The Process of Concept Scenes?

[Zehna]

Morning all!

This morning I got a great idea--I want to paint a scene of my druid (character from WoW) with my guild members in the background, taking down a big bad fantasy creature!

So, I scooped up my tablet and began sketching thumb nails of how I wanted the scene to lay out. Low and behold, to my surprise... I could get nothing to look 'correct' at all.

It seemed easy to me--set a horizon line, and gesture in the characters. Well, apparently, not-so-much. I want to draw a scene like this because in a few later years I want to be a concept artist. It's what I've been practicing and shooting for--so, obviously, I have to practice scenes. So, my question here is:

- Where do I start?
- How do I make my characters look as if they're not floating in the middle of nowhere?
- Should I sketch the complete background first?

Knowing your process would be great, too. And thank you ahead of time everyone for all of your help!

[dpaint]

I think you need to add lighting. once you rough in a horizon and figures light helps to anchor the scene. The thumbmnails should have the light and shadow planes in them to give you a sense of place. After you do a couple of those to get some different lighting situations then you can do some little color comps and pick the one you like the best and set up some reference to shoot and make a larger image refining the roughs.