The Making of Alice: Madness Returns

I started the piece by creating the characters' bases in Poser 8. I also started playing the game and capturing various reference photos for costumes, set pieces, and such, though I didn't include that in the time for the piece overall. When I had those bases, I then created the geometry of the characters in the piece, using the round brush in Photoshop CS6. My intention, as shown here, was to originally have the setting in the Vale of Tears level, with the weeping Alice statue broken down, possibly from the Infernal Train running through it, and an army of Insidious Ruins surrounding Alice, the Cheshire Cat, and the Mad Hatter.

For the digital rough segments, I refined the geometry using the round brush set to pen pressure control. I decided, given that Hatter was there, and since I wanted to try to stay true to the game as much as I could for this one, that it would be better to have  the scene take place in the Hatter's Domain level. As such, I put the trio atop one of the floating checkerboard islands in the level, as well as roughing out where the floating tea kettle castle in the background would go. I next made the gears in the sky using the lasso tool and the bevel and emboss layer style.

I refined the roughs even further, remaking the entire piece with the pen tool. I added more gears to the sky, and added a lot more fine details to Alice, where most of the time I marked went to. Between detailing the Hobby Horse and Vorpal Blade weapons, detailing out her hair, and setting up the wrinkles and belts on her clothes, she is by far the most detailed thing I've done, digital painting or otherwise (writings not included), to date. I also created the title with the lasso tool and the bevel and emboss layer style.

I colorized the entire piece with the round brush set to pen pressure controls, the gaussian blur filter, and various layer opacities and blend modes. I also added all of the detail to the butterflies around Alice at this point in the process.

I added a light source outside of the image, and shaded accordingly with the round brush on pen pressure control with various colors and layer opacities. I added a metal texture to the buckles, Alice's weapons, and the castle, which I decided would likely, at that distance, have some cloud coverage. I also added more lighting and shading to the sky.


 Finally, I added more shading to the characters, as well as adding atmospheric effects at very low opacity.