Background Complete

All right!  It’s been a ton of work, but finishing the intrepid, child mars-tronaut explorers at the top of the painting means the background for ‘Terra Incognita’ is finally complete!  So far I am extremely pleased with how it is all coming together.Painting the kids on Mars was a ridiculous amount of fun… particularly coming up with their environment suits. I’m definitely a fan of the bubble helmet. I think  it, along with the design of the air tanks, makes a nice, retro counter-balance to the black and silver color scheme. Just the sort of thing I might have imagined myself wearing when I was a kid with intentions of growing up to be an astronaut. I still plan on that, of course (who doesn’t)… but now I picture myself doing a little plein-air painting on the red planet. Hopefully some forward thinking chemist is working on a set of oil colors that will dry at -81 degrees Fahrenheit.Now to get to work on the foreground. In theory it should be relatively simple after painting that background. My reference material certainly is.