The Jellyfish
The jellyfish's painting followed basically the same processes of sketch and artwork of the "hair", being used the same tools to do it. The only thing that may have actually differed was the fact that I've used modes and layer effects as, respectively, Vivid Light and Outer Glow to better emphasize the transparency (typical characteristic of a jellyfish) and the bioluminescence of the animal, which is the main focus of light in this painting.
When painting an animal, especially one which you don't have much familiarity, search as much references as you can to observe and study their main characteristics and behaviors. It's always important to note what differentiates each one so you can explore to the fullest the anatomy, dynamic poses, bodily expressions etc. and thus obtain the best result as possible. Moreover, from a further study you can build unusual looking animals, which work extremely well in fantasy paintings – preferably, make several anticipated sketches to better express your idea and see if it works or not.
Quick Textures
One of the most amazing ways to give more life to your artwork is applying textures, since they can affect the perception of an image. Depending on how and where you apply them, textures don't transmit only tactile sensations; they may also convey, poetically, atmospheres and messages, which eventually invite the viewer to do personal readings of the work you're exposing, making it much more interesting and expressive. But beware of excesses! An overdose can ruin your painting or, worse, make it visually messy and confusing. Try to apply textures in an advanced stage of your painting, when the forms are already almost completely set and do it gradually to achieve the most natural result possible.
In digital art you can put textures in your paintings by extracting them from photographs or even creating some custom brushes, whose forms are related to the effect you want to induce. In Live Water I used basically two custom brushes. The first one, used in this step, was originally created to draw clouds in another painting, but it worked well in this case to set some small imperfections and pores on the character's skin.
In a separate Normal layer, I applied the brush in some parts of the character's body, especially breasts, stomach and legs, always in low opacity to avoid conflict and "concentration" of textures just in a few points of the image.
Color Adjustment
At this point, as several elements of the picture were already exposed and defined, with little to finish the painting, I could take a second large large for major errors and, among other issues, I noticed that the colors, unfortunately, were not yet in according to the theme – besides the fact that the blue was performing as a predominant color in the image. If that happens to you too, you can easily correct your colors in Color Balance option (Image > Adjustments > Color Balance), balancing them according to your taste and the atmosphere you want to create.
It always worth testing various hues, saturations and values in your work – especially on those that you, for some reason, didn't like the end result very much – since these adjustments can quickly change the style and the "mood" of your painting, making it completely different and more (or less) interesting. In case of a work related to fantasy or science fiction, any choice is very welcomed, just try to avoid monochromatisms, as it can sometimes make your work visually uninteresting.
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