Sea and Sky (full art process) (Patreon)

I just finished my "Sea and Sky" illustration which I teased on Sunday, so here's the full process from sketch to final!

1) The very rough initial sketch. Unfortunately I deleted my Uranus sketch by accident so I have the more finished sketch here as a placeholder, but you can see I was toying with the idea of a more celestial backdrop for Uranus with rays of stars. I knew Neptune was going to draw a lot of focus with her (literal) wavy curls, so I was considering the backdrop so that Uranus could get some focus too. 

2) I decided to color my sketch to see if the backdrop was necessary. Ultimately I decided it was okay if Neptune takes the full focus, otherwise the illustration get much too busy. Also, I'm lazy 😄

3) Here was an alternate color palette for the sketch - actually, this was the first color scheme I tried. But I think I like the colors more in the above version.

4) Starting my lineart. I went with thinner lines than I usually go for, as I noticed the thicker lines were obscuring a lot of detail. I couldn't figure out how exactly I wanted the strands of curls to look, so I sketched it more in-depth before lining it. To be honest, I can't start the lineart until my sketch is fully rendered out because I'm bad at freeforming and need to meticulously plan where every line goes. Ironically it kind of defeats the purpose of a sketch?

5) Final lineart, minus the sparkles on Uranus - I usually save sparkles for last as they go on a separate layer above colors and lineart.

6) Flat colors. Uranus is originally blonde all the way through, but I gave her an ombre so she doesn't look too boring next to Neptune. I think it helps with the sky theme too, since otherwise you'd only see it on her collar.

7) Adding texture and coloring in some of the lineart. 

8) Final version: added sparkles, color to the eyebrows, and whites of the eyes. And they're done!

I had also toyed with different celestial patterns for Uranus, such as zodiac symbols and constellations. Unfortunately they were too busy for the small amount of navy blue in the illustration, so I'll have to save that for another design. 

UPDATE 6/25/2022:

It's been a few months now, and after coming back to this artwork with fresh eyes I noticed that the noses are a tad too long and the eyes are a tad too high. I've readjusted the faces and made other small changes.