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Happy New Year 2024!🎇 Wait, What? It's already February!!!?

Hey! How's your day going? How are you? It's been a while since I was around here, but it's time to create art for this 2024.

And since I finished 2023 with a Splinterlands fan art, I couldn't start my year here on Hive in any other way. So, I went straight to the Rebellion card sheet to bring one of its characters to life. The lucky one today (and for many days, considering the time it took me to paint her) is Blackmoor Nymph.A beautiful humanoid with somewhat pale skin, whom I've decided to give a more violet tone due to the warm atmosphere I wanted to surround her with. As you can see, I filled this painting with vegetation everywhere. I think I've never added so much green in any other painting I've done for Splinterlands, so I tried to balance the color palette as much as possible and ensure that the vegetation didn't steal the spotlight.

By the way, go to the end of the post, and there you will find the extended version with a wider aspect ratio, allowing you to see all the vegetation around the nymph.

Play Splinterlands Now❕

Tools:

Gaomon S620
Photoshop
Brushes courtesy of Imad Awan: Download here

🔰Process🔰

_Reference

-Step 1:

Despite Blackmoor Nymph being one of the nymphs with a more rugged appearance in the Splinterlands card illustrations, I wanted to paint her in a relaxed manner in the middle of the forest. I chose a pose where she would be calmly sitting on a rock. Initially, I planned to have her resting on a tree trunk, but I didn't want everything to be entirely vegetation.

-Step 2:

I outlined and filled in the silhouette of the nymph, but here the crucial point to discuss is the background. I wanted to tackle it right away because the usual approach is to give it basic colors and then refine it later. However, this time, with so many elements behind the protagonist, I had to shape them to check if the composition I had in my mind really looked good on the canvas.

-Step 3:

Something interesting about this character and the surrounding background is the contrast between the warm tones of the forest and the cooler colors of the nymph's skin and clothing. That's why now I got down to detailing the character's skin, leaving the base color I had as the shadow tone. From there, I've added volume with lighter tones, aiming to approach the original pale tone of the nymph. Additionally, it helps to make the character stand out in the middle of the forest.

-Step 4:

I've continued playing with the tonal variation in the nymph. Therefore, I desaturated her blue blouse a bit since it was standing out too much. I also reduced the contrast of the skin slightly, but at the same time, enhanced the warmth of her face with a touch of pink in "soft light" blending mode. Additionally, I lowered the height of the hair on the top of her head a bit.

-Step 5:

Finally, it's time to define the background. While I had placed the main plants before, they were nothing more than silhouettes or brushstrokes that only I understood, and some were a bit embarrassing, like that palm leaf in the foreground. I had to spend a couple of minutes to make it look better. Additionally, I wanted to give a new look to that black stem in the back and turned it into a big twisted tree with yellow leaves to preserve the warmth and colors I had been working with since the beginning of coloring.

Another thing to highlight is that I played with the Gaussian blur to achieve more depth of field among the vegetation. This way, it didn't feel like everything was too close to the camera or the viewer's point of view. Then, I finished with an ultra-soft brush set to "screen" blending mode, painting very gently around the character to create a magical aura, something similar to the glows that AIs make.