March's Wallpaper

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Michael Poe
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March's Wallpaper

Post by Michael Poe »

I thought this month's wallpaper was a very fun concept, and I'm gratified by how well it came out. Originally, this wasn't the wallpaper I had planned to make this month, but the idea that I had at first turned out to be more difficult than I thought, so at the last minute I decided to work on something entirely different, thinking it would be easier to finish on time. This was the first time I ever drew a proper version of Sara's character design from the sequel to Errant Story, and the first time I ever drew a water motion effect quite like that. Drawing Sara was the easy part, but the major components of the background were the actual splash of Sara on the water and the water itself, all of which I did in Photoshop, and that turned out to be way harder than making the original image I'd planned to do this month.

The style of the splash was actually the hardest part of the whole picture to create, because my original inspiration for the splash effect was an episode from the old Adventures of Superman cartoon, where he and the Flash raced around the world. I thought the sequence where they were running across the open sea expressed the speed really well, even if it wasn't the most realistic effect for that kind of motion. The water should have looked more like a surface that was supporting a runner and less like a speedboat was going across it, but that looks boring compared to the big waves and splashes. Since the cartoon episode was a lot less detailed than the image I was creating, I had a hard time translating the idea of that effect in a way that made sense with my composition. Plus, I was unsure of what techniques to use to create the splash in the first place. I tried just using brush tools, but they didn't look right, so I wound up doing the splash with line art and then using a lot of different coloring techniques and some motion blurs to make it look the way I wanted. It took the better part of a night to get the colors on it and the rest of the water just right, because I really wanted to create the impression of waves with convincing light and motion, without being too realistic because I don't like working in that style. The water ended up looking just a little too busy to me, but with the other elements in place I think it all blended together quite well.

Despite all the trouble and immense headache that this month's wallpaper turned out to be, ultimately I think it all came together to create one very slick looking image. And, with any luck, the original wallpaper idea I had planned to do will be done in time to become an equally slick image for April, too.
joeflood
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Re: March's Wallpaper

Post by joeflood »

Michael Poe wrote:This was the first time I ever drew a proper version of Sara's character design from the sequel to Errant Story, and the first time I ever drew a water motion effect quite like that.
Nice to know that even when the story ends there's still more story to be told.
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Vavrek
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Re: March's Wallpaper

Post by Vavrek »

Ah, so that's it. I just looked at it and thought... "Ooo, shiny", basically, while noting that her outfit was different. (The "Ooo, shiny" is a bit more directed at this month's bookmark, however.) As for the water, it looks fine to me. What's more of an issue is that Sara doesn't look like she's moving. Her position isn't dynamic, doesn't show that she's running across the water, so it looks more like she's being pulled by a boat and just has really big feet.

Hopefully, I'll have enough money this month to be able to get myself that bookmark, and review the high-res version of the wallpaper.
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