"Koala"
by inoubli4ble
The original sketch
This is the original idea I had: a koala napping on a palm tree. In the background the sound of the sea and the full moon, which makes the scene seem even more surreal than it already is.
I was inspired by my trip to Australia. There I had the opportunity to hold a small koala in my arms and feel how incredibly soft and cuddly they are. If you want to learn more about the endangered life of koalas in Australia and protect the wildlife, you can learn more here:
Matching pictures
First it was about finding the right palm tree for my koala, but that turned out to be more difficult than previously thought. I looked on Unsplash for suitable pictures as usual, but none of them showed a curved palm tree like I would have liked to have. That meant I had to bend one into shape. The sleeping koala was quickly found. There are so many cute pictures of sleeping koalas. (Pictures I used are linked below as always). Finally, I needed a starry sky and a full moon. Then I played around with the layer modes until I got a suitable result. We continued with the colors and the brightness.
Colors and atmosphere
The image was still too bright for me, so I added a dark starry sky and set the layer mode to multiply. Then I added the moon and created a brightness gradient with the gradient tool (moon bright, lower left corner dark). Then I adjusted the colors some more, changed the blues and raised the lows a bit in my style. Finally, the beach in the foreground was still too bright for me, so I put a dark color layer over the beach and experimented with the layer modes until I was satisfied. I hope you like the picture. Let me know what you think about it.
