Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
So if you read my OST series back in the day, you'd know that Ori and the Blind Forest and Child of Light are two of my favourite games of all time! The mechanics in both games are pretty different; Ori is a metroidvania 2D side-scrolling platformer while Child of Light is a JRPG, but both stories are amazingly written. While the games themselves are really fun, my favourite aspects of both games have got to be the art style and music.
Both games use watercolour-like visuals (especially Child of Light) and when I first saw the trailers for both games I knew I would love them immediately. And the orchestral soundtrack in both games complements the visuals so well.
Here are some screencaps that I used for reference for this piece.
From Ori and the Blind Forest:
Source: ArtStation
And Child of Light:
Source: Wallpaper Abyss
But anyway, since I played them successively, I saw some parallels in both games, such as you having a light friend guiding you around throughout your adventure. And I had the idea of combining them and having the characters meet. Then I saw this amazing art piece online by Daniel Bogni which was basically it:
Source: ArtStation
I absolutely love this piece and it's been my facebook cover photo ever since I saw it. But I thought the background could be more colourful to reflect the palette of both games, and I thought I'd give it a shot by painting it myself!
For the background I wanted it to be completely different, while still combining aspects of both worlds (i.e. the forest of Nibel and the kingdom of Lemuria). And I was also thinking of adding some silhouettes in the foreground to give it more dimension, like Daniel Bogni's piece.
Source: wallpaperflare
So I went researching for lots of screenshots and wallpapers I could reference to get a clearer picture of what I could use for my piece.
Source: Dream Wallpaper
Source: wallha
And after extensive research, this was my sketch:
I only wanted Ori and Aurora to be outlined since they were the focus, but then it was weird not outlining the log they were standing on as well so I just did the whole mid-ground.
I wanted the corner characters to be silhouetted but, mistakes were made.
So I initially didn't want them to be just black and thought I could make them darker with paint but... it's tough to do that with watercolours. And the rest of the colours weren't coming out as well as I thought they would, so it ended up looking like crap.
I was a little disappointed and I wasn't liking it so far, so I decided to scrap that and redo. And with the help of some tracing paper, I managed to salvage my initial sketch so I saved time on sketching, thankfully.
This was my second sketch, which I think looked much better than the first anyway.
So for this I just went all out on the silhouette and just made it black.
Then I used markers and coloured in the corner characters (Naru and Gumo), as well the tree beside them to make it dark but still coloured.
Next was watercolours for the background! I made the Spirit Tree less detailed this time since it's supposed to be waay behind.
For the right side that was supposed to be Lemuria, I used more sandy colours to give some contrast to the forest on the left.
But both areas have water in them so the river dividing them made sense.
And after a few more finishing touches and added details, ta-dah!
I actually really liked how this turned out! The silhouettes weren't too much, and neither was all the background stuff I drew. I thought adding too many rocks would make the piece seem too crowded but it surprisingly isn't! It was a good balance with the minimalist background.
I think I did draw focus away from Ori and Aurora, but that's alright. I wanted to make a glowy effect for Ori and the 2 light partners but it's tough to do that with physical art and I was afraid of screwing it up so I didn't. There were also some smudges here and there but I think they're pretty unnoticeable.
Overall, I really like this piece and I think I did a pretty good job of meshing the 2 art styles together. The added effects on the water and the rocks really helped too.
Have yet to put this up on my wall but I will eventually!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
