'Sword & Maiden' is a 2D sidescroller level design that takes place in a lush and vibrant forest, but as the player progresses the seemingly innocent forest transforms into a eerie and unpredictable place. There's a force in this forest, an old curse full of resentment that drains the forest of it's life. The once vibrant trees seem to dull and become nothing but bare branches, the soft grass underneath your feet makes place for rough stones and debree. You find yourself amidst the ancient ruins of a long forgotten civilization but yet, somehow, you feel strangely at home. 

I like to focus my art around creating other worlds, a brand new universe for an individual with a longing for adventure to explorer.

The full image is 6646 by 1080 pixels at a resolution of 300 pixels per inch 

I started by sketching the fore- and middle ground. I tend to apply some shading to my sketches so it's easier for me to visualise the final product. I also tend to skip clean line-art as I'll just paint over everything anyway, so a sketch like this is enough for me to work off of. I simply reduce the opacity of my sketch to about 30%, create a new layer and start slapping colour on that bad boy untill it starts to look like something semi presentable. 

The image above is the background of the level. I tried to apply as many techniques I had been taught, like atmospheric perspective, so the trees, shrubbery and rocks have taken on a similar shade to the background, which in the completed image will create the illusion of distance and depth. 

This is the middleground where most detailing took place and the transition between the lush forest and ruins is most apparent. To make it visually appealing and for the sake of consistency most shading has been done with a cooler shade compared to the main color of an object. For example, the warm brown trees have cooler, more blue shading, but warmer and brighter highlights, same goes for the rocks and rubble. Using this as a main rule I found myself being able to quickly work through a fairly large image, without things looking disconnected between multiple drawing sessions. 

The foreground will be the playing field which the player will be able to interact with. 

Underneath are some simple platforms that are used in addition to the foreground so the player can move from point A to B.

And finally two item designs used in the game, a quiver filled with arrows to slay thine enemy and a potion, incase said enemy proves to be a bigger issue.