I did a shoot for my swimming coach & part of the team about a month ago just for fun. The team’s name is “Team SeaMonsta” and they even have their own little logo of a Sea Monster.

So itchy finger me had nothing better to do (actually I did have better things to do but “escapism” won me over again) so I decided to try my hand at digital painting and ended up painting in a sea monster into the photo.

Digital painting was another area which I explored just before I left architecture, it was either digital painting (or 3D) or photography. Still not sure which would be a better career path.

Well anyway, here’s the sequence leading up to the final painted photo.

Here’s the original photograph taken at the pool we train in

Here’s the actual logo superimposed onto the background as reference

This is the initial sketch showing the rough layout and look of the Sea Monster

Now came the tough part, fleshing things out. A lot of painting done here starting with the eyes and mouth.

I added in a swimming cap for fun. He/it even has goggles made of tires.

More fleshing out of the arms. Crossed to imitate what some of the swimmers are doing.

Fleshed out the arms in the foreground as well

Here’s the final photograph with little details added, including veins, water droplets, etc.

In all, it took me about 12hours to get from start to finish. Not too bad considering I’ve never really done something like this before. However, I still can’t seem to be able to get his/it’s skin to look moist and wet no matter how I try. Oh well.