Marines Landing Process

1.Set a rough color tone and sketch a scene. Keep each objects in separate layers, so I have the background sketch, aircraft 1,2,3, and four plus the 3 characters in separate layers. 2. Paint the background using texture brush and lasso background elements from mid-ground. Hard edge on the light side and soft edge on the dark side for interest. 3. Silhouette out the sketches. 4. aircraft - add textures using layer mask. push and push with overlay and color dodge the highlights. Characters - using airbrush set the mid tone. use overlay to push and pull highlight and shadow. add bounce light and make a new layer under the silhouette to hit a very strong rim light. 5. Define shapes and add accent colors and detail lines. Bring in bounce lights. 6. Add atmosphere and soft light layer some textures. and add glows. Done! overall this took me about 3 hours. My composition choice was to have a big shape on the left with the foreground aircraft and I balanced the right side of the frame with smaller objects 3 aircraft and 3 characters (design is more interesting in odd numbers) I connected the 2 groups with the background arch.