Splinterlands Art Contest Week 267: Merdaali Guardian

My entry this week for the Splinterlands Art Contest found HERE

From the Splinterlands Wiki: https://splinterlands.fandom.com/wiki/Merdaali_Guardian

The Merdaali Guardians are a noble group committed to protecting all sea life and do not pay much attention to the affairs of people and the land. They are graceful to behold, often adorning themselves with shining jewelry. They prefer pacifism to conflict and are adept at healing and helping others through their connection to magic. However, when the Chaos Legion came to the Splinterlands, they swore to use their magic to protect what they hold most dear.

Created in Clip Studio Paint Pro on a Surface Pro 4. Here is the time lapse video:

And here is the drawing broken down into individual process steps:

One: Rough Draft

Two: Line Art layer. I like to use the "For effect" pen so that the line work looks like ribbons. It's the same technique I use for "The Real Superheroines of Hive Valley." You may also notice bubbles and my signature. I actually did these last, but unfortunately I did them on the wrong layer, so now hey are out of order.

Three: Flat layer. Color in the entire figure in silhouette.

Four/Five: Separate color layers. Select and fill in separate layers for the hair, cloth, and gold.

Six: Create a shading layer. A multiply layer over all the existing color layers that is clipped to the flat silhouette layer.

Seven: Details. Only details on this drawing are the eyes and lips.

Eight: Background. Just filled in with a greenish blue then added some shading with large watercolor brushes and airbrush tools.

Nine: Water current. Made a layer over all the other layers and just swiped some white water color strokes across it. Reduced the transparency to about 60% so that it's not too distracting. Those accursed bubbles were supposed to be on this layer.