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The first thing I did was just a quick, rough sketch to get the idea down on paper. Viewed: 11924 times.
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Another rought sketch. Just feeling around for an image that jumps out and says 'do me!'...er...I don't mean it *that* way! Viewed: 11538 times.
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Ok, with this one I came up with a sketch that I felt was what I was looking for. Kind of an old school pinup feel to it. Still just in the rough stages. Original size was probably 4x6 inches or so...
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This was the final drawing on 11x14 bristol board. tho after looking at it, I felt the likeness wasn't really there. No worries, we'll fix it when we start coloring it! :) (well, that's the hope!) Viewed: 8712 times.
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And so we bring the pencil drawing into Painter. Well, photoshop first. There I made the lineart a 'multiply' layer. and then put a new layer underneath and started laying in color.
Now I usually block in all the color first, but on this one, I wanted to get a jump on the face, since that was gonna be the hardest part. So, away we go! Viewed: 8957 times.
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Closeup of the face. Here I started trying to get a little closer to the likeness needed. also threw in some color for the background and started on the tattoo. Most of the face was still done on one layer. Most of the work taking place in Painter now. a separate layer for the background and tattoo at this point. Viewed: 7966 times.
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blocking in some more skin tones...just a flat color at this point...
when I color skin I usually start with a base color, then find a shadow color and a highlight color. and then blend them all together. I'll also use other colors for deeper/richer shadows. For girls I like to use a light shade of purple for the darker shadows. and sometimes yellow or orange for highlight colors. Still blending them together with the base color. (Of course I also use other colors in the skin, it depends on the picture and what the characters are doing). But this is a general thing I like to do. There are lots of colors out there!, use them when you can :).
Avoid the dodge/burn habit of coloring shadows/hightlights. that's just as bad as using lens flares! it's fairly obvious to everyone ;) Viewed: 8863 times.
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adding highlights/shadows to the skin. I like to keep it simple for myself..I only use a couple tools in painter for this stuff. The Digital Airbrush, a blender, and the Cover Pencil. as for opacity/settings for the brushes, I don't mess with that stuff, I just feel around for what I like. Not the most scientific approach, but it gets the job done. I like to keep things thing as technologcially limited as possible, so it doesn't overwork my brain :P Just let the colors do the work, instead of using fancy tricks. I know some people always ask 'what opacity brush do you use'. I've never understood why that's so important. you can make good looking stuff with any opacity. don't be a slave to any setting. just do it so it looks 'right' to you. ;)
(I should mention at this point that all color work is using a Wacom Tablet) Viewed: 7552 times.
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close up of the skin shading. I also started on the shirt at this point. putting a darker shadow on her left sleeve to make it pop off the background a bit. Viewed: 8420 times.
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Added in the skirt, legs, and other assorted stuff. Still working on just a couple layers. (I used to use tons of layers, but now I try to keep it minimal, like it's a real painting. I find that it makes me pay attention to what I'm doing more so now.)
Also added a harder outline around the shirt. to make it pop a little more and give it a bit of a graphical touch. Viewed: 9503 times.
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worked in the rest of the plaid of the skirt. what a pain! fairly time consuming. I did make a new layer for the darker stripes, and the lighter stripes. and played with the opacity til it felt right. (don't remember the exact numbers...just eyeballed it.) Viewed: 7765 times.
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Started doing some more tightening up of the rendering. Added parts I had forgotten about (tattoo on other arm, bracelet.) also made her left forearm a bit larger. It felt too small compared to the other one. Viewed: 14638 times.
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well, at this point it was mostly finished...but there was something still 'off' for me, so I bounced it off a couple artist friends. and after getting some feedback, I decided to change her face around a little... Viewed: 9164 times.
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ok, and here we are at the 'final' version. I opened her eyes a bit more, to give it a little more character and added some various hightlights...of course a picture is never 'final' for me. I'll keep messing around with stupid little details til I run out of time :) Viewed: 10491 times.
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Closer up view. I really wanted this image to give a feel of the old time pinups, so I wanted the pose to look like it was drawn from life. Of course it wasn't, because I couldn't find a picture I liked in that pose...I do recommend drawing from life as much as possible though! Viewed: 21977 times.
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And a final close up of the face. I think this was the actual size I worked on it at.
Feel free to let me know what your thoughts were on this process. Or if you think I left anything out, that I should expand on.
Hope you enjoyed it :) Viewed: 13534 times.
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