Happy Last time I chose vegetation, today it's water💦

That's right, the last time I participated in the Splinterlands weekly art contest (which was longer ago than I'd like to admit), I chose Blackmoor Nymph and surrounded her with lots of green. Therefore, this time I wanted the new fan art to focus on another element of nature and also feature a lot of blue.

And among the many water element characters in the game, I wanted to go for one of the new ones, one from Rebellion, because ever since the Riftwatchers card folio, I've been enchanted by the character designs and painting style they feature. So, this week I chose the Thanalorian Scion card, who is a powerful elf named Elandrial, and I wanted to showcase her water control by playing with a color palette centered around blue and gold.

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Tools:

Gaomon S620
Photoshop
Brushes courtesy of Imad Awan: Download here

🔰Process🔰

_Reference

-Step 1:

As usual, I started with the sketch, sketching a mannequin that would serve as a guide to establish the character's pose correctly. I wanted to convey power, but at the same time, I wanted Elandrial to appear serene amidst the water. That's why the pose focuses the hands near the chest, where the large blue gem is located.

-Step 2:

And of course, I had to divide each element into separate layers, thereby establishing the base colors of the character. As I always say, the advantage of doing this is that later I can use clipping masks to add details without fear of deviating from the shape or ruining the previous work. In this case, I went straight to shaping the face of the elven sorceress.

-Step 3:

Something I always love about the characters in Splinterlands is that they often have elements of golden metal, and I'm happy painting it and trying to achieve an interesting shiny texture. That's why I worked the best I could on the elf's armor even before going into fully detailing the hair or the lower part of her outfit. Also, it was time to work on the background to have a reference for the lighting and the interaction of the background colors with the character.

-Step 4:

There's an artist I've always admired for the dynamism of his work and also for the incredible and fluid way he paints water. His name is Kan Liu (artof666k on Instagram), and taking his work as a reference, I painted the water surrounding Elandrial. I focused on outlining the shape of the water flow I wanted to create, aiming to achieve transparency in the water. Additionally, I diluted the strokes using the "Smudge" tool.

-Step 5:

I continued working on the water, and when I thought it was ready, I took a soft brush and set the blending mode to "overlay" to give it that magical sparkle. Additionally, since I wanted the focus to be on the character by the water, I had to blur the background. However, I also added more contrast to further highlight the water and spent a lot of time rendering the character even more. Finally, I added the runes to her armor and wanted to make the gem on her chest shine even more. I also added more shadows and highlights to the armor to achieve a better texture. And that's it! If you want, scroll down a bit more and check out the gif where you can see more images of the painting process. Thank you for stopping by to see my art, and wish me luck in the contest!

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