For my fifth concentration piece, I decided to do another Chinese tale, the legend of the white snake. In this story, a green and white snake are sisters, both magical creatures that live in water and turn into women occasionally. The picture is of the green snake hugging the white snake, it is hidden, but the green snake's lower half is a snake, and curls around the screen. I did this piece digitally, using the program Paint Tool Sai. I enjoyed this project because I was very excited to paint the colors of the reflective snake. The hardest part of this project was the background, and the lighting effects on top of the painting. I was unsure whether to add the sunlight or the brush, though I'm glad I did as it adds to the piece. I wanted to make it look warm and comforting, and I think I accomplished that. The easiest part was the sketching in the beginning, I already had an idea in my head of what I wanted the painting to look like.
First, I changed the color of the background since the snake was white, and didn't want to make any mistakes in terms of coloring. Afterwards, I did a basic rough sketch of where everything was, then elaborated on the sketch, including details on the snake and woman. I then put the base colors on the two subjects, I shaded them in with greens and purples. The holographic colors on the snake took me the longest since I didn't want it to look muddy. Once I was satisfied with the shading, I painted the water over top in a translucent layer, adding ripples and value with darker and lighter blues. I then painted in the background, some casual shrubbery with some holes in order to let light come through, since I knew I wanted to add some kind of top layer/visual effect to make the painting a bit more interesting. Lastly, I used a light yellow translucent layer to place the streaks of sunlight onto the painting, as well as using a splotchy dark brush to shade in the leaves in the brush. I really liked how this project came out.
First, I changed the color of the background since the snake was white, and didn't want to make any mistakes in terms of coloring. Afterwards, I did a basic rough sketch of where everything was, then elaborated on the sketch, including details on the snake and woman. I then put the base colors on the two subjects, I shaded them in with greens and purples. The holographic colors on the snake took me the longest since I didn't want it to look muddy. Once I was satisfied with the shading, I painted the water over top in a translucent layer, adding ripples and value with darker and lighter blues. I then painted in the background, some casual shrubbery with some holes in order to let light come through, since I knew I wanted to add some kind of top layer/visual effect to make the painting a bit more interesting. Lastly, I used a light yellow translucent layer to place the streaks of sunlight onto the painting, as well as using a splotchy dark brush to shade in the leaves in the brush. I really liked how this project came out.