Ivy Pepper Process

Thought I'd try writing about about the process. I figure I should try to go into a little more detail about what I'm trying to do in my work a little more for y'all in the Enthusiast tier. I can't say I'm much of a teacher but maybe some of you will find this interesting.

I had a reasonable good idea of the scene in my head when I first went into this, you'll see in the process video that I stick to the first sketch I came up with, unlike in some previous illustrations where I've experimented around a lot.

I decided to do away with 3d assistance for this one. I feel like I've been a little too reliant on it as of late and I didn't feel like this one posed any challenges that I couldn't handle just by painting. It's something I need to practice anyway. What I've been trying to focus on lately is exactly how much detail to go into on background objects. You don't want too much otherwise it looks messy and draws the viewer's attention away from the focus. I really appreciate artist's who can create realistic scenes with relatively simple shapes.

In the end I think it ended up shaving a couple hours of modelling from the overall process.

I've been trying to take a values first approach with my last few paintings and I think it's been working out so far. You'll see in the video that even though I put colours in early, I did a good portion of the shading in greyscale. Values are something I feel like I've always got a handle on but then realise there's more I should be doing.

Overall, I'm pleased with this one. Unfortunately I missed on recording some of the final details like the alt versions but the lion's share of the process is there.

The process video, PSD/CSP file will be in this month's Rewards folder, which will be send out via DM in the next few days.