New Year, new painting

Made some breakthroughs in digital painting to ring in the new year.

Technical notes:

I was keeping my brush at around 70% opacity and 50% flow using hard edge brushed for blocking in color and soft at around 30% opacity for blending.

I got carried away with the mermaids parts – particularly with the faces and eyes. I don’t know if it is wise to work these detailed areas first but I’m thinking I can keep the rest very loose and perhaps come to a quick finish.

Discovered the art of WEI (http://www.artofwei.com/ ) while trying to figure out the lighting for mermaid 1. Different brush settings recommended – 25% opacity and flow. It works pretty well for blending things smoothly. Gotta bump the percentages up for hard edges and details.

Today I am pretty much done, except for some final nitpicking. I learned a lot and often felt like I had completely left my comfort zone and had no idea how to proceed... but 13 days later the coloring is done ...almost.