[1] The Queen of Hearts

I’ll start painting the Queen of Hearts, the character that’s furthest in the background.

I add more contrast than the background, while keeping a sense of distance.

This character is the furthest of all the characters, so I keep that in mind while painting the details.

 

[2] Card Soldiers

I’ll start painting the cards. At this point I belatedly realize that the pattern for each of the cards needs to be different...

 

I carefully paint the cards one by one. I imagine that the cards on the bottom side are not yet transformed into soldiers.

 

I also paint the border on all the cards.

 

I paint the patterns all the way to the cards at the bottom. Keeping in mind the perspective, I add more yellow-green tones from the background as the cards get further away.

 

The layers look like this.

 

To help the cards blend better with the background, I add a new layer and paint lightly in yellow.

 

The card soldiers look like this when I’m done.

 

So far, the whole piece looks like this.