As usual I did simple 3D scene which will serve me as a base for painting:
I pushed 3D stage a bit further. Now I'm quite happy with the camera angle, composition and lighting so I think I will take it from here and start painting.
WIP No.4:
Last WIP... this year :).
I roughly thrown new idea on the canvas and now I'm freaked out... because I see a real challenge before me. First - because painting water is challenging (for me at least), second - because making all this whirling, watery madness... readable, will be challenging. So... it's time to dive deep into the maelstrom of internet, pull some useful references out of deepest deeps, learn something useful and... maintain hope that the power of water will guide me thru and in the end I will be able to paint something eye-pleasing.
Anyway - best regards and happy New Year to everyone! 
That is an interesting approach. I look forward to watching it develop.
Thank you @phume10. I'll do my best to develop it into something worth to look on. As for development - here is new WIP:
Coming along nicely, I do not envy the amount of water rendering you have given yourself!
Oh... nooo... and I thought it will be so easy...
I don't think I ever done any image that contained water but I thought to myself - "I will paint a lot of water. The more - the better. I'm so smart and It's such a smart approach because painting water will be so easy. I'm so sure of it!"
Heh, just kidding :). Yeah, like I wrote in previous post - I'm freaked out... but also excited. You know - the challenge and all that... It can't be that bad 
Thanks for stepping by!
Regards
Jonatan
gl with the water render.( im gona need it to 
) one thing im curious about is the swirl around her. not sure whats going on there. anyways cool approach 
What's going on is... she's using the Force (Water Force) and... I thought it will be cool approach . But alright, alright - let's make a solid answer to a serious question.
So... first - I thought it will be cool approach. I wasn't entirely joking about that because I'm using this swirl as compositional element that brings main focus where I want it. Which means her upper body and fisherman (he will appear more or less as in initial sketch). I'm using it also as storytelling element that shows more clearly where this impertinent fisherman and his stupid boat eventually end up.
Second... yeah - she's using Force - I wasn't entirely joking with that either. I want to show that she can bend water to her will and shape it as she please. Here comes a secret, so... don't tell anybody . I would like to test how it would look like if she would shape that swirling water into some elongated fishes - like eel or moray eel. There might also appear some watery tentacles or big toothed mouth behind the boat. But I must test it first because I'm not sure if it will look as cool as I would like to and... because I'm not sure if I can DO it as cool as I would like to.
I can only hope that all this will be more clear and readable when I will put more work on this.
Thank you for kind words by the way .
Also - I really love your approach to this War of the Elements. You have extraordinary drawing skills and really big vision (I didn't give likes under all (probably) your WIPs for nothing).
Regards
Jonatan
sound like a really good idea! iam also exploring some supernatural water effects .. but i think i will first see how the waves works first and push it abit to the "unnatural realm " and the water creature is also a good idea thinking of LOTR where Gandalf is making waterhorses.. anyways good luck 
I had some struggle with my laptop recently. In fact I still have - until I will finally finish moving into a new machine... which is extremely painful and time consuming - I hate every second of setting everything up...
But I managed to find some time to work a bit on this (despite laptop-struggle). I started shaping the water around her. Rendering is very basic so I treat it more like a place holder and basic shape holder. I also modeled base for painting fisherman in the background. More will come.
Regards
Jonatan
11 days later
Finally I've got some time to get back to it. Not much of painting today - mostly I played with values and saturation. I also tried other colors for her hair but eventually I stayed with green. More will come.
20 days later
A revelation came to me today when I looked at the deadline clock. Don't ask me why, I was convinced that I will have whole weekend to finish this. Yeah... I was wrong... it will be intense. This is how it looks today.
Totally get your trouble @jonatan-moonchild
This is looking good already (despite certainly many details you need/want to add)
Best of luck with little time left !!! (I'm the guy in the same boat 
- no pun intended of course )
Thank you @mr_dessin. Yes the need of many details is more than certain. So I better get some sleep and prepare for the final battle!
Just try to avoid mermaids from the northern waters and you'll be good. I've heard that some of them are not as kind as the first look could suggest
So... This is my final. I hope I uploaded it in time (of course I had to do it the last minute... :/).
It was great time as always and I enjoyed every minute that I could work on it.
Thank you Cubebrush team for another great Art War, and all who participated - it was an honor! See you all next year .
Best regards
Jonatan
12 days later
You can use 3D as a base for painting and this was my 3D base - everything beyond that was painted:
Regards
Jonatan
