Bringing this artwork together was the fun part. By the time I reached this stage, most of the hard work was done. The challenge here was perfecting the volumetric lighting, and balancing the objects in the composition so the viewer’s eye flows naturally across the piece. Setting the camera optics and strategically placing the lights was like crafting a scene in a studio. Luckily, my experience as a studio photographer came in handy. Once I realised I could mimic a real-world lighting setup within Keyshot, it all started to feel more intuitive.
Using a combination of a main spotlight, fill lights and rim lights, I was able to quickly adjust the placement and intensity to get the effect I wanted. But the work didn’t stop there. After rendering the scene, I brought it into Photoshop for the final tweaks, cleaning up the artwork and refining it until I was fully satisfied with the results. To complete the composition, I added a few variations of quotes I loved from the Beowulf saga, which helped tie the visual storytelling to the epic themes of the narrative.
My original concept was to create a dark and brooding digital art piece, one that would captivate the viewer with its intensity and detail. Incorporating the skull was central to my vision, and as the concept evolved, it became the foundation for the work you see today.
The rendered size of this digital piece is particularly exciting, it allows me to view it in its entirety or zoom in so the skull fills the entire screen, revealing every intricate detail.
Takeaways from this project? It took way longer than expected! Most of that was due to the steep learning curve with ZBrush. But would I use it again? Absolutely. The depth and flexibility it offers were worth every moment of frustration.
I hope this piece resonates with you as much as it does with me. It’s been a rewarding journey, and I can’t wait to dive into the next chapter of this series. Let me know your thoughts, I’d love to hear how this artwork connects with you!
The Process
Once I had created all the main assets it was time to put them together in 3D space.
You might have noticed a couple of small but significant details in the composition, the crucifix and the pentagram. They were pretty straightforward to create, but their symbolic weight adds a lot to the overall piece. Once everything was aligned in 3D space, I exported it to Keyshot, where the real magic happens, adding the lights and materials to bring the scene to life.
Being a photographer in real life definitely comes in handy here. I’ve worked as a commercial photographer for years, so I’m pretty familiar with using studio lights. That experience really paid off when it came to setting up the lighting in this virtual environment. I was able to take what I know about spotlights and lighting panels and apply it in Keyshot to create a dramatic setup. It was perfect for adding volumetric lighting and achieving the exact look I wanted.
Once I was happy with the lighting, I moved on to adding materials to see how they interacted with the light, whether they absorbed or reflected it. From there, I added the volumetric lighting effects in Keyshot and rendered everything out, ready for some fine-tuning in Photoshop.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t completely satisfied with how the red light was being refracted by the fog in Keyshot. So, I took matters into my own hands in Photoshop. I generated some random cloud layers, added a colour overlay, and masked them out, painting them exactly where I wanted. It adds a touch more menace to the piece, don’t you think?
Other tweaks included cleaning up stray clay brush marks I hadn’t noticed earlier on the giant’s hilt. I also desaturated the colours a bit to give the piece a more cohesive, atmospheric feel. If you compare the before and after images, you’ll notice I relit part of the dragon’s muzzle below the skull to soften the shadows. That was added as a separate layer in Photoshop and masked in.
To finish it all off, I added a quote from Beowulf. There were several I loved, so I created a few options before settling on the one I felt tied the composition together perfectly.
It’s always satisfying to see how those final tweaks bring everything together—it’s the little details that make all the difference! Let me know what you think of the finished piece. Does the mood come across the way I intended? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
