
As promised, indulgent fantasy stuff is back! (Slowly – I caught a bad cold this week which is slowing me down these last few days!)
I was eager to start a new scene painting after finishing all those still lifes last weekend. Rolling around my head was this idea that Vince and Airika might go adventuring in some kind of hall of mirrors, so I sketched it out…

Then I decided this scene needed Tren – after all, it’s always wise to bring a healer. 🙂

Render, render, render… here I am trying to get a good sense of where the light parts are and where the dark parts are.
Tren tends to wear brighter blues/greys but Vince and Airika both wear black and browns/neutrals at this point in the story when they’re still n00bs. 
I’ve been trying to give my scenes a stronger sense of depth, so I pulled Tren into the background and made her lighter. So far so good. 
More rendering – mostly trying to get faces established, because if the faces aren’t right, nothing’s right. 🙂
More rendering. At this point I decide I don’t like the boxy hallway scene over Airika’s head on the right, so…
…I open it up a bit! (See below)
Much better. I also turn the wall to the left of Tren into a series of windows. At this point, I’m thinking this is probably a palace room belonging to a certain necromancer we met earlier on this blog, which gives me an ideal I’ll reveal further down. 😉

Below, I changed Tren’s staff position after Jim suggested she was opening a can of whoop ass. Not that she isn’t, it’s just that she’s putting the staff together, not taking it apart, and I think the previous version looked more like the latter than the former.

From here, we get into smaller details that are harder to pick out. I kept trying out different faces and sword poses for Vince. That blue sword has to go in his right hand, and I didn’t like the way the scene looked when flipped horizontally, so I just changed the way he’s holding his weapons. Plus, Airika is right-handed as well, so this keeps things accurate for her, too. (Now if only I kept their clothes this consistent across paintings :P)
More faces and minor details. It’s always hard to get their faces right. 
Final lighting touchups, more spiderwebs, repainted Airika’s face again, and the mirror reflection.

I didn’t want to spoil it earlier, but that’s totally not Vince. It’s a trick by Lady Jozlynn, the necromancer and illusionist Airika woke up earlier. 😛
How long has it been her in disguise? Tren is already suspicious and putting her staff together, but Airika’s just now realizing that they are about to have their first battle with a very powerful foe…