McKenna Flanagan

In 2019 when starting the project My Green Age, my team and I had the idea for a dome as the player character's house. It'd be something slightly futuristic and something that would be a stark contrast to the land around it, both at the beginning when the land is barren and later on when there's vegetation. Back then, I didn't have the skills nor the time to paint a full art piece of what I envisioned. During the project, what mattered most was getting plans down in 2D to move them into 3D modeling production as soon as possible. So now, revisiting this concept art I was able to go create the landscape and the dome as I imagined it.

Below are the two initial concepts for the dome area. Another aspect added for the second draft of the concept art was what we'd consider an idealized version of a completed forest to look like. My intent in the second image was to create a sense of depth and age in the forest, as though it went on for a great distance. The quickest way to do that was via darker shades and less defined shape.

first dome draft, 2019

dome and forest draft, 2019

For this new version, I wanted to make a hazy, soft meadow where the dome was not at the very center. I wanted it to feel as though the viewer had come upon it by walking through the forest and into the clearing.

Using Blender, I made a rudimentary draft of what shapes I wanted to go for, as well as testing angles and noting the distance between important landmarks. After this, Taking a screenshot, I moved into Clip Studio Paint, where I painted over it and made a rough color plan.

I refined each aspect of the piece in sections with little overlap. Foreground trees, grass, background trees, and finally the dome. At the end I rounded out all other details and then added my favorite part: the glow on the dome and the grass around it.

1 minute painting timelapse