Hey Hive!
We're back again with another Art Attack! If you're new to the series, this is where I share my drawings and the process behind them. A behind-the-scenes look at my artwork, if you will. This is not to say that I'm very good at art, or that I'm a professional in any way. In fact this is the opposite, and serves as a reminder to how I first started, and lets me track my progress too!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, I've been sharing the process behind one of my biggest art challenges ever - the Christmas Countdown Challenge (which I completed back in December 2020)! This is where I draw pieces according to the song; The 12 Days of Christmas!
I'm sure everyone is familiar with that song and we're currently up to Day 11 now since we did day 10 last week - Ten Lords a-leaping!
Anyway the next line of the song is:
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a-leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a-milking
Seven swans a-swimming
Six geese a-laying
Five golden rings
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves, and
A partridge in a pear tree
This one was kinda tough too, since I had no idea what the hecc a piper was. And Google wasn't too helpful other than pictures like this:
Source: TravelPurse
And this:
Source: pinterest
I guess the act of playing a pipe-like instrument is called piping? But my first thought was of course the pipes from Super Mario, so I tried to combine them and came up with a simple-ish idea? So this was my sketch:
So I think you got the main idea; the pipers are the Toads playing the pipe or whatever in actual pipes!
And the background would be based on Peach's Castle from Super Mario Odyssey! This was a throwback to Super Mario 64's Peach's Castle and I remember when I first arrived in this Kingdom I thought it was so beautiful!
Source: Wikipedia
So we start with the background, and I tried my best to make the gradient accurate to the background.
I traced the castle but didn't want the dark outline since I wanted it to be in the background. The shading actually took quite a while and I was getting kinda frustrated, but eventually I just gave up and left it at that.
I think it looked.. okay I guess? And I spent way too long on the colours and shading so I continued working on the background, adding the colourful hills and the pathway and hills to the castle too!
I added some trees and bushes in the mid-ground to give it some dimension and extra details.
I was actually pretty exhausted after colouring in the castle so I basically traced the rest of the piece, starting with a pipe and of course I coloured it to make sure it's accurate.
I also traced Toad and Toadette but obviously I had to change their pose to holding the pipes and flutes.
But I decided to change the colours and positions a little bit to make them more different. And in the end we get this:
Oof, this one actually took quite a long time and I think I ended up posting it quite late since the castle was taking forever and I was kinda demotivated so it took even longer. But at least I managed to finish it! And I actually do like the background quite a bit even though the castle looks pretty meh.
Now that I look at them, the Toads kinda looks pretty creepy. But I did trace them so I guess they just look like that. I guess them playing bagpipes would’ve been better, and I was going to do that but I was way too tired so whatever.
The next one will be the last one since it's day 12 and I was honestly so relieved! I couldn't wait for the last day of this challenge since this was actually really exhausting.. But I was excited for the last one since I had a plan, sort of. Tune in next week to see the final conclusion of this crazy art challenge!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
I love this one! Toadstool was always my favorite Mario character and you did justice to the whole motiff. I think it was incredibly creative to mix the days of Christmas with this subject matter. Super cool art and great job. Thanks for sharing the process so in depth. Keep up the great work and cheers!
hey @castleberry! haha wow I don't think I've heard of Toad being anyone's favourite character before but that's awesome! I use him in a lot of games and he's pretty underrated! Thanks so much for your lovely comment and for reading! Cheers! ^-^