The Ugly Duckling: Cover Art
Originally drawn: 30 March 2025
Read the story this drawing came from!
About two days before posting "The Ugly Duckling", the idea for this drawing flashed in my head. Specifically, its Fibonacci sequence composition flashed in my head (see below)! I told myself that if I finished my part of a group assignment and finished editing the story by Saturday, I'd let myself paint it -- and as a challenge, I'd limit myself to one hour!
I started painting at 11:30pm or midnight. I did not take an hour lmao. But I didn't take much longer than that -- it took 2.5 to 3 hours, with at least 30 minutes spent on post-processing-esque micromanaging. I knew I also wanted to paint it in the style of Sparrow Flight's cover, but in the way I intended: without lines.
I figured that the time limit will stop me from adding lines. And even though I went beyond it, it still stopped me from being a perfectionist. I also had to be smart with which areas I wanted to render more. That ended up being Hygd's face, since it's the focal point of the painting. Everything else ended up having a nice, loose look which I really like, like her sleeve!
Whenever I paint, I try to use as little layers as possible, too. My general pipeline is paint everything on top of the sketch on one layer, like how you'd paint traditionally, and then add adjustment layers on top of that painting.
It's not because I started painting traditionally -- I learned how to paint by watching Minna Sundberg (creator of the webcomic Stand Still, Stay Silent), and she paints everything on one layer. What she also does is have an underpaint layer (like a 'canvas colour'), which shows through brush strokes. So that's what I did, while trying to keep adjustment layers to a minimum.
(And there's the Fibonacci sequence compositon in the second picture. I didn't use a grid to paint this at all, so it's really cool to see how incredibly well the grid lined up!)
I was speeding like hell while painting this, so I was looping nothing but this playlist. You can emulate my painting experience by watching a speedpaint of this serene scene while listening to one of these songs...
