Painting Fan Art: A Tiger Cub Pirate for Charity

Why Paint a Tiger Pirate? Fan Art Meets Charity

Hi, I'm Valerie Englehart, and in this video I'm doing a piece of fan art—painting a tiger cub wearing a pirate hat and a bandana. I've sped this video up to double time (200%) because this was a long painting, but I want to share the full process with you.

I'm starting with eight colors, which for me is a little more than I usually do. I typically work with about six colors, but this painting called for a bit more variety.

The Inspiration: Pirate Yakuza and GDQ

Why a tiger wearing a pirate hat? Well, there's a popular game that came out last year called Pirate Yakuza from the Yakuza franchise. One of the mascot characters is a tiger cub named Goro who becomes a pirate. (What's funny is the main character is also named Goro—Goro Majima—so you've got Goro and Goro!)

I'm painting this for charity. People who have been around for a while have probably heard that I like to paint fan art twice a year for GDQ, which is Games Done Quick. This is a charity event that happens twice annually—one event benefits Doctors Without Borders, and the other benefits the Prevent Cancer Foundation.

I suck at video games. I'm really bad at them unless it's a point-and-click adventure game. So for this game, I watched my husband play it. But I can participate in this amazing community with my talents. I'm not talented at video games, but I do love painting and I enjoy video games, and I like the idea of bringing fine art talent into something a little more fun and geeky.

Planning the Composition

I found a picture of a tiger cub on Unsplash, one of those royalty-free websites. To make it a pirate, I put it into Procreate because I wanted to make sure I got my proportions right and the direction it's facing. I isolated the tiger by chopping it out from the background, scribbled in the idea of its hind quarters and tail, and drew a bandana and hat on it. I wanted to make sure I had a nice flow.

This is going to be a C-shape composition. That curved composition keeps the eye moving around the painting but keeps it on the painting. If lines point straight to corners, the eye leaves the painting—we don't want that!

Starting with the Bandana: Finding the Center

I'm starting with some cadmium red because that scarf needs to be at roughly the center of my paper. Normally when I make a mark on my paper to measure things, I use clean water so that if I don't do it right, there's just water. But I was pretty confident, so I went in with some red so I could more easily see it.

Then I immediately went in with a little bit of Aussie Red Gold to get the orange of the tiger fur. Even though I've sped this up, I'm still working quickly at this point because I don't want a lot of hard lines to form. I'm working on 12x16 inch paper—I do prefer to work larger, it just takes longer and is harder to film. For tutorials, I usually use smaller paper, but this one is more of a process video.

Color Choices and Complements

I have my board up at an angle because I want the paint to flow—the tiger has stripes, and one of my favorite ways of making stripes is to put down a block of color and then introduce water to force it to move. That creates a soft, broken stripe that looks more convincing like fur.

For the hat, I'm using browns from Rockwell Art's Aroma Coffee set—both Americano and Espresso. I'll be using a lot of the espresso color, not just for the hat but also for the tiger's stripes. The orange is Aussie Red Gold, which is a lovely bright orange, and to tone it down a bit, I'm adding quinacridone burnt orange.

I've also used a little bit of blue—Daniel Smith Mayan Blue Genuine. It's one of my favorite blues that I don't use enough. I picked blue because there's a lot of orange in this painting, and blue is its complement on the color wheel. When I'm painting areas that are white but in shadow, or I just want more visual interest, I can pop in some of that blue.

Creating the Pirate Hat with Texture

I just did something really cool—I grabbed an oil fan brush, went into my cadmium red hue, and made the giant feather that comes out of the top of the hat. I'm now dropping in some Aussie Red Gold with my size eight round brush just to get some variation.

I went for an oil brush versus a watercolor brush because I wanted it to be very textured and scratchy. Oil brushes don't hold water (because oil doesn't use water!). I like to use oil brushes mostly when I'm doing really drippy texture work, and I decided that would work really well for the feather. I was right!

The C-Curve Composition in Action

By having that red bandana, it pulls the eye to the head of the tiger, and the way it's curved pulls the eye back into the painting. If I had it going very straight or pointing right up to the corner, it would encourage the eye to leave the painting. The feather curves the same way—bringing the eye back to the face of the tiger.

