Sponson's Drawing Process Part II (Patreon)

Base Colors! Pretty basic here - still using the multiply layer I just color in flat colors and then apply gradient blushes.

In Photoshop you can set folders to have a layer style. A normal layer is just plain flat colors that overrides all layers under it. I put a few normal layers under a multiply folder so while they override each other, it ends up only "multiplying" once!

I add more multiply layers for shading outside the folder. I add an overlay layer for lighting. I then top it off with a Normal layer where I basically trace over my lines again!

You can set your eye dropper tool to select the "true" color. Basically if you have two transparent layers over one another, lets say red and blue, you can select the purple they make! I do that to draw lineart over the drawing again using colors instead of black. It makes for a much more organic image.

You can see I put in some rim highlights as well to accentuate the form more. I then... repeat the whole process again. More multiply layers, more normal layers. I just paint and draw and repeat. I top it off with a white highlight layer!

At this point the character is considered "complete". I start working on the background. It's sort of a... "draw the rest of the owl" kind of situation because every illustration requires something a little different. But it's really just more of the same! Multiply layer, overlay layers, soft lights, and normals. I keep adjusting the picture more and more towards what I feel is right and looks good.

But all in all it's just the same 3 steps repeated over and over again. Each time tightening up the rendering, adding elements that break the foreground, things to dolly up the background, color adjustments, temperature adjustments, lighting, bounce lights, textures... etc etc. Lots of things to think about!

I spend a lot of time LOOKING at my picture, and really asking myself "why does this look wrong", "what needs to be accentuated", "how's the composition" and just working towards it.

Process is something you build and discover yourself, because it's made up of what you're comfortable with and what you find beautiful!