Arrival in Salvador

This painting will be part of the image gallery on the website and the book “The Elephant and Macaw Banner”, it will help build the universe created by Christopher Kastensmidt in a series of stories about the adventures of Gerard van Oost and Oludara in Colonial Brazil.

And it is a permanent part of the Whitney Heritage Plantation Museum in New Orleans.

Christopher has a making-of in English about the idea around this painting:

Part-1

Part-2

The process:

First I created a mood-board with the writer, so I was able to align my vision with the writer’s expectations.

I modeled the main vessels and Salvador in 3D. This would allow me to have a more dynamic dialogue with Chris (Writer), and we could choose the best angle for this painting. Furthermore, 3D solves a lot of the perspective and lighting work that serves as the basis for painting.

Having chosen the Angle, I started a 2-hour speedpainting. This would give me a better sense of volume, light and color.

In another step, I defined details such as light and colors more objectively. At this point the painting takes on a format close to the final one. With meetings about the moodboard, research on the city and painting style, as well as the design of the ships, I had already consumed about 8 hours of work up to this point.

After a few more hours adding details this is the final version of the painting.

I did some more art, just for fun…

Christopher (writer), wanted the painting with vibrant colors and so it was delivered, but my feeling was that the painting needed a better reading, less vibrant colors to increase realism, details of light and shadow that could increase the drama of the scene and finally cutting the scene, leaving it better framed. With these changes in mind, the result after another 4 hours invested looked like this:

These illustrations are in the short stories of Christopher Kastensmidt. Visit your website: www.eamb.org