kunakebi

CiferJackal Commission Presketch + some explaining of my process

Added 2021-03-25 12:23:31 +0000 UTC

Stages of a picture the public normally doesn't get to see ;)

I'm a messy messy sketcher, pretty much everything I draw starts in utter chaos and is fleshed out step by step. I'm one of those artists that usually don't have a clear picture in their mind when they start a piece. I might have some vague ideas but much of the picture I'm figuring out as I go.

Prior to this there were a couple more or less fast gesture drawings/thumbs I did to find out a nice dynamic pose for this commission (see the 2. picture, it was the one that got approved by my commissioner). Of course this phases are accompanied with quite a bit of research: looking at concept-art pieces of Ranger characters, looking at photos of RL archers, analysing their movements and postures... trying to find something that _could_ make sense and looks cool ;) Of course I talked to archers and I know this isn't good form, more trick-shot stuff here, but hey, it looks nice and dynamic and that's what counts for such a piece ;))

There's a lot of back and forth, messy sketching, finding positions for all the elements, looking that everything is "readable", looking at a lot of references for difficult parts (like the placement of the fingers when drawing the string of a bow or the foreshortening of the arm), fleshing stuff out... a TON of erasing, etc. ;) Up until here it can take a couple hours of time already... much depending on the complexity of the piece and my familiarity with the depicted elements.

For the next step I usually lower the opacity of the pre-sketch and make a more refined sketch on top... the more time I spent in the messy pre-sketch phase the faster the refined sketch will go.