20,000 leagues under the sea concept art - first attempts

These are the first underwater scenes i did using photoshop, not that great, neither of them are finished because i was going to put characters in to them, which would have taken the look of the environment away.

The image below was a two minute sketch, just to get ideas of what i wanted to do.. One of my final pieces has come from this design. It represents the part of the story when they are travelling through the shallow waters in the sea, it is a sort of rocky passageway.



The next set of images are a break down of the scene where Nemo and his companions see the sharks. At the time of the drawing i produced, i used the sharks and the characters as a main focal point, which after some helpful criticized made me realize that this image would not be that great. So i decided to just practice my photoshop skills and try out as many techniques i could to get that underwater feel.

One thing i did learn from this piece, was that i have far too many layers, which causes me to keep stopping and starting. This first image is the starting point for the design. At this stage, it looks too much like an actual pathway.



I then focused on the background colors. Id already looked at tutorials on how to get a sea effect, however im not sure if this sort of style should be used when in the depths of the sea.



I then concentrated on the foreground. I wanted to make the scene look as if i was looking down into some sort of valley and watching what was going on. So by putting something in the foreground, automatically giving it depth.

Once again i looked at tutorials on how to get texture in rocks. The final outcome wasnt that great, but i can only improve.



I researched coral and underwater plants so that i could gain some sort of idea on how underwater life should look. The plant in the foreground isnt that bad, i dont think there is enough detail in it though.



The reason i added the rocks into the background, was becuase it gave the feel that after them, it was just the abyss, complete darkness. Also in the story, it says the characters hide behind rocks.



Finally i added atmosphere, to give the image an even greater sense of depth, some sort of mist, or where the sand had swirled around. I dont really feel that the final outcome is that strong, i think i used to much color in the entire image and feel that it should be darker, as it is at great depths.