Umbash the king of the swamp
here comes Umbash, a great old swamp-giant that lives in the endless swamps of Nuur.
his arrival is welcomed by a courageous swamp-dweller that approaches him in a small boat and plays a little fanfare on a tiny trumpet.
hopefully Umbash will bless the village of the swamp people with a lot of fish... :)
started out with a crude grey-scale sketch of the scene.
while painting i kept flipping the image horizontally all the time. that way it is easier to see errors.
i used the levels command to make the image darker. dark helps to get the imagination going.
at some point i decided to keep Umbash on the right side but i kept flipping the image to make it look ok on both sides.
i continued detailing the image using a soft brush and eventually i added color.
i resized the hut in the front,the boat and the little dude so he would look like he could actually fit into his home. and i temporarily removed his lamp. i thought it was too bright.
Umbash looks like a cousin of jabba the hut and maybe he is :D
for the final image i returned the lamp to the boat, infested the area with clouds of mosquito, made some fog and i also sharpened the swamp kings tooth.
i kept the image small size to prevent me from detailing too much but at the end i detailed it quite alot.
it´s always hard for me to decide when a painting is ready and how much detail to include.
at the beginning i try to zoom back and paint in a small frame but later on zooming in is almost a vice and often gets me stuck.
for now i call this one finished but i might size it up and detail it further later on.
i love painting swampy scenes and it´s not the first swamp giant i painted and this one is actually like a reboot of my old swamp giant image that i have on deviant art.
hope you enjoyed this!
cheers,
hauke
Awesome drawing, @papersmell! :-D
Great details. You've placed the windows and the doors as if the houses had eyes and mouths. Beautiful details!
hey trincowski ! yay -thank you so much ! maybe i unconsciously used the little huts like character expressions to give more impact to the small guy with the trumpet.
like the huts are looking at him and are afraid that he plays the wrong tune which would displease Umbash ...
Umbash looks great as a king of swamp. Hopefully he will get along with all the citizens because it would be too sad if their cute houses become empty and unoccupied.
Love all the green and yellow in this picture, Hauke.
And congratulations for your second curie vote. It is always good when talented people like you get rewarded :).
hello scrawly!thank you so much ! and yes Umbash actually cares very much for all of the swamp dwellers but if the inhabitants of the swamp behave in a bad way his punishment can be harsh. i think this little village is not in a good shape - maybe the inhabitants somehow displeased Umbash in the past and maybe the tiny trumpet is a last call to get his blessing.
Umbash seems to be a great king of swamp! Is that a human in the boat? If so, I can imagine that Umbash will gain humans respect very quickly considering his size :) The houses are cute. They look a little bit like pumpkins. I like the way you did the reflection of the light from houses. It looks all very magical. Thank you for sharing!
hello ! yes i think it´s a little human in the boat ! :) and thank you so much for your kind comment !!
Umbash if it looks like the king of the pantato, you achieved an excellent dark effect, in general I loved the colors you used, The fog, the swamp, the small houses, Everything very well achieved .. I love it! A big hug @papersmell
hello naideth thank you so much glad you like it ! :)
hey, @papersmell.
I really enjoyed seeing each stage of the painting. And it's great that you actually have your own backstory to go with it. I think removing the horns was a good thing, and making the eyes look more lizard or snake like was the best choice, too.
I can see the resemblance to Jabba, and while that adds kind of a Star Wars element to this, the rest of the painting is definitely more fable in content and feel.
I also like the look on Umbash's face, like, What is this? or Not this guy again. He seems less menacing and more I just want to be left alone. A nice twist, I think. I can imagine the conversation that would commence between the hut dweller and Umbash.
Well done, and congratulations on the curie, too.
If you were to make more changes, or additions, what other details would you put in?
hey thank you so much for your comment - very much appreciated. i would probably add some more interesting vegetation maybe some more detail to plants in forground. maybe some fishing utensils like nets and traps and such.... :)
My pleasure.
Oh, okay. So 'liven' up the place more. I think it looks great now, but you're the artist, and ultimately, you need to be happy with it. There's always something that could be done. It seems like the trickiest part is knowing when it's done.
As I said, I think it has a mood all unto it's own now, but adding those things would give it more of a sense of life, in that things have been going on there prior to Umbash's arrival, and potentially making its presence standout even more.
Anyway, I wish you luck with whatever you decide to do with it. I think the idea of revitalizing old work is a good one.
i constantly pick up old ideas and draw them again until i´m more happy with the realization. but i got to be honest here : when i finish a personal piece i almost always say that i might come back to it later but then never do- i rather paint it all again in a different way which is good. if a piece is for a client it´s of course ready when i say it´s ready (even if if deep down i´m seldom convinced ) but when i just paint for myself i seem to have the necessity to announce that i can do it better later on which is kinda silly because as i said i never do. :D your comment helped me self-reflect. thank you ! :)
No problem! I think it's great to do things over. If it's anything like writing, you're constantly changing as a person and an artist, and so you're looking for a new challenge, or a different perspective, both literal and figurative, so I can see why going back and taking the main concept and coming up with something new would be worth it. There are things I have written years ago that I would totally rewrite now, so I understand that desire very well.
This is great! I’d love to know what media or software you use. All hail the mighty Umbash!
Posted using Partiko iOS
i painted this in adobe photoshop CC 2018 using my old worn out wacom tablet.
to be honest i also did a traditional sketch before i started painting this digitally.
i did not post that sketch here because i did it on a napkin during lunch and i gave it to the waiter... :P
hahahaha great and cute work!
Like this a lot!
cheers,
-edga NOWARGraffitis
many thanks !! cheers ! :)
Wow cool work I like the style and seeing the process!
Upvoted and resteemed!
hey thank you sanderjansenart ! much appreciated.
Great work!
(I have new drawings. Would be great if you take a look at them;)
hey thanks ! i did and i love the still-lifes !
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