Jovian Floater

For one of our newest assignments was for digital manipulation and my first one was to enhance the sketch of one of my earlier designs, so I chose this from when we were creating strange creatures. Wanting this to be more alien so I did a few sketches first before scanning it to the computer.

1. Here is the sketch of the original design, I used two creatures to make up this strange one: one a star fish and the other was a jellyfish. There was an idea of making more than one but with other designs to do at a limit, I just stuck to using one.

2. Removing the creature below and expanding the one from the top to fill in the area.

3. The next thing was to start on a new layer and draw over the sketch. I had to do it a few times over to make it enough to look good and most of all with the smaller tentacles.

4. Now I started on the coloring stage, Tried a few ideas for how the creature would look so I came up with a brownish color scheme. Did the lighter colors first and then tried some shadings. It was more like experimenting of the color scheme for how it will turn out before going further.

5. Added a more pinkish color and darken it a little more, including the brown larger tentacles to make them browner before adding lighter shades to it.

 6. Creating a lighter tone on the surface of the top of the creature and using a lighter brown color, before doing that I needed to use a lighter and more softer tone of the brush tool to brighten up the design. The same thing for the 'head' so it would have some soft patterns.

 7. I figured that it looked a little dark by the use of colors by the lower half of the body and the smaller tendrils, so I used the Brightness/Contrast tool to adjust the color with a more bright pink tone. Made certain it was not so bright otherwise it would loose the dark luminous patterns.

 8. Moving the design to a new page and on to a new layer over the background, going for a near-blue sky from using a dark blue to a lighter blue. Rotating the creature to make it more right for the background later on.

 9. Blending the three colours together using the Smudge tool which made the sky more like a cloudy-background.

 10. Making a new layer to make more clouds, I lowered the capacity and flow to make it work, took a few minutes to get them look just right. The bottom was now more of a brownish color to make it look as though it was actually flying or drifting in the air.

 11. Creating more clouds and wanting to brown 'surface' to appear more like a giant cloud using more brownish colors to make the idea work and using a darker brown for the depths it would be from the light. Adjusting the brush tool to do detailed tasks before it can be completed. For the final touch, I worked on the clouds again and this time making them into a great curve by the distance as if they were pulled or moved to turn by the wind currents.

 12. Finally completed and made a few adjustments to be sure it is done. The background I had the idea from looking some planets of how it should have and stumbled upon the amazing image of Jupiter's clouds from the surface and thought why not make something like that. So far this is as close as I can get after hours of work but very much enjoyed how it turned out in the end.