Cloud Dweller

An attempt at getting better at drawing with my graphics tablet, which has been lying around nearly idle for a year now.

I wanted to do a slightly different version of this kind of alien. Gas giant dwellers are always depicted as being a big balloon with extra bits attached. But depending on the pressures in the atmosphere and the density of the life-form, it might only need small bladders of gas to keep afloat. Hence this funnel-shaped one.

I painted it by first doing a very rough sketch of the shape of the critter. Then I filled in the area of the sketch with brown and added the lighter brown texture. On a separate layer I overlaid the shading, and on yet another one the highlights. The nice thing about this method is that it doesn't matter that I can hardly draw a straight line. It's all just fields of different colour and shade that can be endlessly added to or taken away from until it looks right.

The clouds were a bloody pain to draw though. I eventually resorted to taking a pre-existing picture of clouds, posterising and tinting it, and then painting over it. Suggestions on how to improve the cloudiness (or any other part of the image) very much welcome.