Recently I’ve been making some new artwork for my portfolio to give it a little boost and show some of the new skills I’ve been learning, a little art update you could say. A new artwork I finished earlier this year is a realistic digital painting / digital art background of a chase at night in a futuristic city, seen below. The artwork is created in the style of a key frame concept or a semi realistic illustration.

In this post, I’ll give you a sneak peek at my art process when creating realistic and detailed digital art.

• Key Frame Concept – A concept painting that is used to establish the mood and feeling of a ‘key’ (important) scene in cinematics that’s relevant to the plot.
• Illustration – An image representing an idea, concept, or text that is used for digital or print media.

Digital Painting Art Update 1

Sci Fi Art | Night Chase Realistic Digital Painting

The key frame or illustration I created is my take on chase happening in a futuristic sci fi city.

The digital art background has towering buildings and skyscrapers against a sky filled with dappled lights.

The picture shown is the final art update.

I have some difficulty creating dynamic artwork, partly because my main focus are backgrounds and environments which are usually pretty static. So, I’m not too much of a character designer or artist as characters in a scene can really help tell a story and show action, where landscapes normally don’t.

For this scene, I wanted to show a character being chased by some bad guys because it gave me an opportunity to create some characters in a scene and show off some dynamic character poses with art reference. I loved the idea of a vigilante jumping between buildings to make it seem like he was almost flying through a spotlight.

I chose to create the scene at night to give a more dramatic feel and to give the city a darker side (no pun intended).

Normally I don’t spend more than 8-10 hours on an artwork (depending on what it is). But for this piece, since I was applying a few new techniques and creating a realistic digital painting, it took me a little longer because I was processing the information while also figuring out how to replicate the commands in a digital art program.

How I Start Creating a Digital Art Background

As detailed as the final image looks, I take a good amount of time to plan things out first before I make a finished piece. Doing this speeds up my process so I don’t spend countless hours trying to figure out what’s working while trying to come up with color, value, or anything else at the same time.

It’s so much easier for me to do things step by step especially when creating a realistic digital painting in a sci-fi art style. It makes doing any art update faster and easier.

Sketching

The first step for me is to draw a quick sketch.

I make these as basic as possible so I don’t get caught up in wasting time on unnecessary details. It really slows you down and keeps you from focusing on the bigger picture (again, no pun intended).

Since I wanted to draw a chase scene, I sketched in some buildings and blocked in a couple of characters.

Once I had a composition I liked, I updated the art by filling it in with value.

Value is how light or dark an object is. You may probably recognize the term as ‘shading’ instead.

Adding very simple value or shading to my sketch helps me establish a general idea of what the final image will look like. This is important because I use it as a base or reference image when creating the final version.

If you’re a beginner and would like to learn how to draw the right way & be successful at it, check out this helpful post on How to Start Drawing with No Art Experience, filled with the stuff art teachers don’t talk about!

Making a Digital Art Background

Normally, I would just start painting in details at this stage but for this art update portion, I decided to use a bit of 3D to help me block in the surrounding area to help speed up the process.

I made some basic shapes and blocked in what’s supposed to be futuristic buildings.

The 3D program I used is Blender. What I love about Blender is that it’s a powerful 3D program great for beginners like myself and best of all, it’s free! You can click here to download Blender for free and start experimenting with some modeling!

I tried to get my 3D block in as close to the buildings in my previous sketch as possible while also trying to match the angle I drew.

Since the 3D image is a base, I made some updated art changes to it, so it matches better with what I was going for.

Painting a Realistic Digital Painting by Adding Color & Details

Once I made changes to the 3D block in, I started painting over the image in a digital program.

As you can see between the above and below images, I removed some elements from the 3D render that weren’t fitting in with my original sketch.

For this next part of the art update, I added a bit of color and started adding some details to the buildings to help make the whole scene come together.

I started defining some of the characters a bit with some light detail.

In this stage I’m experimenting a bit with digital art background effects like rain and smoke. It helps give this sci fi art a more realistic digital painting effect.

I liked the look of those realistic illustration effects but ultimately took the rain out because it was too distracting.

It’s important to self-critique your work, especially when working making art updates or towards a finished piece or giving it a little art update because you can start catching what elements are working well and which ones need to be improved. It’s a quick way to train your eye into recognizing compositional mistakes and will improve your drawing skills immensely.

Final Realistic Illustration in a Sci Fi Art Style

After a lot of detailing, self-critiquing, and refinement of characters, I finally ended up with the realistic illustration you see below – a mysterious chase scene with both the city and characters in question, shrouded in darkness.

As the chase commences, a futuristic cop on the bottom left catches a glimpse of the action just in time, while the hero seemingly glides across the towering rooftops avoiding the grasp of his pursuers.

Check Out More Amazing Artwork & Drawing Tips!

If you’d like to see more amazing artwork or want to start making your own, check out some of these inspiring and helpful articles below!

• Behind the Scenes: Working as a 2D Concept Artist | Artist Interview
• NFT Art Theft: Why You Need to Protect Your Digital Art Right Now | Post
• How to Start Drawing with No Art Experience, the Right Way | Post
• 6 Best Figure Drawing Poses for Art Reference for Stunning Character Designs | Post
• Beginner Tips When Sketching on Silky Smooth Drawing Paper | Post
• 25 Creepy Yet Inspiring SMT Nocturne Fan Art Drawings | Post
• Free Download Studio Ghibli Fan Art Phone Wallpaper Backgrounds | Freebie
• How to Easily Draw Stylized Little Nightmares ‘Six’ Fan Art | Post
• Epic “The Matrix” Fan Art Location Photoshoot for Heroic &Imaginative Art Inspiration | Post
• How to Make Your Own Super Mario Fan Art with Easy Drawing Ideas  | Post

Hope you enjoyed this sci fi realistic digital painting art update and see you in the next post!