Most of the effort was spent figuring out how much of the central character I wanted to take up the page, and whether or not I could continue using value to pull the viewers' attention towards her. It's all about information vs simplicity and the balance between the two. 
Really love the way you manipulate colour in your paintings. So fluid and natural, I'd love to be able to paint like that! It's looking really beautiful so far, but I agree it needs the focal point to be stronger, there's a lot of distracting highlights going on around the piece but honestly it is looking so pretty so far
Did some more work and it's starting to come together. Notice I haven't really focused on details of the figure like eyes and a nose. I'm sort of feeling the forms out as I go to keep the process more intuitive. Also, a bit more harmonizing of the colors and values as I double-check my phone to see what's maybe too dark or too saturated. It's a very delicate process that you sort of ease into overtime -- constantly trying to get closer to what you imagined. 
I'll have to see how this looks and make further adjustments. I'm trying to save the rendering stage for last lol.
Hey, thanks a ton nesokaiyoh! I'm glad you liked the colors, I was unsure what people would think lol. And yah definitely trying to tone certain areas down always seems to be the most difficult part of the process. It's a lot easier in photoshop but I'm using csp rn which I'm still new to.
Ahh I tried using CSP to paint, I personally find the tools not to my liking at all lmao but then I have been painting in Photoshop now for night on a decade so I'm probably just a salty PS user xD
Honestly your painting is so stunning though, love the brush marks and the colours like I said, so fluid and just so natural. Really enjoying the process of this!
Just a quick update. I lost about 3 hours worth of progress after finishing when I tried to save. I'll try again but pretty bum'ed out atm.
That's unfortunate, I know how it feels. Best way to avoid that for the future is just to save more often, waiting 3 hours to save is a bit irresponsible with a big piece like this xD It's happened to me before, with just as many and more hours - I've learned to save frequently, like every few minutes or so
I know you can do it though! You've gotten this far already, maybe relax a bit and come back to it tomorrow?
Oh yah for sure, 5 minutes is like optimal honestly. I'm working on it rn and will try to make it better than what I had when I finished. I'll then work on it some more tomorrow.
I know for certain you will make it better, each and every update of this so far has been better than the last!
Took a bit of a break but here's an update of the piece. I'm going to go into photoshop now to see if I can improve upon it. If not, I'll do some final adjustments on the values so it doesn't look too dark and saturated. If anyone here has a good monitor it would be awesome if you could tell me what's too dark or saturated and I'll try to adjust when I'm done. 
Guess I'll stop here for now 
Are you using ref for the teeth? I love your painting but they look a bit clunky and cartoony - they're so big and oversized for those jaws. Unfortunately lol my monitor is pretty terrible so I can't help you there
Hey sorry, I just saw your message! I'm probably going to redo this piece since I worked in CSP for most of it. I may recycle it, however. And I agree, the teeth do look big and clunky it reminds me of a Mario kart character XD. I don't like that and didn't use ref because my laptop is really slow so the more stuff I have open, the slower my brushes work. I looked at what I could beforehand and started to paint. I'll be rearranging the composition to focus more on the character and less on the giant Draconian Eel attacking. If I can get it done in time I'll post, if not I'll submit what I have 
Wish me luck!
been off-grid, I think I've found a good composition to work with. I had a few backup ideas in case the first one failed and it was really a matter of figuring out how I wanted to compose the scene within the given constraints. The idea is essentially the same as the last one with a bunch of Yuragan's converging on Audrey. I'll have one more stab at a thumbnail and then pick between the two.
I was going to go with the first one but I think this one has potential. 
Here's a WIP. I've established the mood I at least imagined like before. Painting in ps allows me a lot of flexibility with my brush set that I wouldn't have been able to utilize within csp. csp, on the other hand, offered me a much faster sketching capacity because it didn't really lag. The strengths and weaknesses of each program lend themselves to the different stages pretty well. 
note: this is a screenshot so the values are a bit more intense
Here's another WIP. I'm saving the face for last just because I'm unsure what expression to give Audrey and I still need to work on the Yuraganians. 
I think at this stage I'm going to up the res to 2048 x 2048.
I was on my mary way in the painting and started working on the face XD I forgot I said I would save it for later but I'm really exhausted and it slipped my mind. Anyways, here's another WIP shot, much closer to completion than I expected. I desaturated the colors because they're generally more sat on my laptop. I can still bring them back up if I need to. I think I'm going to work on the Yuraganians in the bg and the one in the fg then do some final VFX touch-ups and call it done. 
Alrighty, I think I'll stop here. I didn't do much to the Yuraganians because I didn't want them taking over the piece like the last one. I think simplicity tells a better story and leaves it up to the viewers to decide what's going on. I might return to this tomorrow for more edits but if not I wish everyone good luck finishing! 
almost forgot, here's a version with close to the earlier/original saturation levels. I'm leaving this here to check. I also have a version with just my initials which I'll upload separately. I'll submit one of the 3 finals. 
it appears my files are still not formatting correctly to 2048 even though they are under 5mbs. Will have to troubleshoot later.
ah I see it's gotta be 2 mb or smaller.
again good luck and best wishes everyone who participated!
Jerimiah Adams
Email: canvasengineer@gmail.com
Website: https://www.artstation.com/canvasengineer
Instagram: @canvasenginer
hey peeps, I'm feeling kind of insane for doing this but I've got about 15ish hours of time left and I wanted to see if I could redo this entire thing and have it be the best one I've done XD. I'm crazy but it's worth a shot lol. Anyways, here's my composition. Same idea again but I wanted to make the perspective more intense and put Audrey back on the boat. I'm also looking to utilize my drawing skills a bit more accurately and to also speed up the process of designing through errors, this way I don't have to troubleshoot while painting. 
Awh I'm sad you didn't decide to go through with your original, it was looking really fantastic. And you're brave to reconsider your entire piece mere hours before the deadline, all the more power to you but please be careful xO
Honestly I'd really just buckle down on what you have. 15 hours is not a lot of time for a full piece, and you're bound to stress and mess things up. Imo you're better off taking what work you have and taking it to finish, if something goes wrong again or it crashes it's not going to be happy fun times
Ah yeah, I understand. I don't think either of the pieces I have will place so I don't really have anything to lose. As far as continuing to work on a piece, I've taken those as far as I can within their weaknesses so I'd have to do massive overhauling anyways. It's better to start from the ground up with a better structure, which then allows for a piece to go farther.
Finished the drawing at least to the level of paintability. I kept the sketch underneath because it provides some good energy. I'll be taking this into ps to work on and hopefully be done with it before the deadline. If all goes wrong I've still got my other piece submitted so it's fine. cheers! 
Doing these flats now is going to save me so much time later on. I like to be a little looser and these flats in particular focus on shape rather than local color. I'll do the local color flats next, and then determine a lighting set up to work on top of. From that point, it's just rendering and style. 
Here's a screencap of my general lighting set up. Going to render this a bit and see where I get.
So I finished but I don't know how I feel about it. I'm surprised honestly because I kept thinking about going to bed lol. I'm glad I was able to get a better understanding of my process though. XD 
lmfao, oh yea, grats on finishing it.
