This is a matte painting for one of my classes. I've put an absolute ton of time into it, much more than I expected to, but I'm really happy with the outcome for once.

The original file is 4000x2250, and I totaled in at 174 layers. Surprisingly, my Photoshop still ran flawlessly, but that many layers is still overdoing it, and it can become difficult and confusing to work sometimes.

I listened to this a lot while painting it, it sort of helps make it an experience. I'd definitely recommend turning it on while taking a look. Anyway, I really hope you like it.

<sub>As for inspiration, it's definitely a combination of Halo and Mass Effect, as well as John Carpenter's the Thing. Also inspired by Dusso's work, and all the fantastic imagery in the Star Wars Episode III artbook I just got. It's sort of a companion piece to another work I'm doing actually, but I'll explain that more when I finish the other one.

The idea here is sort of a civilization pulling power from artificial waterfalls in an extremely cold climate. I was more concerned with the technical and learning aspects of the piece than the originality, but hopefully the idea and execution seems fresh.</sub>

And, as promised, here is the walkthrough for the piece, you'll also find a link to videos of about 4 hours of it being worked on there too: