Dappled Canopies

“Under the dappled canopies, they traversed the ancient forest, and crossed mystic waters. “

This is one of probably several forest pieces. I wanted the feeling of the forest to be a vast expanse..I wanted to sprinkle some ruins here and there into the landscape as well. Might be hard to notice at first, but there is a lower half of centaur statue on the upper right, to tie into fallen piece of ruin that’s like a ramp down to the crossing. And I threw in some birds last minute…because I like birds :)

Finished piece with the character colors.

Initial sketch. I really love forest setups and love drawing trees. There’s so much movement that can be expressed with them. Also something about overcoming a simple obstacle like crossing the river under the warm dappled canopy is really comforting.

First block in. It’s really hard to try and capture what I imagined, but I was wanting some kind of warm dappled lighting shining through into the cool shaded canopy.

My second attempt at trying to achieve it.. and I like it a lot more. it’s a much cooler palette overall, but missing the dappled lighting. Fleshed out some more of the elements.