Wongers: SXS (Patreon)

So, off the back of the recent Wongers pic, I wanted to give you guys a Step-by-Step guide to the process I went through, both for any interested artists out there and also just for anyone who might be curious!! 😄

1. Sketch: I took extra care to mark out the unusual contours of Wongers’s face in this stage and I was really glad that I did.
2. Sketch (cleaned): Normally this would be my line art phase, but my usual style of line art doesn’t play well with my current colouring method. The contrast between the two has been distracting my eye and pulling focus in the wrong ways and it’s been really bumming me out, so I’ve pivoted to a clean pencil line as it’s inherent messiness works well with my current style.
3. Flats 1: I lock my pencil layer and fill it with a light grey with just a hint of whichever colour I envision being reflected back into the shadows by the background. In this case, there are a lot of oranges and originally I was planing reds, so I’ve picked my go-to… rose-grey 😅. I then set the layer to Linear Burn. This blend mode will combine the grey with the colours underneath it and they will dynamically shift in hue based on the colours chosen. Not only does this blend the linework more into the colours, thereby bypassing the problems I’ve been having with my usual line art, but it also means I can skip the colour hold stage entirely.
4. Flats 2: Picking colours that are neither too light nor too dark, I start laying out my flats. This process is more difficult with these dynamic lines as imperfections cannot be hidden behind the lines, so more care must be taken… but it’s worth it. This image is the flats without the lines laid on top to give you an idea of what that looks like (but I obviously would always have the lines on).
5. Flats 3: Here, the lines are layered on top of the flats and, as you can see, the linework changes colour based on the flat underneath.
6. Flats 4: This image shows you how the lines change if I change the colours beneath them. The linework has become green, blue or purple based on the flats underneath.
7. Shading 1: In this example, I’ve taken the same colour that I’ve used for the linework and I’ve filled a layer in between the linework and the flats with it.
8. Shading 2: I clipped this shading layer to the flats layer.
9. Shading 3: I set this layer to the Multiply blend mode. Now the pinkish grey layer makes the flats underneath look darker and redder. This is because, at this stage, I wanted the shadows to have red tones. Later on, I change my mind on this.
10. Shading 4: With a lasso tool or an eraser tool (or whatever your preferred method of erasing is), I erase the shading layer in all the areas where I want to show light. I purposely leave it quite chunky in places, as I know I will be blending this soon.
11. Shading 5: Taking a smudge or a blur tool, I go around the hard edges of the shadow and I blend it. I do the most blending when there is a curve on the surface. I do the least blending when a shadow is being cast by a surface. In this picture, I have heavily blended Wong’s left pec, but haven’t yet blended the shadow cast by that pec or his left arm on this torso.
12. Shading 6: I create another Multiply layer this time on top of the shading layer but still below the linework, and using the same colour, darken the areas that need more attention, making sure to keeping that shadow within the boundaries of the original shadows I drew.
13. Lighting 1: I create a Hard Light layer below the linework and, in this case, I have taken a grey with a very subtle hint of yellow, and I have roughly blocked in light. I pay special attention to ensure the light never strays into the boundary of the shadows.
14. Lighting 2: I take a blending brush and I smudge the lighting, blur it or blend it until I have the effect that I want. This is the part of the process that’s been giving me the best effects recently but is still something that I’m learning and working on.
15. Lighting 3: I lock the lighting layer and then, using a soft round brush and a lighter whiter colour, I paint the areas where I want the light to be brightest. This allows me to have a colour variance within the lighting that I quite like.
16. Rim / Bounce lighting: I create another hard light layer on top of the last one and, using a pink and a teal colour, I paint pink rim lighting on the right side of Wong’s body and face, and some teal bounce lighting on the left side of his torso. It’s very bright, so I turn it down to about 20%, but the main point here is to adjust the opacity until you get the effect you want.
17. Adjustments 1: I’ve decided that I would prefer Wong to have bluer tones in his shadows, so I increase the saturation of blue in the shadows through the colour balance tool. This changes his hair colour to navy, so I create a separate copy of his hair and merge it into it when I’m done.
18. Adjustments 2: Wong is still looking a little flat to me and I want to add more colour variants, so I create a layer using a darker colour blend mode set to 40% and with a soft round brush and the red provided in the picture, I blush the edges of Wong’s body, head and the tip of his penis. Originally I was starting with a darker blue, but I tried red on a whim and I really liked the effect.
19. Adjustments 3: The darker colour layer had the unfortunate side effect of lessening some of the light on Wong’s cock, so I create a hard Light layer on top of it and with the colour I used for lighting and a marker, I add fresh highlights to his cock, nipples face and ears.
20. Adjustments 4: At this point I’m pretty happy, but I feel that I still want to lighten him generally a bit more, and add a small bit of colour variants back in, so I create a colour dodge layer set to 50% and, using a soft round brush and the orange provided, I roughly paint over the picture, particularly in areas where light is showing. This brightens the light colours, gives tints of orange to areas where light and shadow are blending, and gives a slight blurry haze that I am initially unsure of, but later come to love.
21. Adjustments 5: This is the finishing touches stage for Wong. So I merge all the layers beneath the line art together, I leave the body hair and the linework separate. I want to be able to turn the body hair off in variants and as the linework continues to adapt to the painting underneath, I have no reason to merge it, so decide I prefer the flexibility. I lock the new render layer and apply subtle noise and chromatic abberation. I apply some finishing touches to his eyebrows and his torso.
22. Background 1: Ideally, a background should be done before working on the character, as the colour, lighting, theme etc. all inform your choices, but since people are here for d!@k and not backgrounds (😝), I can deliver the amount of pictures I do without sacrificing my mental health by keeping the backgrounds simple. I was so happy with how Wong was progressing that, even knowing that, I experimented a little. Here’s what I did; Knowing that Wong is the sorcerer supreme (because he can’t go a full sentence without mentioning it 😂) I decided to add some alchemical elements as I had some brushes of alchemical symbols on hand. As most MCU magic currently used by Wong and Doctor Strange are sparking yellows, I decided to lean into this. I created a yellow outline for Wong underneath the render layer, I filled it with yellow and I duplicated it. Below these two outline layers, I filled a layer with orange.
23. Background 2: Above the orange layer but below the outlines, I stamp a few alchemical symbols in a few locations using the same yellow as the outline. I want the outline to feel like a small magical aura blending with the symbols behind.
24. Background 3: Taking one of the outline layers, I apply a Gaussian Blur which creates a beautiful gradient contrasting against the orange backdrop that is vaguely Wong shaped.
25. Final: My final touch for the background is perhaps too complicated to get into. It involves a third duplicate of the outline layer, the liquify tool, the crystal tool, two chromatic aberrations, a screen tone and a blend mode. It takes seconds, but it would take more than it’s worth to type right now 😅. But it does add a subtle, “dimensional tear meets magical fire / grungy” vibe to the background which I feel brings it all together.

