Are you surprised to see a bird living under water? But I drew a flying whale a few days ago, so it shouldn't be a surprise to find a bird under the sea, unless you haven't been following my artwork these past few days. If you haven't seen anything about me, run over and take a look at my blog, then come back and tell me in the comments which illustration you liked best and why.

Today, I bring you the process of creation and illustration of a fantastic creature that I have made for @smanuels. As I have emphasized several times, this creature has the appearance of a large bird, but it is not in the heavens, nor on land, no, no, she lives in the sea with fish and coral, is all I can tell you about it, because this time I was not given his exact description, nor his name, therefore, it remains to the imagination its origin and the strange appearance of this marine being.

Tools:

• Wacom Intuos 4
• Photoshop
• Medibang Paint

Start with a simple sketch, outlining the silhouette of the creature, taking into account a long neck, its extended wings and a tail shaped like a fish fin.

With the watercolor brush, give the first colors, using shades of blue, the creature is supposed to have white plumage, but underwater it should look bluish. I also began to detail the texture of its plumage, going first by the head to achieve a more fierce appearance, as if it were a bird of prey.

I made feathers, many feathers, first in its wings and adding a little touch of fins at the end of them, so this bird could move better under water, then I extended the texture of the plumage to the torso, adding more fins there on its back. It is important to mention the bottom, for this I used a rectangular brush with a texture similar to oil, with it I dedicated myself to create a small coral reef quite simple, working it little by little to mix and degrade well the color tones used.

By the end I just rendered everything a little bit, softened the plumage a little more, added better shadows and lights, as well as some reflections of the light that passes through the water and bounces off the wings, then, with a diffuse brush and in a huge size, I darkened the bottom of the reef and illuminated the top, where the surface is supposed to be and where the sunlight arrives.

I'll leave you a little gif with the whole process in it, so you can better appreciate the step by step.