Real worlds - Key art

GCPS KEY ART

I'm not confident at all in backgrounds and usually add a gradient or a funky pattern so I asked my friend to teach me. They suggested I downloaded a brush pack off of Gumroad: Link to the set I have This one in particular was free and states it is Royalty free to use. It took me a while to get used to and I didn't really branch out from the few brushes I got taught to use but I'm so proud of these and it was relatively easy to do once I got the hang of it.

Brush packs:

Brushes I used:

Process

• I started with sketching my characters pose and then blocking out some buildings with a big brush

• I then colour picked from an image of a sunset some warm colours and slowly added some darker colours like red.

• To blend them I used the smudge tool but also made sure that was set to a cloud brush because it merged the sharper edges together without ruining the blends

• I went back and forth with the sky till I was happy. I also added some shadow-like buildings that the GCPS could be jumping from

• I then added a street pole because the buildings just looked like blocks. This tied it together

• I then used my own reference to add the clothes and details for my character bit by bit

• I added my flat colours by using the fill tool and making my line-art a reference layer

• I finally used a mix of yellow and cell shades to add where I though light and shadow would hit from the clouds

Final GCPS key art:

MERCENARY KEY ART

For the mercenary character, I did basically the same process but tweaked it where needed. Instead of working on the sky as much, I needed to work on the grass and the different layers around the focal point to help with the depth.