Abandoned - Post Apocalyptic Style Digital Painting With Process

Hi everyone, sharing with you all a recent post apocalyptic scene and the process in creating it. I thought this scene could tell a story of an escape but a disaster caused the boat to become useless and left abandoned for nature to take over. My focus on this piece was on improving the foliage compared to my previous pieces. I only used a brush set in the shape of foliage and it worked because it was quite subtle in the scene however, a close up scene like this required more realism so I used the clone tool from a reference photo.

This is the overall final piece,

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This was the reference photo I based my inspiration on

Source

Step 1

I used this boat as a reference image

Step 2

I lowered the saturation and brightness and removed parts of the boats to make it look wrecked.

Added some dirt to the boat and waters using a brush.

Step 4

I start adding props such as the rocks by the boat, life float and pillars with chains.

Life Float
rocks source

Step 5

I start adding moss using the clone tool from the reference images. This creates more realism compared to my previous method. I think about where the light would hit the parts of the scene causing the moss to spread.

Source
Source

Step 6

I then using some of the mossy water from the original reference and add it in several places.

Step 7

The final step involved using the burn and dodge tool to make areas darker or lighter depending on where the light hit them. I added a slight fog overlay on this scene but made it very subtle and it did not require much light so just added a few light rays to the scene. After flattening the image I also changed the levels and contrast a little to create the final piece.

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Thanks for stopping by and for all of your support! :)

-@iansart