Making The Visit - Backgrounds

This background test image is the first one to tackle the problems of the cold and snow that play such a prominent role in the fairy tale. I'm feeling a little bit more confident with this image. It's starting to suggest the images I have in my head when I read the story. What I am trying to get at here is that it is not always a good idea to just sit down and carefully try to put on paper exactly what is in your imagination. Being too literal and faithful even to your own ideas can be a problem. I think it is better to have your ideas and let them be for a while. Then start making marks on paper or on screen and try to let the story itself come to life without a lot of effort from you. That's sort of what I'm up to. Let the movie sneak up on you. Sometimes it knows more about what to do than you do.

Anyway, this image uses oil paint, ink markers, pencil and a little direct shadow and snow painting in Flash. The image was mostly drawn in ArtRage again. The snowy ground, trees, forested hills, and sky are composed of 12 separate transparent layers.