Gambit(Painting Process)

These are my WIPs of the painting process from sketch to final.

1. I start off with a sketch, mostly figuring out the proportions, working the pose, etc.  I try not to get too caught up in detail at this stage because I'm going to redraw it anyway.

2. Next is my refined sketch.  Here I try to work out most of the kinks.  I don't always do this clean of a sketch, because I like to figure stuff out in paint, although that takes longer.  I have a hard time seeing anatomy/proportion mistakes until I start slapping paint down which I why I prefer to just keep it looser, but if I don't have a lot of time, I'll try to do a cleaner sketch.

3.  Time to lay in flats!  This part is always tedious but good to do with a movie or show on.  I like to change the colors of the lines to a warmer, darker version of my local color.

4. Lay in those shadows!  I usually start with the shadow so I can begin to define the form.  I'll often use 3D apps like Magic Poser to get some rough lighting but I don't usually follow it exactly.  Always do what looks better.

5.  Adding in the highlights next.  Doing the shadows and highlights first keeps me from getting ahead of myself and makes the rendering process much more managable.

6. At this point, I'll usually merge most of the body and start adding more complexity to the forms, deepen the shadows and pop highlights in key areas.

7. Adding some of the final details.  Here I painted the body hair.  I have a hard time with body hair and not making it look noisy or unnatural.  It's tough to get it right!  I need to study some Genoroh Tagame who draws body hair masterfully. I also added in the leopard spots on the bed, while considering the proportions and density of the pattern so it didn't look too busy.

8.  Final decisions time!  When I get near the end, I try to figure out what it needs to feel complete.  In this case I changed a few things.  First I changed the aspect ratio.  I think the composition of this one felt more comfortable in a square.  Then I painted a bit of a vignette to fill some of the empty space and frame him.  Lastly, I changed his underwear.  The piece is very pink with accents of purple and I felt like it needed a third accent color so I made his briefs blue.  Since his costume design is black, pink and blue, I was happy with that choice in the end.