you've done.  Great work.

Awesome work guys, love the different takes on the subject.

Here's a bit of background work........

GixGidea:

Charco.
Great work!  My only thing is my eyes are drawn to the island in the back.  It has just as much details as the characters in the front yet it's further away.  Other than that... I love what you've done.  Great work.

 

 Cheers Gix, I agree with you. Shall fix it shortly.