April 2018 Illustration Step-by-Step Tutorial (Patreon)

To begin, I've had this idea sketched out for a long while now. A warrior pacified either by the passage of time or combat has always intrigued me. I didn't want the illustration to convey weakness but a sense of stoicism, just something past it's prime but still elegant. A big problem I had to solve was how to incorporate that visually. Figured nature taking over the damaged armor(pierced by a variety of weapons) might do. The first draft of the image had the armor more pronounced, but was later scraped for a statue-esque motif. 

Going forward from the sketch a sense of strength needed to be present, I decided to make the figure huger than life and exaggerate prominent features to do so. A great way of doing this was shrinking the head size and broadening the shoulders. As for the composition a centered forward facing figure seemed appropriate and with the big stocky body covering a majority of the illustration the background had to be minimalistic. A great advantage of having a giant figure taking up most of the space in an illustration is the use of negative space. Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image. In illustration I take effort in creating interesting negative spaces, by breaking up large shapes. In this case I used the silhouette of pierced arrows and the presence of broken armor to break up the shape of the figure. Below is a blacked out silhouette of the piece that showcases the negative space present more prominently.  

The initial line work done in Photoshop had a more damaged up face plate in mind but on a second viewing I decided that it wasn't for the piece. The face plate also didn't have the intimidating presence I first thought. For those wondering about the influences on my linework it mostly comes from old anime/manga such as Yu Yu Hakusho, Ghost in the Shell,  and Berserk as well as from American comics.

From the linework I blocked in some basic colors I wanted to use for the final image. I do this by setting the line layer in Photoshop to Multiply.  Then color beneath it by first blocking in the silhouette and setting additional layers with Clipping Masks so those layers would not fall out of the silhouette. At first I wanted the illustration to have a blue and red palette, akin to my typical M.O., but was changed to a more Autumn palette to convey a sense of age and earthiness. Shading was done with overlay and multiply layers, black for the statue bits and reds for the leaves and flowers.

I overlay metal scraping and wave textures onto the drawing to give it less of a digital look.(Thinking of sharing a texture pack if anyone is interested?) As well as adjust the colors with curves and brightness and contrast adjustment layers.

Further adjusted the illustration and for the final touches I pasted in the Kanji I wanted. (The kanji for the illustration is "Pacify") For Kanji I usually use the font Kozuka Gothic Pr6N.

If you have any questions about the piece or the process feel free to leave a comment!