#centibyte

I believe i used the gradient tool first to establish main dark-to-light gradient from the head to the feet, and then later went in with a lasso tool to add smaller gradients to the ends of the arms, and probably used the soft brush to add that lighter marking to the face and to make the feet even lighter. (The belly marking I add later will cover up that jaggedy spot on the belly, so it didn't matter that it looks weird)

After that, I added simple gradients to the shell and belly markings too:

I have these on separate layers already, so it was relatively simple to lock the layers and throw more gradients over them.

After that I seem to have started to add stylized water caustic effects!

Note that I'm extremely inexperienced at painting or rendering water, so I was just sort of eyeballing how it looked on the two pets I was referencing, in addition to considering what looked good to me. I used a couple different low opacity multiply layers to do the darker markings on the body and the belly, and a 100% opaque normal layer to paint the lighter markings onto the feet (which also have a gradient on them, so that they'd match the gradient they were being drawn on top of)

After that I... seem to have just gone buckwild and started painting shit with the opaque hard brush.

I mimicked the hands on the Zafara being a less green shade of blue, and sort of gradiated that color out manually by painting on the lighter colors with a few blobby splashes and caustic patterns to make them feel blended. (I don't think anything I painted on these layers has an actual gradient, soft shading, or lowered opacity). I also added lighter outlines and a few bright white highlights to the arms, to give them that shiny jelly-like effect.

For the belly, I also just kind of went wild painting more caustic patterns- my main goal was feeling acceptably "watery" while also keeping the basic shape of the belly marking distinct from the background. The lighter blue marking in the middle of the belly (and at the bottom of it) is supposed to be underlighting that's reflecting back up.

For the lighter splashy 'hair' parts of the design, I tried to focus on getting the basic background colors in before worrying too much about where the highlights would go, knowing I could do those on a different layer afterwards. I tried to use the darkest blues at the spots where the curved hair shapes overlap each other, and also copied the head colors for the parts of the mohawk that would be thin and overlap the darker shell of the head.

I decided to sort of transition that darker shell part out 'early' instead of following it all the way through to that back antenna, so that the hair would stand out from the shell, and also because the antenna gets further away in perspective as it extends past the head.

Then I threw on a shadow layer for the shell, and then (confusingly) I made another layer on top where I added highlights AND obscured the last two segments of the tail and the knees with gradient layers. I think I felt that they didn't feel 'water' enough?

I added highlights and additional caustics for those elements on another layer afterward, with another opaque layer:

Then we have the spots and stripes markings + area specific colored lineart:

Aaaand some causticy-wavey lighting for the hair + blending of the head antennas into their hair, because it felt very abrupt for Water:

For the 'hair' highlights, I used a mix of pure white and very light blue- I probably could have made my life easier by doing a gradient on these areas, but for whatever reason I hand painted them. You'll notice in close ups that it can look a little sloppy, but if it looks decent at the size you intend the piece to be viewed at, this doesn't really matter.

And that's the finished piece! (identical to the one above, i just hid the refs)

...so i'm doing to have to rework it; its just not janky enough for me when scaled down. it doesn't feel authentic!!!

to be fair, the acara is a weird point of comparison because i was referencing more complicated designs like the draik and elephante, and they also have more shading than the acara.

...but even compared to the draik, it feels off.

so I'm gonna do a second pass- I'm going to try messing with the colors, since i think the darkness of the shell is one of the things throwing it off, and a lot of pets species had a pastel phase in the early days of the site. might also try cutting back on how many shading layers there are- i was trying to keep things simple, but the end result is just too polished looking, haha.

there's also the chance that the lines and pose are just too modern looking. so if i can't get the effect i want by tweaking the colors and shading, i'll probably redo it entirely.