Each piece in this set of 4 was done differently: The first was digital pencils/real ink, the second was all digital, the third real pencils and inks, and finally real pencils with digital inks.

Hope

This is the third in a set of 3 (see Defy and Vanity below). I’m using a different method on each one: The first was digitally penciled, then printed and inked with nibs, the second was done all digitally, and this one is all analog. Pencilled with 2H and HB graphite, inked with Pigma Microns (08, 05, 02, 01 and .005), a metal nib pen, and 2 Robert Simmons Sapphire brushes with India Ink (Black Magic, not my usual choice).

3 of 3 in Ink

This is from early last year. It’s done in charcoal pencil (which involved a staggering amount of pencil sharpening), with the most minuscule amount of smudging. Charcoal pencil is one of my favorites, it has a unique interaction with the paper (a pleasing, dark line). Thanks to Erin Dixon for the assignment.

Trafalgar Raid

Vanity

Part two of a four part piece I’m working on.

I had been dying to get some new pen nibs for a while and finally made it happen. Here’s something done in Windsor & Newton ink (I usually prefer to mix W&N ink and Speedball Ink, but lacked the latter).

defy

I like to draw a celebrity every now and then to bring me back to 0. When you’re drawing a celebrity, there is an easy litmus test for success in whether or not the final product looks like that person. So, after brainstorming with Nancy, we settled on Kat Dennings and I found the picture I would reference.

Step 1 – With 2 Corel Painter 11 windows open, I opened up the picture of Kat Dennings and a blank canvas (letter size) and started to draw with a dark brown cover pencil.

Step 1 - pencils

After about 3 false starts, I finally landed on something I liked. I was aiming for complete lines this time, so I took extra care to make the pencils sharp (no pun intended).

Finished pencils

Step 2 – Using a flat brush, I spread single tones over the areas of skin, dress, and hair (each on a different layer).

Step 2 - flat colors

Step 3 – With the base tones in place, I mixed up some colors and set to work adding in more tonal colors for the mid-range colors.

Step 3 - tones

Step 4 – Now it was time to start adding in shadows and highlights. I alternate between orange and pink tones here to capture a more natural depiction of the skin.

Step 4 - umm more tones

Step 5 – With the skin in a good place, it was time to flesh the piece out with a background. Painter’s strokes look pretty good, so I stick with a a gentle gradient in the back (I think I used a large oils brush).

Step 5 - background

Step 6 – Hoping for hyper-realism, I had pencilled in all of Kat Dennings beauty marks in the pencils stage. I went one-by-one at this point, replacing the dark pencils with the correct real tone.

Step 6 - real detail

Step 7 – In a similar manner, I now go around erasing as many pencil lines as possible, replacing them with a softer local color. I still haven’t mastered this. I have been using a “magic combine” layer above the line art, but it is far from perfect. If anyone knows a better way, please write in.

Step 7 removing lines

Step 8 – This is the stage at which I add the impossibly bright highlights. Most of the highlights I do aren’t pure white, more like light yellow or light pink. So, this is the stage for the sparkle in the eye, or the shine of jewelry. i do this on a layer above all of the other layers (note I finished the cornea tones here too, but I actually recommend doing them at an earlier stage).

Step 8 - sparkle

Step 9 – Now it’s time to do the highlight tones in the hair. This piece is a bit different, in that the hair was so dark I completed much of it in the pencil stage. I lay the highlights layer under the line work, this gives the appearance that the highlights are broken into strands.

Step 9 - hair

As her hair was particularly shimmer-y, I pulled out an old trick: duplicate the highlight layer, turn the layer style to “dissolve,” then blur it and set it to “soft light” or something of the like. This gives a nice random sprinkling of shimmer.

hair shimmer

Step 10 – The final stage is the light highlight on the dress. It’s almost undetectable, but I felt it had to be there. For this I used an airbrush at various angles, then turned the layer opacity down into subliminal range.

Step 10 - the dress

And at that point I pretty much had to make my self stop. I really could have gone on, but at some point you have to walk away. It’s not perfect, but to quote Alex Ross, “nobody wants perfect.” So I save it as a TIFF and open iyt in Photoshop to adjust the final contrast a bit.

Finished!

Hope you enjoyed this step-by-step everyone. I would like to thank the free program Timed Screenshot for being free.

I’ve been trying out Corel Painter 11 and It’s really growing on me. This was done entirely in CP11, in about 12 hours (heh heh, give or take).  Luckily, I remembered to turn on Timed Screenshot, so I will post the step-by-step next time. the girl in question is Kat Dennings from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Kat Dennings

I’ve been practicing with starting digital (as opposed to with actual pencils and Ink). This was done in Photoshop. I also used a different technique this time in doing a gray scale version first and then coloring using overlay layers (A technique I read about in ImagineFX).

Mech Break

Grayscale version

Digital "pencils"

Closer

A lot of digital painting, and a ton of works in progress. I’m at that time of the year when everything I show is gonna be less than 100% done.

Karin fromn Street Fighter

It’s been my goal for a while to improve my skills in the area of multi-page documents, my favorite of which been magazine layout. I think of magazine layout as an extension of my experience in Illustration and sequential storytelling. Below is something I did for school involving a hypothetical interview with legendary Designer Syd Mead (creator of the Light Cycle in Tron and Johnny 5, amongst other things).

Magazine Spread 1

Magazine Spread 1