Challenge #51: Between Sea and Sky

[yhlee]

Preview:


Title: Between Sea and Sky
Artist: yhlee
Rating: G
Fandom: original work
Characters/Pairings: tropical space princess of color
Content Notes: Digital painting in Procreate.




For goss. :3

Comments

[yhlee]

Thank you! I didn't have a story as such, except in the sense that one emerged as I considered my options with color scheme and compositional elements.

tl;dr

Basically, I knew I wanted to paint a gift piece for goss using one of the lady-in-fancy?-dress photos I'd picked up in an artists' reference photo pack. I actually got through the sketch before I realized that I had no idea what goss's favorite colors are (or anyway, I didn't want to gift her something in her least favorite colors?!) so I messaged her and asked. She said blues/greens/teals/aquamarines, so I said to myself, Great! I can do something sea/sky-themed around that, and maybe some stars spilling out of her dress as well? If goss had said "yellow" this would have gone in a completely different direction. XD

For the sky/background, I personally love sunrises/sunsets and I thought it would add visual interest to have glowy mostly-warm colors in contrast to the cooler blues. Since the princess is dark-skinned and has black hair, I went for a lighter "sunrise" feel (I literally just looked at sunrise photos for the colors) rather than more saturated "sunset" colors for an easier value contrast between her face and the background. (I have absolutely seen gorgeous art of dark-skinned characters with saturated colors around them, but I don't currently have the technical skill to feel confident that I could pull it off, so...yeah.)

For the satellite/birds, basically my original sketch only had the princess, but when I did the color test, the background felt too empty. I did want a fair amount of negative space/open sky to give the setting an expansive, hopeful feeling, but it just needed some secondary elements. So I added the satellite to point to the princess's face (the focal point), and the seagulls such that the princess's face, satellite, and seagulls made a sort of compositional "loop" around her face.

So literally the "worldbuilding" in this piece was based around technical considerations. There are probably better ways to do this but I'm still learning!

[facethestrange]

I know this wasn't a reply to me, but this comment was so interesting to read - I loved learning about your creative process! Also sunrise = ♡♡♡ I love sunrises more than sunsets so I was really happy to see one here. :D

[yhlee]

I'm glad! :D

I like sunsets more but this is probably an artifact of the fact that I, uh, let's just say I keep weird hours and I don't see many sunrises, lolol. XD

[facethestrange]

Heee. :D Well, 5 am is my happy time, which means in winter I wake up more than 2 hours before sunrise. xD (Which also means I'm more likely to miss it - in other seasons I see it every day, except when the sun is up even earlier than me. xD)

[amberdreams]

Interesting process! I think non artists think a picture springs into life fully formed, and I guess some do, but my experience is much more like this one, with the idea evolving and adapting as I go. It's nice to see other people working in similar ways!

[yhlee]

Oh, thank goodness it's not just me! XD No matter how much I try to plan in advance, there are always things that sort of pop up during the process! Keeps things fresh. XD