Misunderstood Monster - WIP

[demotlj]

I decided to go with s more traditional concept of misunderstood monsters — human fear of nature’s predators — and I still have a lot of work to do on this sketch but thought I’d ask for critiques before I go much further. I’m not sure whether I will actually submit this to the contest because once I get the sketch down, my plan is to try inking and painting it traditionally with watercolor so I may wreck it! Right now, however, I’m still working in Procreate so suggestions are welcome.

[Chip Valecek]

@demotlj Thats a great idea. I really like it. You really captured the emotions of the animals.

[Eli]

@demotlj love this

[demotlj]

Quick value study, still in Procreate. I also tried to make the mother wolf’s face look a little less like my dog’s face but think I lost a little of the snarl so I have to fix that. The whole things is also looking more cartoony than I intended. I’m hoping that will change when I do the actual inking, cross hatching, and watercolor and will try to use a looser style when I transfer it.

[demotlj]

Color study. It feels a little gray but I’m still going to try doing it in watercolor for the practice so this is just a study. I figure if I wreck the watercolor, I can finish working up this Procreate version.

[demotlj]

Tweeked it some more and will be starting the line and wash version tomorrow but since I don’t hold out much hope for that given my novice watercolor skills, this may be the version I end up submitting. Any suggestions, critiques, things that you think would improve it?

[demotlj]

Here is my initial watercolor. I’m trying at this point to decide whether either version (this or the Procreate version) is worth pursuing and would welcome your opinions. I was basing it on this quote from Aldo Leopold about a wolf hunt he went on as a young man. He became an instrumental figure in the early US conservation movement:

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.”

[demotlj]

I decided to go with the digital version and have been working on improving it. Any suggestions on how I can take it to the next level?

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

Perhaps you can try going composite. You can scan your watercolor piece and then paint over it in photoshop, preserving the textures and adding a unique traditional look. Hope this helps

[demotlj]

@nyrrylcadiz This actually brings up something I've been trying to figure out. How do you preserve the textures when you are painting over them? I'm working in Procreate on my iPad and I know people import watercolor paper scans into it but I don't really understand how that helps. Do you paint over the textured background in a multiply layer and if so, what do you do about the fact that your colors in a multiply later are different? If you could briefly explain the theory, maybe I could figure out how to do it in Procreate.

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@demotlj hi! Yeah, that’s a hard one. The one solution that i see easiest is to sacrifice your colors. Edit the image such that it’ll have monochrome colors, set it to multiply and then color over it. Another solution is to color over it using a low opacity layer so that the original image will show underneath the new layer. There are still other options like using a “Dodge” layer and what not. It’smreally up to you to decide which one you’re going to use. Expriment with a few and settle on which one you prefer most. As for the original colors, yeah, they’re going to change. Again it’s up to you to tweak it to match your vission. I sincerely hope this helps.

[demotlj]

I did a quick and dirty composite by taking the watercolor and laying it over the top of my digital version setting the watercolor layer to multiply. I don’t know if it preserved the texture (that’s the part I don’t understand) but it certainly makes it more vibrant.