Concept and paint an aquatic creature

The artist begins by outlining the process of conceptualizing a creature and then moves on to detailing its surface texture. They discuss the importance of body structure in relation to composition and how to achieve a 'wet look' with specular highlights. The artist chooses a purplish color for the creature to stand out against the background and demonstrates techniques for creating a strong silhouette and composition.

The focus shifts to applying a textured brush to the creature's skin to simulate a wet, skin-like appearance. The artist scales up the texture, adjusts the opacity, and uses it to highlight important areas. They discuss the concept of wet skin and how light interacts with it, emphasizing areas like the shoulders and thighs where light would naturally collect due to the wet surface. The artist also touches on the importance of highlighting the best parts of the design for clarity and visual interest.

The artist continues to work on the creature's design by adding specular highlights and creating atmospheric depth. They use a technique to highlight areas that will appear slick and wet, focusing on the tail and other prominent features. The artist also discusses the concept of pushing certain elements back in space by adjusting their saturation and contrast, and how to use lighting to enhance the creature's form and the clarity of the concept.

The artist discusses how the creature's colors are influenced by its environment, drawing parallels with sea life and large animals that blend with their surroundings. They add green to the creature's design, suggesting a swampy or cephalopod-like appearance. The artist emphasizes the importance of maintaining a predatory vibe with darker colors and highlights areas such as the eye to make it pop, ensuring the creature's main coloration morphs into the face and other areas.

The artist moves on to cleaning up the creature's edges and further defining its anatomy. They focus on making sure the outline is crisp and the complex areas like the horn and mouth are well detailed. The artist also adds bubbles to the background to enhance the underwater setting and uses custom brushes to work on the specular highlights, ensuring the limbs and bones are well represented and the creature's skin texture is natural under water.

The artist discusses the importance of balancing light and dark areas to create contrast and depth in the creature's design. They emphasize the need to focus on specific tasks, such as pushing back limbs in space, while adding brighter highlights to certain areas. The artist also talks about the skin texture of amphibians and how it can be used to create interesting breakups for specular highlights, using the light to enhance the creature's form and bring attention to focal points.

The artist concludes by focusing on the final touches of specular highlights, ensuring they are well-defined and contribute to the overall cohesion of the piece. They discuss the use of rim lighting to separate the creature from the background and the importance of not overcomplicating certain areas. The artist also mentions the use of shadows and highlights to reinforce the creature's form and make it easier to read, suggesting that artists can 'cheat' reality to make the artwork more understandable for their purposes.

The artist takes a step back to review the overall visual impact of the creature, making adjustments to the shadows and highlights to enhance its form and distinguish different areas. They emphasize the need to push less important areas back in space and focus on the most complex and interesting parts of the creature, such as the head, to maintain it as the focal point. The artist also discusses the process of adding complexity to the tail and other areas while ensuring they do not overshadow the main focal points.