Against all odds

My entry for the Cubebrush  #ARTWAR challenge. "The Grim Angel - against all odds."
The brief was to pick either Fantasy OR Sci Fi as contest topic and create a champion.

As always .. painting becomes a little personal ... 

I wanted to come up with something that we could all relate to in some way. 
The main highlight of this piece ... The Grim Angel ; she could be us in the real world, totally away from the crowd, trying to fight our own personal demons every single day. There are some of us who remain silent about it, while the rest of us confide in our friends and family.
The important is.... it's up to us to try and stay strong till the end... and eventually become our very own champion.

Technical info :
After a lot of experimentation .. i settled down for : 5165 x 5677 px
This gave me an option for a portrait crop as well, not worrying about revealing more of the artwork.

I used Photoshop CC 2015, mouse; Pen tool for blocking shapes, then hard / soft smudge brushes for fog, mist effects, specially to pull wispy shapes and thin strands.

Then, for the shading process, the "Adjustment layers" :- "CURVES" , "LEVELS" , "COLOR BALANCE" etc ... were used A LOT!! 

For the first time in this piece, i used "FIELD BLUR". This allowed me to blur certain areas and keep the rest in focus.

Many thanks to some of the participants who helped me out. Most importantly my friends, Dhiraj, Samar, Dnyanesh, Rohit, Hannah for helping me bring this together. ><


Concept sheet : nevs28.deviantart.com/art/The-…


 - - A NEW 4k version has been updated here, also check artwork progression : forums.cubebrush.co/t/art-war-… - -