Lava Knight

This piece was to create a convincing lava creature. I decided to create a knight made entirely of lava inside a suit of armour.

I started by sketching out an idea using the 8 heads method for scale.

I found this useful for proportions of the body.

Next I refined my design into a more interesting pose.

Keeping my sketch outline I painted in some simple values using a set of white to black swatches.

I then created a new values layer to give the armour detail. I kept in mind that the lava glow would be coming from any gaps in the armour so I highlighted each overlapping piece of plate armour so when I paint in my glows they will stand out.

At this stage the knight as looking very soft so I added a rock texture in give the armour a worn rocky look/

Now I could start painting in my glows. Using an colour dodge layer I took an orange colour and painted with a soft edged brush. As it went over the highlights the colour turned to yellow and anything darker moved it to orange and red which worked perfectly for a lava glow.

Finnaly I used a smoke effect to mask areas of the painting I was not satisfied with to save time in touching them up and added a levels layer to make the knight pop from the background.

Using an orange photofilter I made the knight and the background blend together while adding a slight orange glow to the smoke behing the knight for effect.

I am very happy with how this turned out but should try and not rely on the smoke effect to cover up lazy work.