1. Start with your flats. Whenever possible, keep the horizon line tilted ("Dutch tilt") for maximum effect. Keep the dominant color of the backgrounds blue-ish and the foregrounds orange-ish.

2. Begin with Kyle’s Paintbox – Watercolor Broad Brush with no pen pressure applied (shape dynamics) but transfer ON. Flow should be 50%.

Add general texture. Add lots of blues in the background to create nebulous and soft shapes to match benchmark style. Work fast, loose and light. Use the ALT key to pick a local color on your canvas to help blend the colors together more quickly.

3. Form some more shapes/shadows with the same brush. Keep distant objects in a haze and with very little contrast. Continue to add warmer colors to the foreground.

4. Continue to add detail with the same brush.

5. Cheat the leaves using Kyle’s Concept Brushes – Foliage Color Mix---applying the lightest/furthest away leaves first and overlaying with the leaves that are closer afterward. Don’t go too nuts with this brush or it will look artificial.

6. Cheat the grass with Kyle’s Concept Brushes – Fur Animal Left/Right. Set the brush angle to face the direction you want, as these are preset to sweep right/left. Best used when using a lighter color to catch the ambient light. Set flow to 100% so the grass is visible.

7. Add extra texture to tree trunks with Kyle’s Concept Brushes – Rocky Mount Filler.

8. Use the dodge/burn tool to make certain areas pop.

9. Finally begin the smoothing/rendering using the round brush (both hard and soft depending on when parts of the image need to be sharpened or softened). Have transfer on, begin without pen pressure (shape dynamics), and set flow to 50% or lower.

Good luck rendering the rest of the background!

10. Make sure you keep the face of the character the focal point. This means don’t bring TOO much yellow/orange to the foreground so that it distracts from what is really important. Tone down the body/background colors using gradients and the Burn tool to achieve this.

11. One way to check to see if your focal point has the highest contrast is to view in grayscale and see if the tonal values bring your eye to the face directly.

As you can see, the trees in the foreground should be toned down more later on.