Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, I've been sharing the process behind one of my biggest art challenges ever - the Christmas Countdown Challenge (which I completed back in December 2020)! This is where I draw pieces according to the song; The 12 Days of Christmas!
I'm sure everyone is familiar with that song and we're currently up to Day 9 now since we did day 8 last week - Eight Maids a Milking!
So the next line in the song is
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree
For this one I didn’t really know what else to draw, so I got inspiration from Stardew Valley yet again! And since there’s actually a Flower Dance event in-game which occurs in Spring, I thought it’d be cool to adapt it to Winter instead! And I decide to draw the nine ladies from Pelican Town dancing around the Christmas tree! Or, the Tree of the Winter Star as it's called in Stardew.
Again for those who didn't know, Stardew Valley is one of my favourite games of all time and it's a cute farming simulator with adorable visuals, amazing soundtrack and addictive gameplay! There are quite a few NPCs in the game each with their own backstory too! The writing is actually really in-depth.
Anyway, this was my sketch:
And just to make things easier, I traced the Tree of the Winter Star:
Then I drew some outlines of the ladies dancing, and instead of drawing them identical I thought it'd be more interesting if I drew them all in different poses!
Of course, that would take some extra time but I decided to make their outfits simpler so it'd be easier. I did try to draw their hair as accurate as their in-game models though, and followed their colour scheme for their outfits.
Here's what the characters look like in-game:
Source: deviantart
So we start with Marnie:
Then Emily:
Then Abigail:
And of course I had to put Haley front and center:
Then I drew Leah and Penny, and added some blue for the snow:
And then Marnie and Caroline! I also added some bushes in the back and a nice light pink sky:
And finally, Jodi!
I tried my best to make them accurate and I think they're recognisable from their colours and hair. Overall, I thought I did a pretty good job!
But oh boy did this take a while. I know I said in the last one that I’d just duplicate the layers but then I had this idea to draw the different girl characters as the dancers and thought it’d be more interesting. I tried my best to make their hair and outfits look as close to the game itself but I didn’t expect it to be so exhausting. Oh well.
I'm not that good at drawing humans so I guess this was good practice, but it still took quite a while. I think the end result was worth it though! But I definitely remember feeling super relieved when I was done with this because even the tree tracing took a while. I think this was my first piece that was actually Christmas-themed in the whole challenge and I'm pretty happy with it!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
