Final Illustrations of "The Bridge"

I have been dreadfully sick for the past week with a horrible flu that had me in bed for 4 days, and barely able to sit up until today (day 7), but I'm happy to report that I have finally manged to finish the illustration of the bridge over Danube.

Original Painting

The above is one of the photographs I took of the original painting.  I decided to layer this image over a texture of old paper, which I happily found for free, graciously bestowed by Caleb Krimbrough.

 Caleb Krimbroughs Texture

Bellow you can see several of the final images I came up with combining different photos with the same texture, and playing with levels, layers, saturation, image adjustments, etc. 

 Final Illustration 01

 Final Illustration 02

 Final Illustration 03

 Final Illustration 04

Final Illustration 05

My favourite results are Illustration 03 and 05.  I cannot decide which one I would prefer.  

Which is your favourite?

Someone has already pointed out to me that at that time (105 A.D.) the whole area was probably forested.  However, I deliberately left space for the inclusion of text.  The art director and editor will decide how to crop this image to it's best advantage, that is why I always paint my illustrations bigger than the proportions demand.

I will let you know where you may find these images in print in a future post.

For now, enjoy and thank you for following.

Mili