Hello HoloZing folks! 🌿🔥 It’s been a while since I stopped by here. I’ve been a bit disconnected because life doesn’t always bring good days. Recently, I had to say goodbye forever to one of my cats, and believe me, that knocked me down hard—it’s something that still weighs heavily on me. 🖤🐾

Still, I needed to distract myself and create again, so here’s my new fanart, titled “Tracking Footprints”

This time, I dared to draw the forest male healer since I always draw women. I depicted him crouched in a dense forest, tracking a fire dragon’s footprints. The idea was to give him that hunter’s aura, while making it clear the dragon isn’t there to attack—but to slip away. They’re clever creatures and always outmaneuver their followers… so in the end, you never know who’s stalking whom. 👀

I couldn’t draw the gun straight🔫

One thing that gave me trouble was the capture gun. I swear it was super tough—I still think it looks a bit crooked—but hey, that’s just part of the artwork’s personality now. 😅

🧠 TOOLS USED:

Photoshop (as always, my digital salvation).
Brushes: my trusty brush pack, with a few new ones featuring glitter effects
Soundtrack: Babymetal to boost my mood to the max!❕
Resolution: 2200x1240 px

_{(Thx to @holozing for such cool healers to bring to life!)}

⏰ CREATIVE PROCESS

✏️ Phase 1: Sketch & Lineart

I started with a quick sketch to define the pose: I wanted the healer to look stealthy yet analytical—hidden among branches, observing and tracking the dragon’s footprints. The first sketch always comes out all wonky with weird proportions, but I kept adjusting it until you could see the intention behind that crouching stance. It was the foundation for everything that followed.

🎨 Phase 2: Base Colors

Then I moved on to laying down flat colors to organize the layers: skin, clothing, forest, weapon… This is where I should’ve fixed the capture gun—I could tell something was off but thought ‘I’ll fix it later’… and well, that didn’t happen. Next time I’ll use a 3D gun model for reference! 😅 Still, the darker, natural forest palette was already taking shape, and the character stood out against all that muted green.

🌗 Phase 3: Skin and Colorful Hair

This was my favorite part: starting to add depth. The healer’s face gained dimension, and you could already feel that tension—like he was closing in on his prey, unaware that he was the one being watched. What made me choose this healer version was his vibrant, colorful hair and those bright accents on his jacket. It looks awesome! Since the painting’s atmosphere is dark, the colors really popped. I also avoided overusing white for the jacket, shifting it to darker gray tones instead. This way, it doesn’t steal all the attention—you still know it’s white, but it blends subtly while highlighting details like the forest healers’ logo, the sleeve cuffs, and the high collar.

🌟 Phase 4: Final Touches

In the final stretch, I focused on details: the forest foliage, shadows enveloping the healer, and strategic highlights on the weapon and clothing. I wanted everything to feel part of the same atmosphere—that tension between light and shadow. The dragon appears in the background, small but present, a reminder that it’s not fleeing out of fear, but because it knows exactly how to slip away. That’s the essence of this piece. You know how I could keep adding details forever? But the painting already felt overwhelmingly big and crowded, so I chose to emphasize the light from his glove scanning the footprint—that would be the standout feature. In fact, while writing this post, I thought it’d be awesome if scanning the footprint revealed a tiny tag showing which Holo it belongs to and its description! So I literally just reopened Photoshop to add this. It’s not perfectly centered or organized since I had to manipulate many already-merged layers—I didn’t overcomplicate it, just tucked it in a corner. If you check the GIF, you’ll see the illustration’s first version versus now. I like it way better, and it’s something I’ll add to future healer paintings… where I hope I won’t slack on painting their gloves. (You can probably spot some rushed areas—I was just so done with painting by that point!)