Starting out with an idea I kind of jumped right into this piece. Conan post fight, steaming and covered in blood. :) I dug up some anatomy ref and other stuff that I felt was relevant and started to sketch in ink.

I enjoy using the digital ink pen to sketch- in a kind of scribbly way. As I added more detail I referenced fur and a bunch of anatomy books for my hands. I wanted the hands to be the hands of a killer...

I wanted Conan in snow to contrast his steaming body. I also wanted him to have an axe that looks like it could cut a man in two. After some thought I decided to give him a sword-less scabbard- the sword was lost during the fight.

Frazetta and Bisley, two of my most influential artists would develop detailed illustrations prior to a painting. That was my intent with this piece. To ink it first, then paint.

I put the two paintings that influenced this piece next to it. I wanted to start with their palette, and attempt to emulate their mood.

I created a series of three brushes each with more opacity than the next and began to block in the colours- starting with the background.

I referenced daytime snow variations and began detailing out the background using a larger chisel brush.

I toned down the saturation of the background and darkened it a little to help bring Conan out. I also wanted the steam to stand out as I was afraid that it would get lost. I also continued to detail out the anatomy using my custom brushes. I wanted the ink underpainting to show through in some places to give the whole piece a “gritty” feel.

I finished most of the painting and was pretty happy with most of my choices. One thing that was bothering me however was how dark and how saturated everything was looking. I felt I needed to move a little away from my original palette choice to help cool everything down.

After cooling everything down I felt I could place more emphasis on Conan’s body heat. I also felt that the background no longer fought with the character for attention. I wanted a blue shift for another reason... I needed to add blood.... lots of blood.

I found some great blood reference and went to town. I wanted him to look like he had been cutting bad guys up with a very large axe. :)

After adding the blood and playing with the steam for a bit I felt it was time to stop. I’m overall pretty happy with it. :) Hope you like it.