May Illustration + Process! (Patreon)

Hey ya'll! New illustration for May, a little Tanuki I've been sketching a lot lately that I finally decided to make a finished piece for. I can't think of a name for them, let me know if ya'll have any suggestions. Here's the process: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jz1fr8cvm5kjihc/AADImNmzP5k_bdheVMh3Hq9Xa?dl=0

To expand on the process a bit:

1. This is just the sketch, there's a lot that goes into this but it's mostly intuitive. If I focus on drawing what I want and what feels good to draw than I'm always happy with the result. The reason I do so many studies is because I want accuracy to become intuitive, that way I can draw whatever and still have a fairly accurate (or at least believable) drawing.

2. Base values here, trying to figure out where the focus should be in the image. Something I've realized recently is that because I use a lot of black already, I want to be using much lighter colors through out the whole rest of the painting to create a really strong contrast. These base values are not something I integrate into the final painting (with this method anyway), I only use these as a reference for the contrast of my final colors. So when I set up my pallet, I look at the image and see what contrast I need to be setting up in there.

3. Base values continued. Setting up some local values on things like the outfit and in this case the mask.

4. Local color, kind of. First I set up a palette. I've got a few sneaky ways of making these but the one that I used here and the one that's always clicked with me best is to take a single color I really like and know I'll want in the piece, inverse it to get my second color and then shift the hue, value and saturation a bit to get a good variation for both of them. Then I choose my highest light and my lowest dark. Boom, full palette with hardly any work. If I stick closely to it, it looks great. When I start trying to put in extra colors instead of just creating solutions from the colors I already have it gets muddy super fast.

5. More work on the local colors, I actually used a colored multiply layer to get a little variation in some of the terminators here and darken up some of the areas that weren't hitting my planned contrast. Other wise just continuing to build up some color.

6. A little more.

7. Rendering out the figure. I know this is where people tend to have the most questions but I don't tend to have a lot to say here, it's essentially the process of making it presentable. Make sure to think about where your focus points are and put some extra work in there so people think you put that amount of work into the whole piece. This part is basically totally reliant on what comes before. If you have a bad start, you have a bad end, but if you have a bad start just start again. I did not mean for that to be a little poem but hopefully it helps you remember. It's not worth putting in the effort to complete something if you get a bad start, but it is worth toughing out later stages if you have a really good start and things get a little awry later.

8. Final rendering, polish. Just continuing on like before, if you get a good start this tends to go smoothly. 

And that's it! Thanks for reading through the whole thing and let me know if ya'll have any questions or anything!