Full view recommended

While I've never played Okami myself, its watercolor art style is undeniably beautiful. I'm surprised that there aren't more walls in this section, though I understand the style not being the easiest to work with.

My main goal in this wall was to re-create that watercolor style, which meant painting nearly the entire wall by hand since traditional vector methods would leave the lines too sharp. While I already grew to love my Wacom tablet over the summer while making an image of a futuristic city, this wall helped me appreciate just how much more you can do with a tablet. You can make quality walls using your mouse, but a tablet allows you to paint without mouse restrictions. Pen pressure and opacity levels have a much greater effect and can make your work a lot easier, faster, and better.

This wall took about two weeks, first week was spent vectoring the image of the wolf which was one aspect I truly enjoyed. The tiny details in his fur, the swirls in the shading, this has to be my favorite image of the wolf that I've seen yet.

Everything else (besides the background) was hand-painted as well. I used three gradients in this entire wall, one for the mountain, one for the wooden structure, and one to get the overall pink/blue hue. The background was created using various grunge/paper textures and a few splatter brushes. Japanese writing was also handpainted, though I don't know what it means.

This project was fun, and kept me away from the crazed relatives on Thanksgiving. I have two more projects in the works, though both are in a different style. I plan to make another wall in the watercolor style sometime in the future since it's the most enjoyable style I've worked with so far.