The Smoking Elephant

If I had to pick something of which I was most proud I would have to say the elephant because I think that the way that it came out is really awesome.  I think it looks good and you can actually tell what it is!  I also really liked the smoke coming from the elephants trunk, which was a last minute touch. 

Originally I was planning to do a horse running out of the smoke but it turned out to be difficult to draw, which I guess I should have expected but I didn't.  This is also why I was so surprised about how well the elephant came out because the tiny circle paintbrush is hard to control and maneuver.

It took a little longer to create the final image because with the way the woman in the photograph is facing, when I added the smokey elephant you couldn't see it with the bright light coming from behind it.  Therefore, I had to darken the whole picture, brighten the elephant, and then come in over the mask and paint back the brightness of the woman so she and the smoke image would stand out.  I also blurred the background behind the elephant as another way to help it stand out. 

If I were to do his project again I would take more time to distort the smoke before adding the elephant because I didn't realize until the end that I just blurred the smoke and I think I could have made the image look more realistic by twirling and waving the smoke also.  When I realized this I actually came back in and took my original smoke drawing and distorted it but it was just too late to add it to the final image, there was no room for it. 

Although this project was fairly simple and didn't take me very much time, I thought my creativity was about a 7 or 8 because I took the time to draw the elephant.  I thought I really put a lot of thought to how the final image would come out when choosing the different elements involved in creating this project.