Draw Anything: Digital Neon Billboard Water Fountain

This illustration was created from an old lion-head gargoyle

water fountain photo. The process photos are too long, and I am 

unable to remember enough to share process details,

the progression photos will have to do this time. 

Everything, except for the grid lines were drawn with free-hand sketching,

ruler used for billboard pixel squares. The idea to not 

go about this design as the photo presented the old 

lion-head gargoyle with water streaming down kept

changing due to my free-hand approach as well as

the subject matter looked weird in different areas.

Not using a ruler definitely presented its challenges

as I battled with the design for many hours yesterday 

early morning. My initial thought was to illustrate the

same subject matter in the photo with flat colors, except

my drawing would give a fresh/restored design to the fountain.

Once I looked at the water fountain head figure, its structure

gave me the thought of how geometric shapes are used

to create portraits with other style choice, so I was

thinking that would be cool to create as well as it

would help to breakdown each part of the head's

features in a creative way. 

Therefore, the free-hand challenge to add features

with some geometric shapes took me through its 

unorthodox course. Surprisingly and fortunately, 

my design of the geometric shaped lion's head

looked decent and orderly for the most part to me.

I do not necessarily recommend free-hand sketching

of all geometric types of shapes without a ruler,

except that does not mean it is impossible to do

or is not a capable challenge for anyone who would

like to take that course for whatever reason. Let

my design be one of possibly many as a testimony 

to that approach and not an act of perfectionism either.

Decency and somewhat order are all I sought with 

my attempts that resulted in much erasing as I am

one of those artists that can struggle to produce one

part of a design to look similar on the opposite side.

If each side looks about right to me, I let it be. Sometimes,

I have to catch myself from being a perfectionist, 

because I am used to training myself from references

to draw as much of the subject matter's features as possible.

If I can do that much, drawing or designing the same thing

again, for myself would be something already learned.

There is a bug in that approach, even though I have done

that for a long time.

Besides that, the idea for this illustration changed

as the process moved towards the completions stage,

because there was much to think about for coloring

as well as what would be done without room for the 

circle featured in the reference photo.

With long thinking, water feature got changed to

flames and neon glow came to mind to somewhat 

change the theme of the design. I had to make up

for other processes that could not follow the reference, 

which stirred me towards a digital feature being added.

The lion's head can be considered as a 3-D digital hologram

or actual solid figure that can still act as a water fountain

with the digital billboard feature in the behind it would

be attached to. Bottom neon area is actually a solid

object, even though it can still glow too.

Hopefully, viewers

can acknowledge the idea with my chosen style choices,

there were no expectations of exact symmetry, I naturally

worked through the idea process and you gain inspiration overall.

My name for this illustration is "LION'S DEN MEDIA".

I could talk more about what into this illustration,

even though I am going to let everyone get to the 

examination part now.

NOTE: Photos were sent to edit with laptop, 

some edits started turning black. With raw cellphone

photos, these are the pieces of the process. If all the

photos are not easy to see, I will add caption to describe 

as much as possible. The completed illustration is

still usually the main feature, even though I like to 

look at the process images too. Enjoy the art as you can.

Stage 1: Free-hand cross guideline to center lion-head gargoyle figure in pre-made box section

Stage 2: Circle drawn for panel behind lion-head gargoyle figure to help with placement, bottom sketch is structure at the bottom of reference photo (fountain pool border possibly)

Stage 3: Geometric shape sketch for fountain head structure, bottom fountain border sketch is mostly left the same until coloring

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6

Stage 7

Stage 8

Stage 9 

Stage 10

Stage 11

Stage 12

Stage 13

Stage 14

Stage 15

Stage 16

Stage 17

Stage 18

Stage 19

Stage 20

Stage 21

Stage 22

Stage 23

Stage 24

Stage 25

Stage 26

Stage 27

Stage 28 (Final)

Having to take another photo of this illustration in an upright position, I was able to create a cellphone edit and apply my logo to the image. There were other interesting qualities created from editing, even though I accept this as it features the flames well.

No Edit Photo

[PEXELS REFERENCE]