Sustained Investigation #14

There were a few things that guided the idea of this artwork. First of all like the last SI I wanted to show aliens and a character in the same image, this shows off character design for the aliens and human. It also somewhat shows personality of the character, with the last SI AJ was very nonchalantly having a conversation with an alien whose language she didn't even speak, this character is a lot more stoic observing the alien aquatic life. Of cores this also shows of a location, the one in this piece being inspired by an aquarium just in space. Story wise i may or may not be located on Space Station Colossal, something I drew for a different SI. 

This work was done digitally on the program Procreate on an iPad using an apple pencil as a stylist. A verity of effects were able to be done because of this. I used an overlay layer on the front and background to create the lighting for the water and the airbrush tool to create a subtle gradient of light over the colorful fish and the ones in the background. Adding a hue around the edges of the foreground was also accomplished well because of the digital medium. Finally choosing and using a color palette for each fish was, in my opinion, done better then it could have been traditionally. 

 Honestly a majority of this work was done in one take one night. I started out with a sketch of a person in the alien aquarium. Then started drawing the alien fish one by one. There designs changed slightly in this process as they were all new ideas entirely. I also decided to add some silhouettes of fish in the far background to imply a larger space and a bit of the unknown. For some reason I feel the sketch was intended to make a far more lively final piece but the result, although bright, feels a lot more bleak and lonely for the character which does work for the story in a way.