What's up guys? It's been a while since I've posted some art related content or digital illustrations on my blog post. Because lately, I'm really hook into graphic designing and actively contributing to @utopian-io which I really wanted to. And right now, all of my hard work are getting paid off.

I still remember the first two contributions I submitted to utopian, where my contributions are submissions where disregarded and didn't get a reward, due to wrong formats, and multiple flaws of the design I'm making. But I just wanna share my experience and journey being a @utopian-io contributor. Even my contributions were not accepted and approved, I still continue to work and try my best to contribute, until such time that I was able to join the @utopian-io discord server. At first I'm really shy to ask questions from the members of utopian particularly on the graphic channel. Because I have this mindset that people there are composed of professionals and have lots of experience than me, and I'm still a student, which made me feel like kinda intimidated. To make the story short, I took away my shyness, thinking they are not seeing me in person anyways, haha. And I decided to ask some questions like, "how to this?", "how to do that?", "what should I do to get rewarded?", questions like that.

I really found a place in this community which is out of my expectation. I always thought that, people would just ignore me and my annoying questions, since I am a newbie contributor. But I was wrong, people outthere are quite nice, they will answer your questions and will give feedback to your works for it to be better, and will give compliment and appreciate your work.

And finally after a few tries, I saw this cool project, and I was able to join and contribute to a project by @wearecodex which is avatar generator for Orcas and finally get a reward from @utopian-io, and I jumped out of joy getting my first upvote from @utopian-io. This may be a very simple and little to some but this means so much to me and a self fulfilling achievement. This will serve a little step on my journey not just an @utopian-io contributor but as a graphic designer, and I want to thank @podanrj @dimensco @fabiyamada for being approachable and kind on answering my questions and concerns.

I'm not sharing these little achievements to bragg or something. But I just want to inspire everybody to keep on doing thing they love. Whatever it is, in anything you do, work for it! Earn it!. It may be unsignificant and nothing to others but if you really love and had great passion with your craft, someday your works will prove them that they're all wrong for thinking small of you. Just be patient, good thing may not be guaranteed all the time, but surely in the end all of your hardwork will pay off.

I think talking too much, and maybe some came here to my artwork so here it is, hope you like it.

I also made one with a text

Leonidas FINAL (STEEMIT VERSION).jpg

About my Artwork

Just to give you a throwback, this is King Leonidas of Sparta. This movie is great hit, and very Iconic. And this is one of my all time favorite. I was in my 4th grade when this movie had been released and this movie is really sick and epic for that time. Here's a little bit of story back ground of the movie.

300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. Persians under the rule of King Xerxes have already taken over some of the Hellenic city-states, and now threaten Sparta and Athens. King Leonidas of Sparta is left with two options: he will either have to sacrifice himself for the well-being of Sparta or watch it burn to the ground. Choosing the former, Leonidas forms an army of 300 Spartan warriors to block the narrow passage of Thermopylae where Xerxes intends to reach Hellas. The 300 are accompanied by about 700 Thespians who protect the flanks of the passage, and combined, the forces manage to slay tens of thousands of Persians and prevent their entry into Hellas for several days. However, Ephialtes, a reject of the Spartan Army gets his revenge by showing Xerxes a secret goat passage up the flanks of the passage. The story depicts the epic last stand of the finest Spartan soldiers who are aware of their fate, but motivated by "honor and glory", see the battle as their duty to protect the rest of Greece for as long as possible.
Source
—Ryan Sharif

I've made this illustration because for King Leonidas, because for me serves as a inspiration to everybody. He symbolizes great bravery, perseverance, and most especially, he embodies great courage, that despite of obstacles that may come, he is always ready to fight without holding back, just like how he fought thousands of foe with his 300 men, which is really epic. I hope this will all inspire us especially right now, Steem and SBD are down. I this illustrations will encourage us to continue creating quality posts and never loos our hope, we may not know, Steem will go up like a rocket in the future months a ahead. So let's continue Steeming! Awwwooo! Awwwoooo!

So here's the process I've made to share with you

So I first start with the outline

Maybe some of you, wonders how I'm doing this, to give you an idea, first I search for reference and import it on adobe illustrator, then I use pen tool to trace the outline and dark areas. Then you can start adding shadows. To give you an idea check this out.

You don't need to be that accurate in locating the shadows at least close to it.