This C composition keeps the eye moving around the painting but staying on the painting. It will finish once I put the tail in.

Working with Tube Paints and Test Paper

I'm going in with fairly thick paint. On the side, you can see I've used tube paints. I like to use those because I can squeeze out fresh, juicy pigment. I find that I get better water-to-pigment control, and it lets me experiment with colors better.

I use the back of either failed studies or cheap pieces of paper as my palette. This allows me to test little color mixes and techniques while I'm painting on a piece of paper on the side instead of learning something I don't want to learn on my really nice paper. At the end, I can just throw it away.

Creating Fur Texture with Stripes

My paper is very wet, so those stripes are dripping a bit, but not too much. Since the paper's wet and at an angle, I place my stripes, and because the paper's wet, it's very soft and flowing downwards. That's great for creating that stripe and direction.

Look at those texture marks around the belly and chest of the tiger! Anytime watercolor does that naturally on its own, I get so excited because I didn't plan it—the watercolor did that. It does help that since I've painted a lot, I knew the conditions to get my paper to create nice marks, but I couldn't plan it. I just had to hope, and the watercolor delivered.

Painting the Perfect Eye (Finally!)

Now I want to talk about the eye. I left that area white before because I knew I wanted to put the eye there, but I didn't want to paint the eye first. I'm using quinacridone burnt orange to paint the shape of the eye. I left a small gap for a highlight, and after I put in my color, I waited a minute. Then I dried my brush and lifted a curved highlight at the bottom—that gives the eye that rounded, glossy look without having to use gouache.

One thing I've struggled with in the past is that animals typically have a pupil, but when I go to put one in, I usually end up making it look a little cartoonish. For this painting, I decided to just do the little swoosh to create that glassy effect and leave it alone. I think it looks really great—it's actually one of the best animal eyes I've ever done, and it's just this small bit of quinacridone burnt orange!

The Intimidating Mouth

Now this is a part that gave me trouble, but I had to be confident. This tiger's mouth is open a little, and I wanted to be true to that. But that's a big block of dark value, and having that on the tiger's face is nerve-wracking because if I screw that up, it would be tricky to come back from.

In the image, a little bit of its tongue is sticking out (so cute!), so I put in some pink. For the lip, I used espresso brown, but I didn't want it to be just a block of dark brown. Just because you have a dark value doesn't mean you have to go in with the darkest color. I also went in with some quinacridone burnt orange to get a lively glow.

I need to be honest with you—even though I knew what to do and had the tools to make it work, that area intimidated me. I had that moment of fear. But thankfully this one turned out okay!

Lost and Found Edges

On the left side of the tiger, notice where the body is and then it diffuses, but there's this white line. I was trying to be a little sneaky about having lost and found edges—hard and soft. That light is meant to be where the tiger actually ends, but I wanted to keep things nice and loose and atmospheric, so I left really tiny gaps almost as if that were a drawing.

Adding Some Bling

I pulled out a size three synthetic brush and went straight into my tube of Holbein Brilliant Gold gouache. The hat just needed a little extra something! I outlined the edges—not too crazy because the story is not about the hat. It's about the tiger wearing the hat.

I love to add some gold to a painting, but that does mean I'll probably want to send in the original and not just a print for the charity event, because when you add gold paint, it doesn't scan well and printers can't reproduce the gold.

The Final Touches

I went through and brought out some whites with gouache—accentuating the white, fluffy bits on the ear and areas around the mouth. Just little bits to bring the fur forward.

I was actually pretty impressed with how much I did manage to leave white on the face!

Lastly, I added some vinyl stroked details—the bandana needed a little more definition in its folds, so I put in some bold lines and then softened them in the middle in a couple places.

Watercolor: Where Watching Paint Dry Is Actually Entertaining

I just love the blooms that formed throughout this painting. Watercolor is one of the mediums where it is actually entertaining to watch paint dry!

How This Painting Helps

If this painting gets accepted into the event (and my paintings have been accepted before), it will be up as a prize incentive. During the Yakuza block of games, people can donate for a chance to win this tiger. It's my way of participating in an amazing community with my talents.

Sure, I love painting flowers, but sometimes, you know what? Let's do a tiger wearing a pirate hat. Why not? It's fun!