Splinterlands Art Contest - Week 363 - Dark Arborist

Hey there, everybody. I hope you're having a wonderful day so far. It's that time of the week again - my submission for the Splinterlands Art Contest game. Today I'm a little more excited than usual since I've decided to go out of my comfort zone to draw a fan art for a newer character and someone outside the typical pattern.

Usually, I draw characters who are more on the positive vibes and brighter side, and I try to draw them in a cute way, but this time I decided to step out of the norm and draw a dark and gloomy character. However, unlike the other gloomy characters that I've drawn, I decided to keep her gloomy in my version as well - well, yeah, as always, she has glowed up a bit since I'm not that proficient in drawing dark characters, but I guess it's still progress and counts towards that.

With the general overview of the drawing out of the way, let's just jump right into the details and process of this piece; however, if you feel like having a quick tour and glance at the drawing procedure, feel free to skim through the slides. Either way, I do hope you enjoy this piece:

The Process

I kicked off the drawing with the usual line art. I tried to put in as much hair as possible to give more of a scuffy look to my character.

Then I turned to coloring the character. I used dark colors to fill up the canvas to go with the gloomy bit, and I think the initial coloring did the deed. All that was left was the shading, adding more colors, background, and more lively eyes (yeah, a ton of stuff, and I'm new to almost all of them in this type of drawing).

Since there were many steps, I just thought of coupling them together and went for a basic (again dark) initial background color. I also added the first eye color to get the wheels rolling on that part, and then I added more colors to finish the initial colors altogether in this step. (again, all the added colors were on the darker side haha)

After the darkening step of the canvas was done, it was time to bring the light back in. I used the bright cyan in her hat and in her hair (the highlights) as an excuse to add some highlights and illuminate the drawing.

To get back to glooming my character, I added some shadows and highlights to her face to make it creepy, and added some details to it. Now she has a creepy and intent look on her face that haunts me in my dreams - GREAT!

Then I put on my labor hat to add the final details and fine grains to the drawing.

The Result

And with the addition of a more fitting background and some green sparkles (green, since it's included in the palette but not used as much in the character), the drawing is complete and a new piece is born... and here's the complete painting:

Original Game Art

And for those wondering who the game character is, here is the original one for comparison next to the result.

Anyway, thanks for staying with me till the end. It's been a fun ride doing this piece, and I wish you had as much fun as I've had drawing this piece. As always, do let me know what you think about it in the comments down below. Good luck to those of you participating in this week's contest and I'll see you all in the next week's contest... cheers~~