The hot air balloon in Elemental

I watched Elemental without knowing what to expect, because Disney’s marketing missed the mark (again). But I liked the movie overall. One of my favorite parts was seeing how each character used their element, like Ember inflating a hot air balloon.

I wanted to draw the scene with the hot air balloon floating over the city. I started with a pencil sketch. It’s rough. I wanted to figure out the foreground vs. the background and where the balloon was in the sky, in relation to the skyline.

A rough pencil sketch of a hot air balloon floating over a city.

Here’s a photo of when I was painting the larger areas. I simplified colors and composition (all those buildings!) because it’s so much detail.

A painted illustration of a hot air balloon floating over the city. The buildings are painted in blocks of color, without many details at this point in the process.

Here’s the finished drawing.

A painted illustration of a hot air balloon floating over a city at night time. Blue and gray skyscrapers are in the background, against a starry sky.

movies drawing