I'm so done with my life by e

loljk I'll give you a proper description UHH where to start

38497348123 references 287857 hours and 8731248734 messups later-
this is an entry to edelilah's contest. I did her Chinese alligator character Lotus/Nirvana! I swear I've loved this bb since I first saw her she is too pretty

I think this is my first time drawing a gator?? Also my first time painting an [partially] underwater scene I'm cry
I redid those reflections like 5 times ;_;

Anyway, I learned a lot of stuff from this; mostly on how not to do things. But practically everything I did here was new to me so naturally there was a lot of experimenting haha
I also researched composition rules... only to break them HEH oops
The last time I painted something close to this big and detailed was in 2012 woahh

Big thanks to Inghelene for critiquing the beginning stages of this, as well as Alfy and Renix for helping me out too!

You can actually see some stages here if you're curious http://sta.sh/21j7ssck71yc
I decided to go with a sky colour between the cyan and the blue, because I wanted a cheerful daytime scene, rather than a more elegant red sky
Hopefully it's for the best ;3;

Please feel free to critique! I may or may not go back to fix things, depending on what they are, but they may still help me in the future! I think the things I'm most concerned about are colour, composition, and anatomy

All in all, this was very good practise for me and I can only hope I improve in the future |D

The title is a reference to tonic immobility, since I realized she's actually partially on her back whoops

AND FINALLY I used a texture from letzte-Regen for the water particles!

Art © KariStarr
Nirvana © edelilah