CGSociety

The creator of the Pirates of the Grey Coast setting in D&D 4E needed a cover for his book- he wanted an image depicting these two characters falling through the ship's rigging locked in mortal combat, while a horrible storm at sea raged around them.

I decided a strong perspective looking up at the characters as they fall from the top sail of the main mast would be a great composition for action and motion.

The foreshortening of the character's rather dynamic poses was a difficult thing to tackle, as was the lighting- I wanted a strong back lighting from the lightning to frame them, but still needed to give them a good dose of light from the front to make them read properly. I think I did well at this, though admittedly there are a few discrepancies for the sake of character visibility and detail.

This was done over about 1 week all in Photoshop with no reference whatsoever.