These three turtles were an obscne about of fun. Let's start with the sketchbook doodles on which they were based:
From there I harnessed the power of reference and made them all a bit more recognizable in colored pencil lines: A red-eared slider, green sea turtle, and florida box turtle.
And ah, the awkward teenager phase. I simply painted with watercolor on top of the pencil lines, which has served me well in the past. From here I applied more watercolor for marking detail and then went to town with colored pencils...
...to arrive at the finals! I would absolutely love to do more turtle studies like these in the future; I've already compiled a list of species for the occasion. Thanks for looking (and scrolling, yikes).
