Hey guys. I'm totally back. Sort of. Life is kind of stupid right now so art helps me kind of deal with what's going on. I won't go into details because it's not interesting, but I will share some of the stuff I'm working on. I actually have a lot of projects and sketches going on, but today I'm going to talk a little bit about my process from start to finish.
Because I have generally stupid habits, I tend to do a lot of work in my sketchbooks, instead of planning drawings on nicer, better paper. It's probably because when I draw, I start really rough and abstract. I might have an inkling or an idea, but it's generally chaos and pencil lines until I start to erase and curse a lot. I started with a teeny scribble in the right corner of the character, Privilege, and the sketches on the side are just me trying to work out what the demon that lives inside her neck looks like. I'm currently working quite a bit in a moleskine style teNues sketchbook that I always have with me, and the paper is very thin and not very well suited to markers. Oh well. Moving on.
Lining! The part in the process I actually hate. It wasn't until more recently when I started to use liners in different colors, and I am really loving the browns and reds. Black, I feel sometimes makes me hypersaturate my color choices. Or it just makes my colors look funny. I might be crazy. Whatever. I love black, but right now I'm liking the idea of adding black after all my colors are locked down. It makes for crisper lines.
She's done! I know this seems like a big jump and if I had actually been planning this as a process-oriented post, I would have done some scans of the progress in coloring, but I just... didn't think of it. There are times when I know exactly which colors to use and times when I have no idea and fly by the seat of my pants. This is an example of the former. I always start with the face and hair as a habit, and then move on when I feel like I have sufficient definition.
When working with mixed media, I start with layers of markers. I use neopiko and copic, but I have a few prismacolor pens floating about. I don't really prefer them because I love the flexibility of a brush tip. It's generally good to have a sense of organization to the way you color and I kind of....don't have that very well. After a certain amount of time with marker, I tend to get restless and pull out my inks/pencils/whatever.
I have found that some of the ink sticks made for the coletto multipen systems bleed when exposed to water, as do many gel pens, and this can be used to great advantage to shade and color. I lined a few sections in the hair and placed a few small lines in the legs and cardigan, then I took my waterbrush and pulled the color from those lines to shade nearby areas.
After some lengthy tuning with the waterbrush and some watercolor pencils/aquamonolith/multicolored daiso ballpoints, the last thing to do is clean up bits and pieces with a white gel pen. I use a wonderful pilot gel pen which makes very clear, consistent lines. It's easy to go crazy with the white because it's fun, but it can add a lot of distracting lights and make things look plastic, so I am trying to use it with more purpose. So I primarily used it to soften harsh lines and add shine to the hair.
Then I took it into photoshop and cleaned it up, slapped a border on it and signed it.
Maybe I'll do a boring post on my tools next! Or a better process post. Hahaha. <3
