Drawing: Soundwave at the Aquarium

I love fish. All types of fish, from the ocean, freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers, the rainforest river basin.

My fancytail guppy tank.They go outside in the pond during the warm months, and come back inside during the cold months.

(Image from my pond during summer. Spot the guppies! )

I used to belong to the Kitchener/Waterloo aquarium fish keeping club as a teen. I have spent countless hours/days/months staring at water in lakes or walls of aquariums at restaurants, just to watch the fish. I've built and maintained ponds. Many fish tanks. Helped others build fish tanks. Worked in pets when Walmart had fish in store.

(photo from my trip to Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto, Canada last summer!) Also spot the reference! I direct referenced this image for some fish and the sting ray in the finished art. References are a GOOD THING TO USE!

So when the idea of drawing Soundwave & Cosmos at the Aquarium popped up, my heart leapt at the chance to draw lots of fish.

Originally it was going to feature everyone from the Transformers One movie. I was going to work on a Cosmos TF One design. Megatron was also going to be in there, you can see the start of his outline in blue.

Then I abandoned it all. It became too complicated too quickly. While I’m going through everything, I need simplicity.

I know I easily overdo my art. I complicate it up with too many characters, it becomes too much. So I scaled back some characters, and focused more on the aquarium background.

I write myself notes as I go, because as I approach the steps to physically do the work, I think on how it's going to visually turn out. There is no erase button, so I have to be real sure before I add to the illustration or risk ruining all that time and ink.

Sometimes I need to alter the medium or mental choices I laid out earlier. In this case- I wouldn't get around to using the aqua ink, it would wash out too much of the color I worked hard to put in.

It sat at this stage for hours. I couldn't focus my brain whatsoever. I'm quite anxious about if I got the place or not. I’ll know for sure tomorrow. I need to get Ronon more pills, they only last like 9 days. Summer is almost over and I haven't seen beach water yet. I'm so distracted- but I love fish 🐠 🐟 so that made it easier to stay on target.

A large way to help me stay on target is by running over my art with a digital marker. This creates visual notes for what steps I need to take next to complete the art. Also what steps to fix, if any.

REALLY EXCITED TO CREATE POOLS OF LIGHT /SHADOW LINES IN THE WATER. Something about illustrating this/working on the mental math for creating pools of light really lit a fire in me.

When I get noticeably excited inwards with creating specific things (like with creating pools of light in water/light reflections) I take it as a sign of a direction I should keep venturing my art towards. Find more opportunities to draw water light reflections. It is both so hard to draw but so rewarding to accomplish, and my soul loves the challenge. Then see where that leads me next.

This turned out really well, I'm so happy with the direction I've been going. Doing whole scenes brings me joy, maybe also quiets my need for control. I'm in total control with these pieces. I have zero control over the rest of my life.

This was inspired by Image comics/DWJ’s Soundwave and Shockwave looking at whales. I plan to draw Shockwave & Soundwave at the aquarium too before my hiatus to move.

Original is up for sale on Etsy, as well as small prints available for a limited time!

✨*Shop closing last week of August.* Grab what you want before it's gone! ✨