I’ve been a longtime fan of Stonemaier Games’ epic steampunk board game called Scythe, especially when it comes to the character art. In fact, it was the artwork that made me want to buy the game in the first place. These are the leaders of two of the factions on the map—Anna of Polania and Olga of the Russviets.
Anna
Olga
I started with the basic frame of the characters:
Then I added some texture lines and details, as well as heavier shadows:
And then I added this whole layer of lighting and shading on a layer set to overlay:
To get the final product:
On Olga below you’ll see that I followed almost the same process, but I split up the lighting and the shading into two separate layers.
