Commissioned work for an individual trying to bring some of the concepts for his personal project to life.

Edit (20/09/17): Thank you for the overwhelming response to this. My portfolio exists on Deviant Art in relative obscurity so this was quite a surprise. It was a very fun commission to work on and I’m really glad people like it.

To clear up a few common questions because I don’t usually come here every day:

1. I don’t know what the client was influenced by when they presented me with the idea. I’m well aware of the Pandaren starting zone in WoW comparison (the Aladdin one not so much I must admit) and talked about it with them before we began. We decided to stay clear of any obvious asian influences in the design of the buildings or landscape for this reason. We did very, very loosely base the concept around numerous Japanese myths about Sea Turtles being messengers of the dragon god Ryujin who is said to live at the bottom of the sea. Obviously it’s also where the name came from.
2. The original pitch for the scale of the turtle and continent was for it to be roughly the size of Ireland. I didn’t think this was possible to depict successfully so I just tried to make it appear as large as I could and keep it as interesting as I could. It was a tricky balance but the client was very happy with it in the end. Regardless of the result that remains the intended size so you will have to take it for what it is; a concept and not a completely accurate depiction. So yes we did imagine there would be bodies of water on such a large landmass and that they would flow down the steeped landscape to create waterfalls and the edge of the shell. It does rain at sea, Ryu is very slow moving, incredibly ancient and never goes on to land. They may not always be there or they might, I don’t know. At the end of the day it is a fantasy world and we wanted to have a little fun with it.
3. It’s painted in photoshop. There is a blending of textures mixed it to bring added detail to the important areas such as around the face. I went for a mix of a bearded dragon and sea turtle like some people already guessed and, yes, that’s meant to be an enormous snake on its horn. I questioned it too but the client was adamant it be there so we’ll just have to see what plans they have for it :)

Again, thank you for such a positive response, I really didn’t expect it. Sorry I couldn’t get to you questions individually but I hope that helps answer some.