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Welcome back to a new installment of digital art, as usual, this is a commission made for @smanuels as part of the project I have been commissioned to illustrate. This character is a giant bird, which, as its name says, is the guardian of the floating vault that can be seen in the distance.

The roof of the vault is the nest of Amatheus, but it is made with the same rock of the building, so the bird and the vault are directly linked, it would not be strange that any damage to the castle affects the guardian himself, making his protection absolute and unbreakable. So if you see a castle in the heights do not approach, better pose on the ground and accompany me to see the step by step of this illustration.

Tools:

• Wacom Intuos 4
• Photoshop
• Brushes courtesy of Imad Awan: Download here

-Step 1:

The client asked me specifically that the bird should stand out more than the castle, so I started the sketch establishing the bird as the protagonist of the illustration and letting the vault float a few hundred meters below and with the details to the minimum.

-Step 2:

Once the outline is ready, with a hard tip brush, I filled the inside of the bird and the castle, both in separate layers, and experimented a little with the colors of the sky, to which I wanted to add a little drama, avoiding the boring and typical blue sky with white clouds.

-Step 3:

The bird's plumage had to be emerald, so I went straight to google to find a picture of this gemstone. Once I had the image, I used the eyedropper to take the different color tones for the lights and shadows of the plumage, leaving the color palette sample aside.

-Step 4:

With my beloved cloud brushes, I started building the sky, making "artificial" and "organic" clouds with some soft brushes and some harder ones. Continuing with the sky, I focused on the vault, detailing the building with a marbleized texture. Finally, with the airbrush, I proceeded to render the bird's plumage, correcting all, or well, almost all the badly defined strokes in the illustration, thus improving the quality and definition of the illustration.

Tell me in the comments that you imagine when you see this illustration.

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I'll leave you a little gif with the whole process in it, so you can better appreciate the step by step.

See you in a future post!

Thank You for Supporting My Artwork

@HADLEY4RT