Commissioned by  puddleofsky, this marks the first full-color rendition of her OC Selah, as well as her debut in the Mud Scouts, an entity whose purpose for the uninitiated (since it's been so long since I started drawing these portraits :D ) is to "boldy go forth into grounds of questionable solidity", meaning they explore and map out wetlands and other muddy places and rating how difficult it is to traverse them.

The idea behind this series is that I'd produce one clean image of each recruit in their clean uniform, and following ones would feature them doing their thing, registering varying degrees of dirtiness, ranging from just their shoes to hopelessly mired and relying on their fellow troopmates to rescue them, an operation that may or may not devolve into a messy fiasco. Only thing keeping you from seeing on maneuvers (assuming you're into that sort of thing) is my lack of speed in turning out artwork, 'cause of other demands on my time, competing art projects/commissions (and time-management skills that are a touch faulty). But I haven't forgotten them, and they'll see the light of day...or at least your monitor.

Technical:
Well, this isn't quite the first rendition of this character...there is this sketch version that was whipped up back in July that formed the basis for this pic. I made a few adjustments in the pose which you can see if you flip back and forth, then went into crafting the backdrop. Since this one is a commission, I did extra detail in the backdrop using textured brushes for the closest trees and grasses. Another visual update is the transition from grass to muddy ground, giving the appearance that the grasses get regularly submerged right at the edge as the ground becomes wetter and wetter. Where Selah is standng is fairly solid, but places appropriate for Mud Scout exploration are implied to lie nearby.

Digital drawing done in Clip Studio Paint EX. 19 layers, 50MB .CLIP file. Project ID# 517. Mud Scouts concept created by  preppymarshmousee