August MOTM: mother-of-pearl shark monster - painting process // nsfw

here's the process pack for august's monster of the month painting, featuring a mother-of-pearl shark monster and his human lover! download the attached .zip to get access to 20 pngs and 1 gif.

i'm pretty sure that i've previously discussed how i love drawing characters underwater, because it means not having to concern oneself with the restrictions that gravity imposes on bodies. the characters can basically be 'floating' in a number of interesting poses that wouldn't be possible on land (unless they're floating in the air, which is entirely possible when there's monsters involved lol). since the star of this piece is a shark creature it felt natural to situate them both underwater--and as usual i don't worry about how the human can breathe/survive/avoid UTIs banging their bae in the depths. the magic of fish dick, or whatever.

ANYWAY, i went through a few pose doodles before i hit upon one i really liked, and proceeded to refine it. as i went from rough sketch to lineart i took care to figure out the details of the poses (where to place their arms and hands), the proportions (the size of the shark monster's tail), and making some adjustments (changing the angle of the monster's head, to make it look more intimate). even as i had finished the lineart i kept the sketch layers semi-visible beneath it, because (after cleaning up the messiest parts of the sketch) it would help add shape to the colouring. i set both the lineart and sketch layers to 'multiply,' lowered the transparency even more, and coloured parts of the lines a dark blue.

i then filled the characters in with a flat base colour, added a temporary background gradient just to avoid the stark white, and started working on the colouring. i actually deviated from the colouring method i've been using lately (lasso select + airbrush combined with textured round/square brushes) and opted for an irregularly shaped brush that mimics traditional oil colours in how it looks and behaves. it felt like a good fit for the mother-of-pearl effect i wanted to achieve, because i wanted it to be smooth but not too smooth. the oil paint-esque brush has texture and character but is also good for blending colours together, and also proved ideal for sculpting muscular bodies. the resulting impression is pleasantly painterly and vivid-looking, and i'm personally very pleased with how much form the characters have, if that makes sense.

by step 12 i started casting some photoshop spells to enhance the opalescence of the shark monster's body. i created a new layer and used an airbrush to add patches of yellow, pink, blue, and turquoise to his body--after changing the layer setting to 'overlay' and drastically lowering the transparency, it added subtle shifts in hue to the grey-blue base. 

i finished the background, keeping it simple, and kept working on the characters. as i started adding details and refining the colouring i switched to a round, textured brush that allowed me more control than the irregular oil paint brush, keeping it quite small as i polished things up. i added some more layers of pearly overlay hues, but made sure to keep the effect subtle enough. next i added a different type of overlay, to further the impression that they're underwater: a dark gradient to their lower bodies where they start to 'sink into the deep,' and a pale overlay from above, where the sunlight filters through the water.

after adding the shark man's scars it was time for some more photoshop magic. i was starting to feel pretty finished with the piece, but the colouring seemed a bit dull, especially the areas that were supposed to look pearlescent and thus relatively shiny. i started playing around with like the levels, the contrast/brightness, and the auto tone/auto contrast/auto colour functions, basically increasing the contrasts and further bringing out the shifting colours of his pearly skin. after adding some more details and polish i still felt like the characters didn't stand out enough from the background and that the image was a bit dark, so i tweaked it a bit more and then suddenly ... it was done. BAM.

hope you enjoyed this process pack and don't hesitate to comment below if you have any questions <3

// art + characters © me.