This is Keyart I did for Paradox interactive's Leviathan Warships game in 2011. This project was also on a very tight schedule and a very tight budget but, again, I was given a lot of creative freedom by Paradox from the very start and was responsible for the image from concept to final execution and retouch. I started,as usual, with ingame assets. In this case the models were very low res as this was a mobile game and mostly features top down action. I built up and filled in details based on concept art supplied by the client, in many cases having to exprapolate from very low res artwork. The designs were mostly created to be view from the top and certainly not anywhere near full screen. Background was a mixture of digital painting and photomantaging.
Here is a link to an instagram video showing the build up of the layers in photoshop from the render to the final retouched image.
https://instagram.com/p/j1LHdoxz5v/
Below is how it looked on the box with titles.