I'm a terrible artist, let alone an artistic person. But with that said, I still wanted to at least -try- making some hand-drawn (or should I say 'Mouse-drawn'?) artwork for once instead of resorting to pure image manipulation from those royalty-free websites. This picture initially started when vrt was hosting the art classes; although I wanted to join the classes, I felt that my presence in the class would be somewhat overstepping certain boundaries, and instead I simply admired and read the lessons, trying to absorb and understand the material of what vrt and pepokish were trying to say.
On that note - PLEASE DO NOT COPY WHAT I DO. When I say that, I mean that there is a MUCH more efficient/logical/practical/formal/better way to draw artwork, considering that the piece for Sludge actually took almost 2
months to really complete. It's sad that it would take me this long to draw something so terrible, but hey, someone has to start somewhere, right? ^^;
That said, I initially had some inspirations on how to draw my sludge from both of these wonderful images:
So then I opened up pixlr and began some sketching.
A pretty basic sketch; at this point I was actually testing out the opacity of the brush before really doing anything.
Tracings around the main image, and I began doing some actual 'line' drawing. The border of the Sludge was messy and more about trying to figure out what the shape of it should be like; like drawing a circle, sometimes you have to 'repeat' the motion in order to get it just right. I also added a mouth to make it look "cute".
Erased the outside part of the images. Started to hate it at this point, so I stopped sketching for about 1 month...
...and coming back to it, I hated the original sketch, so I 'started' over. I extensively used the 'Smudge' option and tried to compress the Sludge into a more befitting creature silhouette so that the lines weren't all over the place, then did another 'basic' drawing over the smudged lines from the original sketch for the actual skeleton. I figured that the Sludge should leave a 'trail of residue' considering its liquid-like composition, and added that in alongside a more definitive head-shape and neckline. Finally, I began adding mute shades of purple to the picture to see how it would fare in comparison to the basic grey.
I redefined the mouth so that it would be more 'centered' and not off-putting like it was before.
Here, I used the paint-bucket and (de?)selected the contiguous option to apply some random color. Bad idea obviously, because I lost definition of the shape I was aiming for. I also tried sketching a (poorly-designed) arm on the left, and retraced key parts of the guy with a weird gooey-purple brush.
I got fed up with the previous image, so I decided (again) to make one more skeleton of the creature, again reapplying the mouth, arm, and its back line. The 'drops' were fairly experimental, since I realized that slime should be... well, 'goopy' and dripping off its base as a Death creature.
I forgot to save the sketch, but between 7 and 8, I really began to start drawing the 'lines' of slime for Sludge. The arm was reworked so that it was sort of a 'couture' pose (think of all the ladies who do that "push the inside of your stomach/hip and bend your elbow forward"), except it failed hardcore. I used a lot of the 'stretch', smudge, and 'sharpen' tool to also try to get that trail of slime as far back as possible.
After finalized the shape and erasing some miscues, I began massive shading; I selected a ton of different purples and overlayed them on top of each other to give the Sludge an effect of having an ambiguous chemical substance. Dodge, Burn, Pinch, and the clone tool were used to shrink 'problem' spots, apply shading to certain areas, and apply weird effects to the slime itself. I also drew a little 'dribble' at its mouth to express its sluggish behavior. And of course, I added a pre-mature shadow.
Colored the inside of the mouth, then HARDCORE began detailing that dribble in its mouth so it looked like a coagulated 'drop' that couldn't break off from the ceiling of its 'upper lip'. I decided the trail of slime should extend beyond the background (so it looked like it could actually move quite a distance), then lightened up some spots to give it that 'reflective liquid' feel to it.
Adding another separate layer to the image to the background, then began spamming the various 'earth/cracks/soil' brushes that had their own unique little formations and flipped, duplicated, and blurred some of them so that they could have the essence of the slime being on desolate land. I also had to stretch the image twice and paste different backgrounds so that the cracks could look more plausible (as if he was standing on them rather than having the cracks be 2-dimensional as a backdrop). The little spot left of his shoulder is an obvious clue to that issue. Then I pasted the slime on top of that.
Erased the 'white border' around the slime, darkened shadows (as if I wasn't doing it enough already XD), and fixed the background slightly...
Finally lightened up the image, and made the trail more 'glossy' as a sign of it being somewhat evaporated (?) or absorbed by the cracked earth.
(
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,30030.0.html)
And then I posted the images.
...I think I need to rethink my strategy when it comes down to creating art, but here it is. ^^; Hope you all enjoyed reading this!
