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!
Time for yet another Stardew Valley piece! I guess I was on a real Stardew kick that time since it was at the start of quarantine.
Anyway, a few weeks after quarantine started, my friends and I started this crazy 6 player farm in Stardew Valley. Now normally the multiplayer in Stardew only allows up to 4 players but we managed to find and install a mod that allows more than 4 players on the farm! And we were really surprised at how well it worked! Granted it was kinda laggy for some of us since we were all in different countries. 2 of us were located in Singapore, 2 in Malaysia and 2 in Finland. So it did get kinda laggy for our Finland friends but it still worked pretty well regardless.
And needless to say, a lot of shenanigans happened.
But man was it a ton of fun! Getting cooped up for days on end would've gotten old if not for our weekly farming sessions that's for sure.
We actually took like 5 minutes or so just to get this picture haha. # everygroupphotoever
Anyway, I thought I'd commemorate our farming days together by drawing a piece with all 6 of us on the farm! But I wanted to try doing something different and actually drawing human portraits, similar to the ones in-game when the dialogue box shows up.
Source: Reddit
But since I was gonna be drawing us full-bodied, I had to learn how to draw basic anatomy, which was something I always found really challenging so this was a good opportunity to try learning some new techniques!
So I consulted a few really helpful youtube tutorials like this one by Natalia Madej:
And this one by Brian Procter:
They were actually really helpful! I learned a lot and came up with these sketches in just one hour!
Granted, the proportions weren't super perfect, but I think for a first attempt they looked pretty good.
Next it was time for me to start sketching my friends!
Btw this was what my first draft looked like:
Which turned into this:
I'd say that's quite the improvement from just watching a couple of youtube videos. But I did have to draw 6 people all with unique poses and outfits so it was still gonna be a challenge nonetheless.
The clothes were also a problem since I had to make them look natural with creases and everything. But this video also by Natalia Madej really helped:
I mean it still wasn't the best but I tried. For our outfits I actually referenced some screenshots I took in-game of us and tried to copy the looks we each created for our characters.
It was tough though since it's difficult to discern different clothing types in sprite form. I also wanted some variation instead of us all wearing pants and T-shirts and the same boots.
I actually made quite a lot of notes on this piece; regarding our respective positions, our outfits, poses, etc.
So I knew I wanted my friend Teddy to be front and center with his flamingo since it was a running joke that he was obsessed with this flamingo he bought during the first in-game event, i.e. the Egg Festival. And I was peeved that he bought it since our money is shared and the flamingo (which serves no function other than decorative) cost us 400 gold which can be quite substantial early game with 6 people.
But anyway, Miky is the girl on the left whom I envision as strong but silent and she was always chopping trees so I made her into the lumberjack. And since I was the first to complete any of monster slayer quests I became the warrior of the group. Also I fished up this awesome weapon (the Broken Trident) which is really good early game.
For Dean and Sharh I didn't really have much plans other than making Dean a fisherman since he's always fishing. Sharh helps out with farming quite a bit so I drew her holding what is supposed to be a watering can like those in Animal Crossing. Unfortunately idk how I didn't realise I made it way too small for her body so it doesn't look like a watering can at all. sigh
For Sean I wanted him to look nonchalant while throwing a Prismatic Shard onto a pile behind him. He's always super lucky in Stardew Valley, getting rare items without even trying so it seemed fitting. I actually had him pose like that irl so I had a reference photo to draw from.
But anyway, but them all together and this was my sketch!
I think at the time I thought this looked pretty alright. Like separately I thought we all looked okay, except maybe Sharh's hair and Sean's head. But at that time it had taken me so long to even get to this point and I didn't think I could do any better.
So I just went to outlining!
For the background I referenced the cover of the Stardew Valley guidebook, which I thought was so pretty:
Source: Goodreads
Well time to get painting! And man I think this was the second hardest part.
I asked for the girls' favourite colours in order to pick their colours and it was alright, but the skin tone was definitely a challenge. The paints I had weren't the best either so I had to mix some gouache paints to get certain shades. I really tried my hardest for Sean and Teddy's skin tones but it's really difficult to mix it just right. Eventually I just settled for adding white to this shade and hoped for the best.
And after painting the background and adding some final touches, this was the result!
I was initially pretty excited for this piece, but man it did not turn out as well as I had hoped. It was really unfortunate too, since I spent so much time sketching each of us out and trying so hard to make it look proportional and everything. What a letdown.
Thankfully my friends were actually really supportive! And I liked how the background turned out at least. I think Miky looked the best out of all of us tbh. But Teddy looked alright too, especially with his pose and the flamingo. As a whole it still looks alright, but man there could be so many improvements made to this piece.
Idk if I still wanna try drawing "realistic" human bodies because it's just not my style, but I also don't wanna give it up just yet and I think if I try again I could probably do a much better job of it now. Idk tho. I still prefer drawing cute chibi styles so we'll see what ideas I can come up with. And now that I'm venturing into digital art I won't have to worry about skin tones so that'll take a load off at least.
Well that's all for now! Sorry for the longer post but thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
