How I Created Eye of the Sea

Jan 13, 2023

You can find a GIF preview of the entire process here.

Concept

I think my original intention was to create a closeup of the face, but I naturally gravitated towards the eye. I wanted to tell some sort of story, so the extreme closeup gave me a nice canvas to play around with. For the sea/underwater aspect, I was inspired by the episode “Fish Night” from the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots. There is a gorgeous scene at the end where a man is immersed in an invisible ocean, surrounded by glowing schools of fish.

“Fish Night” from the Netflix series Love, Death & Robots

I almost went with glowing neon sea creatures as seen in the show, but I opted to stick to a more monochromatic palette.

In hindsight, I think a splash of color on the fish could have made for an interesting focal point, but I was having trouble selecting colors that felt right and that worked well with the existing aqua colors, so I stuck to dark silhouettes, similar to what I did in How I Created a Pixel Art Cafe ☕How I Created a Pixel Art Cafe ☕The idea for this cafe came from a short instrumental track I wrote. After hearing it, a friend p....

Reference Images

I share the sources for these images at the end of this page.

For reference, I used macrophotography of the eye to pinpoint the shape and details of the eye, as well as pictures of the water surface viewed from below, since this was the angle I wanted to capture. This gave me an idea of how to accurately draw the sunlight hitting the surface of the water in step 3 and how to draw the silhouettes of fish in step 4.

Process

1. Blocking

I think it would be an understatement to say that this piece had very humble beginnings. I find it extremely helpful to just get something down on the canvas so that I have a starting point—something to refine. At this stage, I’m only concerned with shapes so that I don’t overthink about light or colors or any of the things that would make this not look like it was made in MS Paint.

2. Light

Next, I give the shapes some form. The light source will be from the camera’s point of view, so I paint in some brighter and darker blobs accordingly.

3. Water

I establish the light source and add ripples to the water.

4. Color & Fish

This is the part of the process where things really start to come together. I apply the color palette, choosing to keep everything the same color. In an underwater scene, I imagine that most objects—including the skin and the eyes—are tinted with the same blue.

Even though I gathered reference images for various sea creatures, I chose to stick to simple fish. I paint in the fish at three levels of depth, growing incrementally smaller the further they swim away. Collectively they create a loose spiral that draws the eye to the very center where the pupil would be. To mimic the spherical shape of the eye, I slightly warp the rock formations around the edges of the iris so that the reflection appears to bend—i.e. a fisheye effect :)

5. Details

Adding eyelashes was surprisingly challenging. Initially, I added too much detail in the lashes and it detracted from the main focus of the image. After several more attempts, I managed to dial it back to a point where I only suggest the idea of eyelashes, but it was tricky due to the way the eyelashes are pointing directly forward. There is probably some room for improvement here.

I also add veins to the whites of the eyes to sell the idea that this is a closeup of the eye, but not so much that it becomes distracting.

6. More Details (Final Result)

In this last step, I took a step back and fixed all the parts that I was still unhappy with, and then added my final touches. This includes

  1. Adding some subtle texture to the highlights on the skin of the eyelids, again, being cautious of adding too much detail
  2. Widening the circle of light in the center to a more comfortable proportion, more closely matching the size of a pupil
  3. Adding light beams

Final Thoughts

This was part of an effort to become more comfortable drawing human features, as I have never been particularly comfortable creating organic forms or human anatomy.

On the art as a whole, it’s meant to tell a story through framing, perspective, and color. For me personally, the blue evokes a feeling of sereneness and acceptance. If I look at it for long enough, I can almost see the rest of the face beyond the canvas.

TL;DR

Reference Image Sources

Eyes

“Fish Night” from Love, Death & Robots

Water

Silhouettes

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