Watercolour Splatoon 3DS XL Cover Plates

Apparently I haven’t yet posted about these here!

I painted these cover plates as a personal project after a commission fell through. I had been wanting to create a Splatoon themed cover plate for a long time but it took a while to come up with an idea and composition that I liked.

Here’s the initial concept sketch. As always when I create cover plate designs I try to ensure the top and bottom plates are appealing designs in their own right, as well as working together to create a scene.

After getting the lineart worked out, I put in some basic colours. I had an idea of a rainbow of ink lines. I then had the idea to add some fireworks in the top panel. Don’t worry, they’re not exploding squids!

I then print out the lines and transfer them to the cover plates. Here’s the various steps of the process.

Top left: blank cover plate
Top right: printed lineart. I scribble over the back of the piece of paper with pencil so that the graphite can be transferred
Bottom left: lineart which has been traced over while stuck in place on the cover plate
Bottom right: the transferred image, traced over with pencil a second time to better define the linework.

Now onto painting!

Starting to apply the washes of colour. The yellow splotches that are visible on the top plate are globs of masking fluid. The masking fluid protects the white of the surface as I paint over it. Masking fluid has also been applied to the fireworks.

The masking fluid has been removed and the firework colours have been added.

More work on the fireworks, some white added to the ink trails to define the movement of the jumping squids.

Putting in colours on the bottom plate. I decided for an eclectic background with lots of ink patches.

Adding skintones. More white highlighting on the inkling on the top plate.

Almost done! Just some extra highlights to add.

Here are some glamour shots of the cover plates being modeled on my not-new 3DS XL.