This post continues Making of – Arrival in Salvador Painting – Part 1.

Once we’d agreed on the rough details of the composition, Leonardo began by collecting some references and creating a mood board:

Leonardo then modeled the scene in 3D.  This allowed him to get a good feel for both lighting and perspective of the scene and provide a vehicle to discuss them with me.

3D Perspective Tests

Amora offered some different options of perspective, but from the start I wanted Salvador to be tall and dominant in the background.

You can see that even in these early tests, the church appears as an important element.  This was also one of my requests.  The ship and the church, two important symbolic elements of Gerard’s arrival in Brazil, would each dominate one end of the painting.  The church, in fact, is intended to be the church mentioned in the first line of “The Fortuitous Meeting”.

(Side note: I even considered placing a small splotch of red over the cross (those who have read the story will understand the reference), but in the end I thought it would have just been lost.  For a high-res version, perhaps it might be worth it going back and adding that in.)

The next steps went quickly.  Amora began with a speed painting to get all the elements and basic colors in the right places.

Speed Painting

A second and third pass added in more color and lighting detail:

Then he performed extensive detail work to arrive at the final result:

Arrival in Salvador – Final Image

But Amora didn’t stop there.  He went on to create several variations of the painting, some of which appear in the artwork section of this site.

I hope you enjoyed this making of as much as I did writing it.  More on the world of The Elephant and Macaw Banner coming soon!

In 2007, shortly after creating Gerard van Oost and Oludara, I visited Salvador on a research trip.

While there, I had the pleasure of seeing the city of Salvador from the Bay of All Saints twice, once from Fort São Marcelo, and once when I visited some islands within the Bay by boat.

View of Fort São Marcelo from Salvador

View of Salvador from Fort São Marcelo

View of Salvador from the Bay of All Saints

Those experiences ingrained in my mind an image of the European ships arriving in that same port hundreds of years ago.  I could easily imagine Gerard’s arrival in Salvador.  It is a scene not contained in the stories, but one I thought could make a nice piece of art.

When I finally decided to have a shot at creating that scene, I chose Leonardo Amora Leite (or “Amora”, as he likes to be called) as the artist.  I chose him primarily because I’d worked with him for several years as a concept artist.  I’m a huge fan of Leonardo’s work in general.  His paintings tend to suggest a rich backstory to the image, and I’ve written one story and one poem inspired by his work.

But I also chose Amora because he’d painted a jaw-dropping pirate battle which made me certain he could get the right style for the Salvador painting:

“Pirate Ship” © Leonardo Amora Leite

Leonardo agreed to the project and we sat down together to discuss it.  I provided him with a rough sketch of what I imagined: a caravel sailing toward Salvador while the city loomed over it.  I also requested he use the vibrant, almost cartoon colors which are a staple of much of his work, as in the painting below:

“The Stone Giant” © Leonardo Amora

While this type of color scheme detracts from the realism of the piece, I felt it would give the painting the feeling of optimism and fantasy contained in the stories.

I also sent  over a few dozen painting and photo references, and a copy of the book “Images de Vilas e Cidades do Brasil Colonial” by Nestor Goulart Reis, by far the richest compilation of images of settlements in Colonial Brazil I’ve ever encountered.

In the next post, I’ll detail step-by-step how Leonardo arrived at the final painting.

Continued at: Making of – Arrival in Salvador – Part 2