Comms: ShhHhhAaarK

Du dun du dun ddddddu dun...

This scene is from an amazing story called Something in the Water by Thelxiope. It's based on Jaws, so I also based some of the elements on the film.

It was very exciting to work on this illustration. Aside from the huge shark, I also enjoyed painting the background because usually, I have trouble filling up the space.

I think this is the first time I did water -- in all sort of forms, even. Waves, flood-ish water, wet clothes, skin and hair. Wow, this had been really fun. I hope I can do more soon.

Also, I need to draw more teeth-baring-creatures.

Process and whatnot

Started with a sketch then recreated the scene with cardboard to help set up the perspective. I was also hoping it would serve as reference for my lights and shadows.

Just a few cardboard and aluminum foil away from building my own time machine.

Setting up the perspective guides.

Further into the coloring stage however, there were just too many details to consider. My prop was too crude to help with the lighting so I decided to go for 3d, my nemesis!

The "shark cage" did not help at all.

I will never admit that the 3d version is better.

I couldn't figure how to set a jpeg image as a background in Blender so that it can be used as reference for the model, particularly for setting up the camera angle. Had to eyeball it all instead. The render isn't exact but at least I have a good reference for the lighting -- especially since my initial painting of the shadows was kinda off too.

My reference for Alex's shirt is quite fun. There was no way I could do a wet version though.

I struggled quite a bit with the wet clothing effect. How to render translucency on the fabric so that it looks wet and not because it is thin?

I looked up a lot of images and shot a small scale version to study and reference from.

I think I figured it out a bit. It took a lot of tries but it was very fun to render too. I hope to improve further.

As for Maggie's pose, unfortunately, I had to dress up for the part and do the pose myself. I already feel embarassed typing this out.

Anyway, shark, water, boat, fun.