What are they staring at has been created to improve my skills at environmental design and ended up as a personal piece I really like. On the far end I decided to add a bit of story into the image and add the glowing eyes to the background. In this Making Of I'd like to show my working process and hope this could be some help for others.
TOOLS
 In most of my images I just use one or two main brushes and some customized brushes, but this always depends on their specific need. I really like to combine those brushes with the selection tool - this gives me the opportunity to get crisp edges and to paint just certain areas in my images.
WORKFLOW
I don't know why - but I'm a big fan of layers. I always try to keep my layers until I'm happy with the look and feel. After that I reduce the layer to one and start working on a newly created layer.
On top of that I really love to work with the selection tool. I use this tool many, many times in my work. It is a simple and easy way to create different shapes, etc. Is the selection drawn, I start to paint in my main color. I always create a new layer for shadow and lights. This will give me the freedom to go forth and back and also to erase certain areas in the actual selection - without affecting the colors "below" or "above". Happy
with the result, I merge the layers.
BLOCKING IN / FIRST SHAPES
I have no typical start such as line drawings or thumbs. Mostly I start blocking in some rough colors and or shapes. For this image I did a bit of research on the web and after a while I had a clear idea in mind. By using the selection tool and my main brush I dump in the basic shapes. Using a perspective grid is really helpull for environments and can be easily drawn using the line tool. I started with a brown and greyish color palette to get a first feeling for the overall mood.
FIRST DETAILS AND USE OF TEXTURES
After a while I started to see how the hall could look like and started to add the first textures on the left wall. A good thing is to create your own library of textures. Just go out and shoot whatever you like or use online libraries. I used some corrugated iron for the window and painted over with my main brushes. I really like the combination of both - real textures and painted brush strokes.
MOOD AND MORE TEXTURES
I kept working on the window and duplicated the corrugated metal and set it to soft light. Working with soft light is a easy way to intense the colors and to increase the contrast. I set the duplicated layer to 40% and started to paint over again. Also I erased some areas from the corrugated metal to get a softer look. I used the same textures as a repeating element for the wall in the back and for the left wall as well. Not happy with the brownish / greenish mood, I used the color balance filter to get more in to some cold and blueish color temperature.
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