Sponson's Drawing Process Part I (Patreon)

Hey there! I figured I'd kind of explain my process for these mixed media illustrations of mine. I'll start with how I prepare my sketches for coloring in Photoshop.

I start out with a pencil drawing. I can't get into too much detail here because, well, I kind of just draw and erase and fix and pose and all that jazz and it's very very free form. I posed the saw about 4 different times before settling on what you see there, for example. 

The drawing is loose! I did go back and accentuate details and forms in pencil but it's still not final! BTW I use a Dixon Ticonderoga pencil on Strathmore Sketch Paper... yeah, not the most expensive nor fanciest of materials.

After I scan in the image I pop that sucker into Photoshop! I start by observing the picture now that it's on a screen. I can see all my errors much more clearly - and here I cut, rotate, and transform to make a better picture. You can see I angled the legs and tilted the box more for a more dynamic picture. After that I go in with a textured brush to fix up gaps and redraw parts of the picture. I strengthen the form again by tracing over my lines while also erasing left over scribbles and markings.

What I want to achieve here is a strong clean silhouette and easier readability of the character and props!

Finally I go and I mask off the character. I do that by making a layer and drawing in a solid color. Masking is important for work-flow as it makes things so much cleaner and easier to deal with down the line. I duplicate my line layer, blur it, and set the layer to "multiply" so it darkens the lines again while giving a soft bloom to them.