Hey there, all. It's another Friday, which means it's around the time for my next Splinterlands Art Contest submission.
This week, I chose to draw the Meriput Magician. While I always end up drawing a humanoid version of the character or monster (this time being no exception), I tried to keep some of the original traits of the original character in my art.
With the general overview out of the way, let's just jump right into the details. For those interested in the details, please keep on reading; otherwise, you can open the gallery to get a side-by-side process of the drawing.
The Process
As always, I started with the line art. The character was a mouse, and since I wanted to carry over the original traits as much as possible, I gave her the giant ears and the fluffy hair, and the mouse teeth.
Now the fluffy hair wasn't as visible here as in the next steps, where there's more color and shades, but those three traits were the ones that I thought were more defining of a mouse, so they're the ones I chose.
Also, this goes without saying, but I made her look more like a mouse than a rat, since, you know, rats are not domesticated and less preferable as pets, let alone being a human version. I'd draw them as a rat if they were a shady character, but since she's a small and adorable mouse, I went for the traits of a mouse.
Next, I started the coloring process from the subject herself. My main concern in this step was her ear colors and skin color matching, and not looking too weird together. Her big ears in the earlier step were looking a bit off, but after I added the base color, they started looking natural. (spoiler alert: they did end up looking more natural as I started adding shades and highlights, as it gave them more depth).
Then it was time to add the background. I added a flat color background that fit her entire color scheme, and it was good for starters.
Now it was time to finally start working on the highlights and add them to places that mattered the most: her hair.
Then it was time to make her skin look right, and that's when I added the shades and details on those parts.
And finally, it was time to reconsider the background color, and for that I chose one that had a mild contrast with her palette (and later resonated well with the jewelry on her)
The original art had a couple of accessories and jewelry on her, so I took that idea and gave her a bunch of my own around her neck and on her arms. I could only think a small mouse would steal that, so I thought Why not and gave her a bunch more since I thought they looked good on her.
The Result
And in the final step, I gave her hair some white strands to make it look more fluffy (as all domesticated mice are), and gave the background some sparkles and stars to add to the magical effect of the drawing. (as if a magician mouse isn't magical enough, haha)
Original Game Art
And for those who are wondering about the reference character, here is the original game's art:
Anyway, that's it for this week's fan art. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did drawing it. Do let me know what you think about it in the comment section down below, good luck to those participating in this week's contest, and I'll see you all in the next one... cheers~~