HOME | DD
Zeimyth — A Wild Diver Approaches!
Published: 2012-08-25 07:53:45 +0000 UTC; Views: 807; Favourites: 29; Downloads: 5
Redirect to original
Description
Oh man, it's finished. This one took me a while.
This piece had a lot of firsts for me. I know I say that pretty much every time; it just shows how little art I have done compared to how much I should be doing.
To start off, this is my first request ever! *Hunter-best-hunter asked me to draw her OC Orca [link] . I was flattered that anyone would want me to do a drawing for them. How could I possibly say no? 
She's had to wait nearly a month for this. Hopefully it was worth the wait. 
Another first with this drawing was the presence of a real live PERSON in it! I know, kind of overwhelming, huh? This is the first time I've ever made a serious attempt to draw something other than dragons in my art. You can see why I stick with the four-legged creatures of fantasy.
Also, I got to use my VERY OWN TABLET on this drawing! This is actually one of the reasons this took so long to complete. I've been saving up for a tablet for a while and I finally bought one today!
Needless to say, I was quite excited to use it, so I've been mostly drawing all day and got all the shading done. I am so glad to have a tablet now! *hugs it*I put together a progress reel for this drawing. Check it out! [link]
As always, please feel free to comment. I love hearing people's thoughts and suggestions. Particularly, anyone who is experienced with shading on tablets, please offer any pointers you may have.
Medium: Pencil lineart, digital everything else - mouse and Wacom Bamboo tablet in GIMP
Time: 30 hours, at least
Completed: 24 August 2012
(*technically* it's the 25th right now, but who cares really?
)Texture: [link]
Orca belongs to *Hunter-best-hunter .
EDIT: It looked fine in fullview, but the download-size view had the same kind of artifacts around the lineart that the process images have. I can't be bothered fixing it on the process picture, but I fixed this one, at least.
Related content
Comments: 31
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Looks great- I think this is your first underwater picture, right? I always find it hard to draw scenes like that
I think you have done a wonderful job on the diver
It's quite a dark picture though (like you said).. since the light comes from above, you could have thrown more highlights on the top of the dragon/diver.. Also things start to fade into blue quite early in water- you could give the picture more depth if you make the back wing slightly more blue I think
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's right! And it's hard to make it actually look like it's all underwater, I've learned.
I agree, I think there should have been stronger highlights coming from the surface. I like the way light scatters and gets cool patterns when it shines into the water. But it's possible that they are both rather deep and the light isn't shining down as strongly where they are at. That could explain why it's so dark, too. >_>
That's a really good point. I didn't give this picture much depth at all. Oops.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
But if it's too dark it's hard to see what's going on- though you could also use this to get a scary kind of atmosphere. Like, make it even darker than now and add a flash light for the diver. Then you would have a clear light source and it might generate a scary atmosphere. I once went to snorkel at night, gosh, it was quite intimidating to be in the sea with you seeing nothing else than you illuminate with your flash light
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I think that would be really cool, though hard to pull off. Perhaps for this picture it would be better to make things highlighted better. It would be fun to do a dark underwater drawing sometime though!
I've never done that before, but it sounds like a neat experience. Just as long as there isn't anything in the water that wants to eat you. >_> I love the night when I'm outside, though. I went hiking up a mountain recently with a full moon, and it was so light we didn't need our flashlights at all. It's too bad these kinds of scenes are so hard to capture with a camera or a drawing.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yep, I agree. Would be difficult, but can turn out awesome.
As far as I know there were nothing big enough (or poisonous) enough to kill me 
Yeah, night scenes are hard to capture with a camera- and even if you manage to do so, it looks totally different than you see it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, this is great! The shading on the wings is really good
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I thought you did it on purpose! I think it works quite well, even if it wasn't intended
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
To be honest, it was more the result of me being impatient and not wanting to spend the time doing it right.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I honestly think every artist has that problem. I start off a piece and think 'yeah, going to make sure this is really neat this time'. Ten hours later, you think to yourself, 'yeah, I am so bored with this' then rush to finish it.
Tablets really do take a bit of getting used to. I think lots and lots of practice is really the only way to get used to them though.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's kinda sad, really. XD It's also bad for someone like me who takes for-freakin'-ever to finish a drawing, lol. But it's good to know it's a general problem, and not just me being weird.
It also helps to know how to use them well... I haven't figured that part out, yet. Maybe I need to find a good tutorial or something.
Thanks for all the 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Im so proud of you!! This looks amazing, absolutly amazing!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you so much! That means a lot.
Long time no chat, by the way!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah haven't chatted in a while. But really this picture is amazing
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Well, now we have! 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Ooh, very nice! I really like the style of it. Nice human for a first time even though you didn't have to draw too much of him lol
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks!
Hehe, yeah, I kinda did that on purpose... I suppose he would have started looking very strange if I hadn't cut off everything below his waist.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, really nice work! I like how the pose of the dragon gives the weightless sort of feel of being underwater, and the colours and dark shades really convey a deep underwater feel.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I'm glad you think got the pose down pretty well; I guess it mostly ended up with a "weightless" look to it without me really paying much attention to the fact. I suppose that's a good thing. XD
Yeah, I was definitely worried last night that it was coming out too dark, but I think things would look wrong if it was lighter-coloured, so I'm glad I didn't change it. The texture over the top makes a huuuge difference in providing an underwater feel to the whole piece. It also is responsible for rendering my shading efforts pretty much pointless, at least on the black parts of the dragon. But, oh well!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I think the texturing makes a big difference.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I found the texture pretty early on in the drawing process and I was constantly checking how my work looked with it before moving on to the next part. In that sense, the progress reel is a bit misleading: it shows that the texture came in at the very end, but it was really present intermittently throughout the entire effort. >_>
I obviously made the right choice of textures, then!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
It's interesting the order that digital artwork can take.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, I find that I typically follow that kind of pattern as well... Though, my greyscale part doesn't usually look very good.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
My greyscale part varies a lot.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Forcing yourself to draw greyscale is pretty good practice for seeing values, that's for sure. I haven't found a balance between doing a good job with shading and a detailed colouring job... It seems like having a great greyscale image allows you to just put down colour underneath it and utilize multiply layers and not have to worry about the colours much at all (like in this drawing). It's combining colour and shading at the same time that really gets tricky. XD
Yeah, I've always felt like I had to cut corners with my colouring when I was using a mouse (the bucket tool... it's your best friend 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Yeah, it can be tricky, and is something I'm still trying to figure out even after owning a tablet for like... ten years or something now. Lots of fun things to explore! I'll be excited to see what else you do. ^^
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Thank you!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
