Concept Art: Approaching Rapa Nui

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The silhouette of Rapa Nui from a distance. Drawn and painted with Clip Studio Paint EX. My reference was a photo from John Santic’s account of his 2004 voyage to Easter Island. It’s a fascinating read.

Today I fiddled with my blog, experimented with some digital brushes, and made a few concept drawings. The picture above is one of them — Rapa Nui as it would look as you approach it by sea.

The plot for my third book is evolving. I think there’s going to be a whale involved, and maybe a dolphin. The plot is a big stew bubbling in my brain. While the plot is cooking, I’m working on improving my painting of water, waves, and clouds.

Part of my frustration for the past few weeks is that I’m having a hard time finding my way with Rebelle 4. My intention was to develop a realistic oil painting style that would work for my books. I was thinking of realism in the style of John Singer Sargent — a kind of impressionistic realism. Rebelle 4 has the best digital representation of watercolor and oil painting, but for reasons unknown, I’m not adjusting to it. Perhaps it’s because I have no experience with oil painting. Perhap’s it’s because I’ve grown so comfortable with Clip Studio Paint that my mind resists and admonishes me: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! Double down on CSP!

Tools & Resources

Learning About Concept Art

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My version of Victor Staris landscape. Check out Victor Staris’ Youtube channel

My goal is to create a world for my characters. For the first book I didn’t have the chops to create an environment for my characters. For my second book, I worked on creating background images for most scenes. Now I want to be able to create a world for my characters…and for myself. I love concept art, especially fantasy concept art like that in the Lord of the Ring’s movies. I especially admire the paintings of Maxfield Parish. His golden clouds rocky my boat.

I’ve painted this scene from Victor’s tutorial four times. I get a little better every time. I started the painting using Corel Painter, but I became frustrated when I couldn’t find a suitable brush among the thousand or so in that program. Instead, I imported Victor Staris’ Photoshop brushes into Clip Studio Paint, which now can import Photoshop brushes. They work great in CSP. Victor generously shares his personal brushes with the world. Victor, thanks!