Environmental Sketches

I have decided to design a scene with a large range of mountains and maybe a stream so I searched the internet to find a few nice images. I have found a photograph of the Himalayan mountains, a pencil drawing (which is what I will be doing) of mountains, with a reflection from the water, a 3-stage creation of a shack within Crysis which was an immensely graphically enhanced game for its time (games 5 years on are only just reaching this point), and concept art with a screen capture in game from Skyrim (released less that 2 weeks ago)

A screen capture of the Mountains with all the other graphical effects used in the popular video game “The elder scrolls V: Skyrim”. 

My aim here is to attempt a realistic style drawing of a mountain range, perhaps with a stream.  After spending a while looking for the style I wanted to use for the architecture in the drawing I came up with a smooth, sharp, somewhat like the architecture used within the lord of the rings (shown below, concepts of Isengard). I originally thought this picture to be shaded in a desert landscape but this led to me creating a more mountain-like image and so I ran with mountains, I researched them and attempted to shade them figuring I would be more skilled at mountains at this time.

Ideas of the art style:

The Lord of the Rings (Left: The tower of Isengard, Right: Minas Tirith)

Here is a picture of  mountains, pencil drawn (not by me), for use as an example of shading styles for mountains.

Stages for the Game graphically advanced game Crysis from photographing a scene, concept art creation to actual 3D rendering. (In that order from bottom-left, bottom-right, top).

and then there's the amazing concept art for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

These are the images I have used to learn from and inspire my process.