wip

Here's a little time-lapse of the rough sketch and linework for a commission I'm currently working on of a warrior of light ^^ 

For these types of commissions, I always do roughs and some simple linework, and then use a handful of layers with the base colors clipped to one solid shape (the light grey below) to keep things organized in the interim.

After adding some of the rough shadows and highlights, I collapse all the layers (bar the linework for now), and then use a blending tool to smooth everything out. That can be the tricky part because it's easy to "muddy" up your colors if you aren't paying close attention to what you're doing. To make sure I don't make a mess of it, I usually blend along the borders of two colors-- using little strokes in depending on the direction or material of the object I'm coloring-- and then paint over top with bolder colors later on.

Once that's done, I start gesturing in the background on a separate layer using heavy shapes behind the character, and then "chisel" away at it until I have the general lighting and atmosphere in place. I don't typically use linework for the background because I find it much more forgiving than the finer details on a sword, for example, which need to stay clear and organized from the get-go when I'm doing work for someone else. As a matter of fact, this process of "chiseling" is actually how I do my most of my personal work. It feels really natural and relaxing for me to do, and I've made some of my favorite pieces this way, but it can wind up taking a really long time and can be stylistically inconsistent when I'm working on characters (thus, I stick with linework for commissions lol).  

Now, at this point, I usually become an unhinged maniac and collapse all of the layers, including the linework, onto the canvas. I know this sounds nuts to a lot of people, but it makes it easier for me to visually divide the whole piece into sections so that I can go in and clean up any weird edges, paint more intricate textures and details, adjust anatomy, and make sure that lighting and colors in the foreground, middle ground (where the character usually is), and background are all harmonious and getting along. I'm much more comfortable "painting" digitally this way, and lots of layers makes me crazy, so I promise there's a method to my madness.

Anyway I'll try to continue the time-lapse for the painting portion of this process next week so y'all can see what I'm talking about :') 

Cheers!