Splinterlands Art Contest - Week 365 - Djinn Renova

Hey there, all. I hope you're having a wonderful time. Another week flew by, and it's time for another Splinterlands Art Contest.

For this week's entry, I took the trip down memory lane and drew one of the first cards that I ever got in Splinterland from the Chaos Legion set. Now, I'm not sure if it was the first pack that I opened or the first Epic Monster in my roster (I think it was the latter of the two), but I remember being overjoyed at the fact that I'd received my first Rare+ monster, whom I could have an advantage in daily quests.
There are also a dozen more Djinns in Splinterlands, but this one is the one I have had the most memories with.

Now, for this round of the contest, I was looking forward to drawing someone more colorful and with positive vibes, hence I chose to draw Djinn Renova.

Now with the boring stuff out of the way, let's dive right into the details and steps of this drawing.

The Process

So, first things first, I did the usual line art, trying to keep it minimal. Nothing too outstanding in this part, so I'll just skip ahead.

Then I added the basic colors. Unlike most times when I try to keep it limited to a few colors, I did try to get as many colors in as possible, but there weren't many places to add different coherent colors, so I settled for this for this step.

Then I added a base background color and colored her hair, adding shadows and highlights, and more details while I was at it. I did some gradients on her hair to add more depth to it, but that's it.

Then I finished her eyes. They usually start to feel a bit creepy when they stay unattended for a long while beyond a certain point in the drawing process. Now I don't mind white eyes on some characters and even the original art, but flat white eyes when everything else is starting to take shape is somewhat concerning.

Then it was time for her skin and adding more highlights, and finishing what I'd already started. I fixed tones on her skin and gave more depth to her.

Now I needed a better background since the one I was already using was matching with her clothes and not contrasting enough, so I wasn't sure if they looked okay, so I went for a pitch black on here.

Now I knew I had to brighten the drawing thanks to the new background and brightened up the colors so that the whole piece gave off a more radiant feeling.

Now that the color was corrected, it was time to move away from the pitch black darkness, so I used a soft pink light from above and some gradient in the background to make the place more lively...

The Result

And finally, I got to work on the gradient background and make it less dark and gloomy. It already had some sparkles here and there to lift the mood a little, but it was not enough in my opinion, and the background looked hella empty. So in this final step, most of what I did is related to the background - I added the spooky and mysterious pink lines with some circles that varied in size to give it a touch of magical vibes that I always add to my drawings.

Original Game Art

And here's the original game art for those curious.

Anyway, that's it for today's drawing. Thanks for sticking till the end. As always, do let me know what you think about this piece in the comments down below. Also, good luck to those participating in this week's contest, and I'll see you all in the next one... cheers~~