Final thoughts:

I don’t often do, “Step-by-Steps” because I know that I provide the timelapses in my packs. But timelapses cannot show time spent on reference images, colour choices, layer modes etc. and I’ve been so pleased with how I’ve been doing recently (which if you know me is really saying something) that I am so terrified of forgetting what I did that I had to write it down. I don’t know why I find colouring so difficult, or why the only style of colouring that makes sense to me contrasts so heavily with the only kind of linework that makes sense to me, but my current method of doing things has inspired me to experiment again, and I never thought I’d get to the point where I’d forget what that felt like.

My current method is in small ways inspired by each of the artists who inspire me. I believe I first saw the linear burn line art technique done by Dizdoods in one of his live streams. Locking a light layer and adding some white highlights to it is something I picked up from Silverjow, and I could say the same about most of these steps and attribute them to a variety of artists.

And I’m grateful for every one of them. Even after all these years, I’m still discovering what’s right for me so the most important point I’m trying to convey is that learning and being inspired by other artists is how we grow, but trying to be an artist that we’re not stunts our growth.

So, follow lots of artists, watch lots of tutorials, try lots of things and, most importantly, fail whenever possible.

Everything you fail at is another thing to cross off the list until you find what works. (And I’m, still working on my list 😝).

Blitz xoxo