splatoon
Splatoon 2 @ Battle Arena Melbourne
I did some poster art because I was hype about Squid Game at BAM!
Battle Arena Melbourne is Australia’s largest fighting game event. It’s being held this year from the 18th to 20th of May at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Center. This year we’ll be joining the fun, running Splatoon 2 events throughout the weekend!
I’m pretty proud of this artwork. The sketch, lineart, flats and draft background were all completed in a single session on Monday, with touchups done over the next couple of days.
Just Squidding Around
My last post for Blaugust, after a month of heavily-Splatoon weighted content.
I drew this picture for a poster I’m planning. It’s the first digital art I’ve done in ages. I think the sketch process of this one was kinda funny, the very initial sketch was way simpler than I normally do but it worked quite well for establishing the feel I wanted.
I inked this in FireAlpaca. I seriously enjoy that program more every time I use it, and not just because it’s called FireAlpaca. Everything else was done in Photoshop.
Neophyte
whoa, I nearly fell off the Blaugust [band]wagon, which is a shame as I’m pretty sure I still have enough old art to post to get me through the month.
Here’s yet another picture of a squidkid! This was the first painting I did after purchasing some new white paints. When painting with watercolour, it’s generally advised to avoid using white paint. To maximise that magical watercolour look, an artist should aim to have white highlights represented by the white of the paper. The shoulder and arm highlights for example, are parts of this painting that I’m pleased about as those highlights were made by leaving the paper unpainted.
For small rim highlights I generally use a white gel pen, but the lines usually only come out at a certain width – I want to instead get lively looking highlights that integrate with the rest of the image. The paint I’ve used is Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleed Proof White – it’s very good at blocking colours and is good at making lovely striking splatters.
I like the way I painted the forms of this face, but the anatomy freaks me out a bit. Also I “tidied” this scan on a monitor with bad contrast, I need to fix it up again. Once again, whites being troublesome!
Slippery Squid
This is a substitute post for my missing Friday post.
If the last picture was all about the weapon, then this one is all about the sub-weapon! I started sketching this one out before checking what gear the player wanted. I had the squid posed with a raised left hand, which I didn’t really have an idea for how it would fit into the picture. Maybe the character was taunting? After checking that the weapon was going to be a .96 deco I decided I’d depict the character as throwing a Splash Wall and making a hasty retreat behind it.
Unfortunately there wasn’t really the space for the splash wall, so I erased the original portrait sketch and restarted in landscape. Even then I didn’t leave enough space at the top of the page for the splash wall to fit but I think the idea is there.
Maybe it’d be a better picture without the Splash Wall at all, but I want to draw one so there! Next part is to decide on a style to paint this up in.
Phlox
Hey I actually did a thing I said I was gonna do! Today’s post is the completed painting of Team Altaira’s captain, Phlox.
I used masking fluid to mask out the lettering on the shirt and the warning icons on the weapons. Other highlights were done with white gel pen and paint. The splatter on the right boot was created by blowing on ink patches; this time I tried using a straw to more tightly control the direction of the splatters. Additional splatter effects were created by tapping on a paintbrush held above the paper.
Custom Hydra Splatling
Another piece of Oceanink Offensive prize-art, this time featuring II Phlox.
Drawing weapons from Splatoon is always fun, and working out how they fit together is part of the challenge. I actually had an “aha” moment when I worked out the handle for the Hydra Splatling is a valve wheel.
Since the previous one was inked I’m debating whether to ink this one before painting it – I’m not sure how much I want to have the entire set fit together visually. Currently leaning towards not-inking it. I’ll wait a day and look at it with fresh eyes later. I can already see some bits that I’d like to fix up before proceeding.
No I’m not delaying the painting to drag out another day of Blaugust content, what an outrageous suggestion!
Anchor Badge: Step by Step
Here’s a simple picture showing how I made my Splatoon-based Anchor Badges! They’re laser-cut acrylic with paint in-fills. These first ones were made the whole right side painted red. I fixed that for following ones by masking around the border before painting in the red.
FalleN (June Oceanink Offensive Prize 1/7)
The player described his squid thusly: “He’s very cocky”. I did my best to get that across in his portrait.
The face seems to have picked up a bit of splotchiness, not sure if that’s from the scan or if the art did just turn out like that. I did have trouble deciding how to tone the skin as it was described as being “tan”.
Got Kraken!
Throughout the last few months we’ve been running the monthly Splatoon tournament series Oceanink Offensive. As prizes for the tournaments I’ve been doing art!
For April’s tournament, I drew portraits of the runner-up team Got Kraken. I’m pretty proud of these. I had a lot of fun coming up with poses and trying to illustrate recognisable weapons and equipment. I erased and redrew the Octobrush three or four times, and I’m really glad I did so because the end result is something I’m very happy with. I’m only a little sad I didn’t take some photos of my earlier attempts at drawing the Octobrush because I think some of them were actually pretty good stepping stones to what became the final drawing.
