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Borabee — Space Opera
#space #boorabee #allien #digitalart #dragon #drawing #eel #electricity #feminist #illustration #monster #photoshop #scifi #spaceopera #women #art
Published: 2015-12-27 23:34:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 556; Favourites: 8; Downloads: 0
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Description
Another picture for one of my drawing dare groups on Facebook. This time the theme was space opera o/ And what a better way to celebrate how terrible this year was for sexist sci fi movie fans, than to have two bad-ass girls fight a gruesome space-eel-dragon-monster? XDI wanted to try out this more horizontal format because I've been planning on making myself a pretty social media header for ages now but I kept insisting on the "character floating on a crazy background" thing instead of JUST DOING IT. I guess this is still kind of characters floating, but at least they're interacting now and it makes a bit more sense for them to be floating since they're in space after all haha. So now that I followed Shia's advice, I have a proud new cover for my facebook page (fb.com/borabeeart) yaaaay! I also tried a new, more painterly style for this piece. I just wanted to try some new tablet based possibilities, like more expressiveness on the shanding and the markings, which in paintings like the horns on the Nevy fanart (fav.me/d93ph52 ) took me ages to accomplish with only a mouse.
The character on the left was kinda inspired by myself, or at least who I plan to be once I have enough money to dye my hair grey XD
And maybe their outfits were inspired by some random Just Dance characters I was looking at through the entire afternoon before sketching this. Just maybe...
I finally feel like I'm developing something of a style, though I'm still displeased with a lot in this piece, like how it still feels to sketchy (which is kind what I was going for, but I might have overdone it). What do you think? Feedback is much appreciated! ^^
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Comments: 12
Interesting work, I like the background in this.
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Thank you very much <3 The background was kind of a challenge because I wanted it to look just sketchy enough haha XD
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From
The perspective in here is pretty good. I really like the background in this, it looks pretty spacey. I like the design for the characters in the picture as well. What you should improve on is the anatomy, especially on the arms and legs. In some parts they look either too long or too short and maybe a reference could be used on them next time. Also the black and the blue in the background could be blended a bit better. The eel dragon monster looks a little sloppy too, as in some places the line art and coloring seem messy.
I'm not so great at critiques, but I hope this helps.
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It does help, thanks a lot!
I'm slowly recognizing the importance of using references haha. Usually I'm a bit lazy to use them and sadly I don't know many reference sources for varied body types
And I'll tell you I did have a hard time with that black and blue blending. I'll try harder next time
Thanks again ^^
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This is a very attention-grabbing, colorful, and well-illustrated drawing! I like the action movie poster vibe that your drawing gives. The characters' poses are eye-catching, dynamic, and well-coordinated, and the way you colored and shaded the skin of the eel and the pale woman especially brings an otherworldly, alien feel to them - it fits well with your science fiction/space theme. Your watercolor-style background is also very suitable for your theme and adds a nice nebula-like effect.
However, to me, it's not entirely clear what is happening in the picture. The woman on the right seems to be patting the eel with one hand while aiming her weapon at it with her other hand - if that wasn't what you intended to illustrate, then you could consider drawing a shadow below the woman's left hand on the eel, so it's clear that they aren't making physical contact.
Additionally, I agree with kaotic-cass 's comment about the eel's head looking flat. To give the eel's head more depth, you could show part of the tongue and/or lower right teeth of the eel, similar to this example (i57.photobucket.com/albums/g20… ), or adding darker shades to the top of the eel's head and lower jaw, like in this drawing (s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/7… ). Adding darker shades to the eel's teeth will also give it a more menacing, predatory appearance.
Overall, this is a great piece, and I like your unique, creative illustration style! Hope this helps!
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Hey, so sorry it took me this long to reply :s Thank you very much for this helpful critique!
Actually, I made her pat the eel on purpose XD The idea when making this eel was to at first give the impression it was a scary and mean monster, but when you paid more attention, you'd realize it was actually a scared, disoriented and, quite unfortunately, deadly creature. I tried to imply this by not giving the monster and the alien girl explicitly angry expressions and by making her simultaneously try to calm it down and raise a weapon to protect herself... But maybe that was something too ambitious to show on a single scene or I just didn't put enough elements in too show it, d'oh XD
Thank you also for these great references and tips! I'll definitely take these in consideration when drawing these sorts of monstrous creatures in the future! The second picture in fact is giving me some new ideas of monster designs and a mildy need to draw this again haha XD
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No worries, and you're very welcome
I see; I think part of the confusion on my part stems from the left character not appearing to be interacting with the eel (or alternatively they could be interpreted as stepping on the eel while pointing their weapon at another part of the eel's body, off-screen - but this part may be unclear to the viewer since we don't know how large the eel is), so on a first look it can seem like both of the women and the eel are striking poses as part of a movie poster. One way to add to this scene could be having both characters interact with the eel, ex. the person on the right pats them while the one on the left has her weapon ready as backup.
Looking forward to seeing the cool monsters you come up with! & if you decide to draw this picture again, I'd love to see it 
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Oh, I like this idea of giving them each different roles! It would sure make the picture more clear and could add to the composition! Thanks! I'll probably redo this when I get a bit better as a "Draw This Again" meme, just because I love those memes haha XD
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No problem 
I love those memes as well, and seeing the progress that people make~
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Hello, I come here from ProjectComment 's Comment Tag game and my word was "alien/dragon.”
I believe a giant space eel fits under the “alien/dragon” tag, which is why I chose this one.
I would like to start off by saying that the two characters on the left look really wonderful. They are incredibly stylized in an attractive style (meaning the style is a nice and pleasant one to look at) and the colors look really good together.
My only suggestion with them would be to perhaps add some more shading and work on your hands a little more.
As for the space eel, I really like the design/concept behind it. It’s menacing and a tad bit creepy – and the spins on the nose really help bring the design all together a little more solidly.
However, I think you could do a little more work with the space eel. The line-work and the coloring are a lot less confident than with the characters, which leads me think that this was an experimental design (one I like). And some things to think about if you draw this eel again would be to think about it’s skeletal structure and how it’d look. I say this because the head doesn’t seem anatomically accurate, very flat on top without much dimension there. The body also seems to grow towards the end where we are no longer able to see it – which makes me wonder just how big this creature is – which isn’t a bad thing, just a note that made me curious.
All in all, I love this piece – you have a nice style and you do excellent work. Keep it up. 
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Oh, I'm so glad you like the style! My main goal right now is getting used to my tablet and finding a style, so I can work on it consistently. So this really means a lot!
You are absolutely right about the eel too! Before this, I've never really made much effort to draw anything but humans, so I know very little of dragon and eel anatomy. And the head was a pain to draw, I really didn't know how to make it pop out. I used some reference for this and thought it looked cool, but now that you point out these flaws I agree studying skeletal structure is essential at this point, especially since I even have some dragon-ish OCs I wanna draw someday XD
And I'm glad you got curious about the size! I assure you... It really is big hehe
Thanks a lot for the thoughtful comment <3
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I'm happy to be of help! You have the human characters down pat and they look amazing - keep it up and I'm sure those dragon-ish OC's will be awesome!
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