The face of Gaia

My interpretation of Gaia, mother earth.

I imagined a beautiful women who is also a tree. Quite simple reasoning for a simple man. This is me trying to mix concept painting with a technique I was using from Patrick Brown's tutorials which up until recently was the only way I could get a decent result from colouring. Mind I still need to learn my colour theory but I'm getting there. This piece isn't completely where I wanted it to be however I feel that's just from a lack of knowlage, so I'll leave it as is and perhaps come back to it when I have a complete skill set. Which is also the same thing I said about my last piece... and the piece before that... and the one before that... Oh boy.

So I've skipped a few steps but This is the finished piece. Major colour and level adjustments along with more blending within the lighting and a small lighting effect at the top of her head that came out rather well. Also, I changed the background.

Here I have added lighting and changed up some colours through colour balance and overlay layers. I've also added some highlights the lines in her skin/bark to add a bit more tree like structure to her face.

So the base shadows are done and I've colored the hair and the waterfall body/clothes. I really hope that comes across actually.

Started adding shadows and have painted in a background. I've found that doing the background first helps me light later on.

Flats! or blocks! Or whatever people decide to call them.

The basic line art just for reference.