Description

I wanted to have a subject matter that was powerful but at the same time peaceful. I wanted to express the concept of “quiet strength” which is found at the core of many martial arts. I decided to place a tiger as the protagonist of the image, but in a meditative, quiet environment. Also, my love for character design urged me to humanize the tiger. So I ended up with an anthropomorphic Saolin tiger monk, in the middle of his tai chi form.
I used a very fast technique to paint this. I initially created a line sketch. Then I sketched shades and lights in layers under it, and then I splashed colors over the whole thing as an overlay. This created a spontaneous color and tone palette, right in my image. I used the alt button repeatedly (dozens of times per minute) to pick those colors with my brush. All mixing was done with brushes of custom various shapes. I did not use the notorious smudge tool at all.
I also created a detailed step-by-step walkthrough of my process, which can be found at www.3dtutorials.sk