I took a screen shot about every 15 minutes or so while working on the Swarm Angler, the seventh and final piece in my Aphotic Zone.
I’ve decided to end the series here at 7, despite previous posts hinting at 8 or 9 paintings. I estimate this took me about 50 hours to complete based on the number of frames in the animation, which translates to about 4 months time from start to finish considering the constraints of my day job and the distraction of other artistic endeavors. I’ve been happy with each of the weird fish/crustaceans/mollusks that I’ve cooked up, and confident in how my skills have developed. However, I’m anxious to move on to other concepts instead of spending another 8 months or more at the bottom of the ocean. One thing I really look forward to is working once again in oil paint on actual canvas and loosening up a bit from the relatively intense burden of realism I placed on myself for this series. More to follow on this new direction soon, or at least as soon as I get to it.
A bit more on the process shown above for those interested:
As you can see, the vast majority of the work is done in the black and white shading phase. I use the “Real Oils” mixer brush from Kyle Webster’s Megapack brush download. It’s hard to overstate how much these tools have expanded my horizons as a digital artist. I really enjoy watching the image slowly come into focus with increasing detail and complexity and to watch how certain features change over time. Once I’m mostly finished with shading, I set the value layers to multiply (under blending settings) and color on another layer underneath them. This approach can limit the range of color and leads to an overall darker look, which wasn’t a big problem given the setting for the series and how it allowed me to focus on texture and light source. I like to keep each major subject/portion of the canvas on its own layer so that I can manipulate them separately. This is also apparent in how the number of layers increases drastically toward the finishing point of the painting.