Utopho (Triton Bard)

Utopho Redraw 2021 by Mikey Parker March 28th 2021
2481 x 3507 pixels // 300 dpi // 7.88 MB

Utopho Triton, an underwater species. She is a quite, deeply insightful and profound Bard. She doesnt speak much but when she does you better listen. This was a character played by one of my best friend's (the person who played Drath'nor) wife. She had never played D&D before so I made her a character. Looking back, she would've been a great Barbarian instead of a bard 🤷‍♂️ If you're really interested you can listen to the recordings of the games on my YouTube Playlist called "the Angel and the Vengeful Sea" what a cheesy campaign name lol
(https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4--NrwxzJEyG1iB-aaY0OSH4wgAodoAP), language and volume warning! Alcohol was most definitely involved.

Recently I've been going back through old drawings and paintings, trying to find pieces I believe deserve a second attempt with new digital equipment and if we're lucky, I've improved my art skills and knowledge too. This whole series of chibi characters screamed out at me, desperately needing a redraw.

Utopho's original design was chibi and really kind of off balance. Her stance too far forward and the limbs look flat and strained. So lets get into it!

• Starting with a 2481 x 3507 pixels 300 dip canvas (which is roughly a little bigger than 8.5 x 10 inches) on Clipstudio, working on Cintiq 13 HD
• then importing the original file, I use the color identify tool to pick out a few colors I wanted to keep and use again in the redraw.
• These all go on a different "notes" layer, that will be kept hidden most of the time.
• saves colors green-blue, bubble gum pink and pale yellow.
• To bring a little cohesiveness to this piece and the Drath'nor piece it will ultimate be coupled with, I also pick off an almost black-purple and off-white.
  most of the time pure white and pure black are too strong of colors to put into your work and will make things seem too bright or too dark
  -Using pose references and staying very loose I sketched out a new body

Now its time to add some details and make it our own.

• Cropping and zooming on the figure, I find a pleasing composition between the figure and negative space
• Spending extra time on the face, I start making details. Adding jewelery, skin/scale discoloring.
• Then clothing and the bubbles to tie in the blank background
• I drew the octopus tattoo in the sketch here but wouldn't end up keep it all the way through the design

Merging all the layers I had been adding up for different bits of sketching (which is a great way to test out different design ideas without committing to each and every one) I now have one cohesive "sketch" layer

• set the sketch layer to multiply and create a new layer underneath it, this will be our "underpainting layer"
• Going back to the colors I saved and with a flat oil brush and hard eraser, I start to fill in large blocks of color. Pink for the hair, Blue skin, Brown cloth.
  towards the end of the process, I get a color correction layer out and turn the colors on their heads for something unexpected

• then I created another layer and put it underneath the Underpainting, this will be our "background"
• selecting the color fill bucket, I fill the whole layer a pale yellow. So I can paint the figure and not worry about affecting the background
• Creating a new layer on top of everything I start making corrections to the shapes as well as covering sketch lines with a hard or soft airbrush tool, depending the situation.
  soft for sketch lines on the body and hard for lines outside the figure or edge.
• You can still add detail in this stage but you might create a different layer for it.

I merge layers as I go, happy with the process to keep creative flow moving forward as well as decluttering my workspace. Focusing on blocking in smaller color and shapes. Such as the eyes, lips and necklace.

This is where it gets fun. Spending extra time and layers, repeating the adjust/merge process.

• Starting with hard line body shadows and blending them out to the form of the figure
• then the hair, with long singular lines from the base of the head to the ends of the hair. Not every hair can be drawn but I wanted to give them impression of silky hair underwater
• a new layer for the yellow dots on her skin, merged when happy
• a new layer for air bubbles, filling in white with mid gray for shadow, I turned down the opacity then merged when happy
  I repeated this process until all the shadows and highlights were in place. Trying to use a variety of brush strokes with the oil flat brush, the air brush and blending tool.

By the time I had gotten the body painted how I wanted the octopus tattoo had all but when airbrushed away. Tried a few times on a new layer to get something in place of it but couldnt seem to get it right with the body already being shaded. So I decided to ditch the idea and add a texture over the top.

• import free stock texture of some sequins, set the layer to soft light and turn the opacity way down til it created something not too overbearing in the background but great detail on Utopho's body.
• then I created a Corrections Layer on top of everything to see if I could color balance it just a little better or maybe turn down the saturation because of the bright hair, skin AND background.

What I found was better than expected.

The background reversed to blue, the hair a minty-briny green, and the skin turned a copper color. I loved it, those colors had been on my radar since I had color picked from the original but I believe they fit Utopho much better. So I signed it and merged all the layers together.

Thanks for reading! Keep creating!
-Mikey