"The ancient Greek word for element (stoicheion) literally meant "syllable", the basic unit from which a word is formed."---Wikipedia "Classical Element"

Water is the only one of the four "elements" to actually exist in and of itself. Whereas the other three are made up of other things, Air of different gasses, earth, fragments of rocks and biologial matter, fire, the burning of other matter, water can exist on its own and be purified: H2O. It is required for life. It makes up 70 percent of our planet, and exploring the deepest recesses of the sea is more dangerous than exploring space. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the bottom of our own ocean.

Part one of four. The other finished images can be found below

Fire: [link]

Detail shots: [link]
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When I started this series a few years ago, it was because of a set of four doodles on the margin of one of my notebooks. The first in the set, Air, dissapointed me, and the second, Earth, completely defeated me by being absolutely hideous. I shelved the series and decided to revive it about a month and a half ago...and to start with my personal favorite, Water. I will also be redoing Air...mostly because I want this to be a set and I want everything to match.

As for notation on the content: the color choice is obvious: If you're doing a picture on water themes, it's going to be blue. The ballet theme is because that's what I doodled. I also consider ballet to be underrated...it takes just as much conditioning, if not more, to be a ballet dancer as it does a martial artist. I preffer arabesques to kick-boxing, so...toe shoes it is. The costume is reflective to draw in an element of water besides the color. The other elements were my attempts to draw on what I see when I think Water: Ocean waves, storm clouds, bubbles and waterfalls.

Done in photoshop with a very, very, very simple render of DAZ's Victoria 4 as reference for the anatomy. Everything you see, including the woman's body, was painted, and the only effect that was not done with either a round, hard brush or a round fuzzy brush was the bubbles. I used a home-made custom brush. About a week of labor on my newly repaired Wacom Intros 9by12.

And yes, I give permission for all the clubs listed in my journal to display my work. (/self-important rambling)

3/22 made a few ajustments to the image. Someone pointed out the bubbles were too bright...and after looking at it for a while, I agreed and wanted to see what dimming some of the background elements would do. It actually came closer to what I really wanted, so I did it. And I changed the border around the image to be part of the image. I just like the way this looks better...and it's MY art, dang it, I can do what I want with it.

3/23 featured by Who is so much more amazing than I am, give her much love.

4/20 Did a little compulsive tweeking. Ajusted the skin tone on the legs, tweeked the face a little bit and fiddled with the background to make it a bit bluer, so that it would fit with "Fire" 's theme a bit better. I probably could have left it alone, but it's MY picture, dang it. Old versions still exist, but personally I think the new version is a bit more...balanced.

6/18: FINALLY got some detail shots uploaded into scraps.
[link] and enjoy.