As I started working as an illustrator, more than 30 years ago, I always wanted to see the step by step progression of any artwork: now that I have a chance to share it: here it goes.
I usually start like most illustrator, with sketches: mine are mostly doodles. Very rarely do I go ballistic at my sketch stage: I know where I want to go and if I tie myself down with too much information, the execution will be too constraining therefore I’d rather have fun improvising in the painting process. And of course for clients: it needs to have more details: like the sketch on the right (below).
Usually my drawing is also minimum, just a few lines to determine shapes.
For this illustration, I did something that I rarely do: I used tones to save some time instead of painting with values only. The reason was simple: wanting to add patterns on the pants and tank top would have been too long to do for the deadline I had. Painting with tones only, limits the range of colours but still it’s getting me the elements I want. After the tones are done, the layer is on multiply mode and I can paint my pattern underneath.
With the information provided in tones, comes the colour test.
