Beelz Step by Step

Hey peeps. In here with a simple walkthrough to help you out with your designing needs. This time, I'll be drawing and coloring Beelz, an ibex with a passion smoke and trouble.

I often find that the quicker I draw out the undersketch, the better I can capture the essence of that fleeting moment. I've spent years developing this character and drawing ibexes, so coming up with the character design wasn't too tricky. He moves like a b-boy and has control over his smoke, so that had to be a point of focus in this piece.

I used my hard ink brush (found in a post from January 22) for this piece. Because I knew this was going to get a color treatment, I held back from hatching the form too much, trying my best not to go overboard which I often do. When I design an anthropomorphic animal, I look at several things. The head, the legs, and the amount of fingers. Ibex have 4 hooves on each limb, thus Beelz gets 3 fingers and a thumb. I shorten his calves and elongated the feet to imitate goat legs. And the head, well that's a straight up goat head.

Colors are always tricky for me. I try to keep it simple. I went with a blue and yellow combo for this one, working with shades of blue (light, dark, warm and cool) and shades of yellow (shirt and cargo shorts). I stick to what I know works since I've experimented with this combo in the past and I like the look. Experiment with colors yourself before diving into a piece. It'll save you the trouble of coloring and erasing over and over because nothing seems to compliment another.

Next up were graphic elements. I imagine a chapter card intorducing the character. I went with a hard pink because it was the only thing that complimented the yellow and blue without fighting them or blending in too much.

And finally I went over parts with a light purple grey multiply layer using a textured brush. I didn't wanna spend too much time shading so I kept it minimal which is not like me. In the end , I ended up with a piece I'm very happy with. I learned alot with this piece, mainly on holding back. Details are great, but you have to ask yourself, will me spending another 30-40 minutes applying details ultimately improve your art piece? Sometimes it will, but in this case, I knew it wouldn't.