Ygern

"In the mists of the western part of the Channel, somewhere between Normandy, Britanny and Cornwall sits the island of Ygern. Once a britton settlement, Norman and British emigration shaped the island to its modern form. Absent from all maps, it is nonetheless there for anyone who know its existence, hidden from the rest of the world by a mysterious force. And now that the world is in turmoil, it may very well be the secret key to the resolution of the war between the new French empire and the coalition led by England"
Ygern is the main setting of my book project. It used to be a central-european-inspired city, but with time passing I felt more comfortable drawing inspiration from my home region, so I recreated the city with a more "northwestern" feel. I also wanted to ground its existence a bit more, so from a fantasy setting it went to one based on the napoleonic wars, specifically the period preceding the battle of Trafalgar (1804-1805).
I'm always fond of maps, that's why you'll find one there. The rest is a mix of mood paintings and sketches to find the right look for the island, it will serve as a guide for future artworks based on this setting. There's also a couple of sketches done one year ago to figure out the general mood of the place, the aerial view done on photobashing is from the same period. It helped figure out which assets to build and the general layout of the island (notice that the hill changed size during the process, from a smaller rock it became a more important feature, dominating the landscape. There was also a land bridge originally which was dropped, because I couldn't justify the position of the island in the story.
Concerning the process, it's mainly done on Blender, with a healthy dose of overpainting done in photoshop and procreate, depending on the day. The architecture is done using scans for the large views, and my own kits and reference for most of the specific elements (except for the boats, which are coming from sketchfab). One notable exception being the church tower on image 1, it's a scan from the tower of Verneuil-sur-Avre church found on sketchfab, you can find it there : https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/tower-of-the-church-of-verneuil-sur-avre-00851e395ad14285a6e5023a21e3ed8e
Most of the photobash comes from my own stocks, and most of the specific architecture is based on references I found in Normandy and Brittany (you can find bits of Honfleur, Quimper, Concarneau, Bayeux, Granville and more).