1.Wire frame

Firstly to do a painting of architecture it makes it a lot easier if you can draw upon some guide lines. To do this I mocked up a very simple 3d model of all the main shapes in a 3d package. I then rendered off a wireframe of the scene.

2. Blocking in some colour

Using a flat render and then wireframe on another layer set as a very transparent additive layer I block in some colour. As the background to start with is grey I tend to just add dark layers to begin with to give a surface for lighter colours later on. I painted at this stage with a very large mostly transparent brush

3.Perspective lines

Producing images of architecture is quite fiddly as everything must have perfect perspective to look right. To help with this I render up another scene where I have put a box texture on all objects. This means every object has numerous guide lines for details like windows/highlights and other details.

4. Adding more detail

With the main light and dark areas worked out I start to work in more details using smaller brushes. I tend to work with very transparent brushes to start with, partly so there is a nice variation in colours and also because I am less sure of what I want. As parts of the image start taking shape I increase the opacity of the brushes.

5.Sorting out light and dark

With the basic colours down I now just go over the image adding more highlights and shading in dark areas. I use the wireframe image to make masks when painting to get crisper lines to sharpen things up. All that is left to do is add a few more details.

6.Contrast and tinting

To finish off the picture I played around with the contast to bring out the highlights and shadows more and I also added a few sinister figures around the image (although they are a little bit too small to see in this image !). I also played around slightly with the colour balance as I felt the image was a bit too cold.

Click here for the full size image.