Creatures of the Abyss

The Abyssal Mountains stretched for miles along the border between Abydell and Khannar and, though all the ways around added days on to your journey, few dared to take the mountain paths for these mountains were unlike any others. They were riddled with pits. Giant, seemingly endless chasms shrouded in mystery, legend, and fear. Avoiding them was treacherous, as the slip of a horse's hooves or the sudden tumbling of crumbling rocks from the peaks above could plummet you into their depths, but it was not this fear that kept travellers from journeying through the mountains........... it was the creatures that called these chasms 'home'.

It's finished! I put the finishing touches on it over the weekend. I had absolutely no plan for this painting in the beginning. I just knew that I wanted to use some of the brushes that I've been working on and, after looking at several other digital paintings for inspiration, I just picked a couple of colours and had at it. The more I painted, the more it changed and a concept started to come together. I had to change things up a bit when I realized that the forefront row of mountains were too oversized for the original perspective I'd been aiming for. I'd vaguely been aiming for more of an epic, fantasy landscape viewed from a distance, but, because of the scale of those mountains, it made it look like the viewer was actually in those mountains rather than looking at them from a ways off. With that in mind, I decided to make the foreground into a giant pit with a bit of a cliff face overlook. Next came the waterfalls and the sentinel columns with magical crystals. I was just about finished, but then the I thought it would be a great idea to put a creature coming out of the pit and make the columns a protective defense against it. Thus, you end up with a kraken in the middle of mountain range! Because, why not? It's the very last place you'd expect such a creature which is what made me love the idea.

I hadn't planned on using a limited colour palette, but, once I picked my initial colours, everything else just jarred with them so I ran with it. I think it makes it a stronger image and makes it more eerie.

Because I was testing out some of my brushes, I painted this one in Photoshop CS6 instead of Corel Painter. The brush pack will be a set of 35 brushes and will be made available later this week. I am selling the pack on Gumroad, but, as usual, it is available to supporters on Subscribe Star or Patreon patrons for free.

So, what do you think?

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