Behind the scenes art process: Ian and Cindy's scene (Patreon)

I've talked several times about the process behind creating art for my games, and even showed a bit about it. I never considered it too interesting, but lately I've been pushing the quality further and I'm finally happy with the illustrations that are coming out, so I thought it could be interesting sharing the creation process a bit more in-depth.

First of all, I gather reference material, pictures I will use as a template for the drawing. I know it's a bit cheap (although using reference images is fundamental for almost all artists) but it's a necessary technique to keep the production pipeline going. This allows me to have an almost instant layout with correct anatomical proportions in place and saves hundreds of hours of sketching checking proportions, foreshortening, etc. And since I always wanted the art style to be naturalistic, it translates even better. However, you can't always trust the photo, since camera lenses can distort the images, and some knowledge of anatomy is really useful to choose what to trace and how to connect lines, etc, otherwise the result can look really awkward (which sometimes happens to me, especially is I'm in a hurry!).

As you can see in the first picture, I use the picture I have chosen as a base and sketch all the elements that are missing, or that I want to add or change from the reference material. Once I'm happy with the composition, I start the drawing my characters over the picture in a new, transparent layer, like I was using a digital version of a light table (an old-school technique I was taught at school).

Creating the line-work can be tricky and often times tedious. I generally enjoy the process, since I can use half my brain to listen to podcasts or video essays on Youtube while I draw, or just get into a bit of a flow state while listening to music. I use an old Wacom Intuous 3 (the only tablet I've ever had!) and even after 10 years of practice getting nice flowing and controlled lines can be really hard. The hardest part to do is always the hair (and boobs, I always have so much trouble drawing boobs). Sometimes, to get just one good line I have to undo and repeat it 10 time or more! In GGGB I used a 10 pixel round brush, but I decided to go with a 4 pixel brush in ORS. This gives me much finer and elegant lines, but thin lines are much less forgiving, so I try to make them as clean and nice as possible, and I'm pretty happy with some of the latest line-works I've produced. 

Once that is done, the coloring process begins. Basically, the process consist of using the poligonal lasso tool and go over all the lines, selecting the different areas (skin, hair, clothes, etc) and filling them with a flat color. In GGGB I gave those areas a simple gradient to make them look more natural and interesting, but that was it, since I didn't have time to do anything else. Blocking in the flat colors is really time consuming, probably takes as long as the line-work itself, and it's much more boring.  Thankfully I don't have to do that part anymore! Once I have a scene drawn, I send it to Lenadai, who not only does the flats but adds basic volumes and textures to the drawing. I love her style and it fits my drawings and the vision I had for ORS perfectly.

Once Lenadai is done with the colors, she sends the files back to me. You can see what I receive in the third above picture. The basics are there, but I need to work some magic into the illustration to make it really pop and come alive. Aside from adding the background, I go over the colors, tweaking them as necessary, adding details and extra shadows to the figures. Finally, I add some ambient light to tie it all together and give the image a more cinematographic look. 

For some special scenes such as this one I also add rim lights to the figures, making them pop even more, increasing the overall eye candy. Cindy and Ian's scene was one that everyone had been expecting for a long time, and I knew I couldn't disappoint, so this is probably the set of illustrations I've put the most amount of work thus far (and also Holly's scene). I took several extra days to make sure the line-work was spot on and the backgrounds, ambient light and rim-lights enhanced the drawings making them enticing and cool to look at. Sadly, I can't give this treatment to all scenes, but I'm putting that extra work in more and more scenes each time, trying to push the overall visual quality up!

What do you think? Do you have any questions about the process or are you curious about something I haven't addressed? Let me know in the comments and I'll talk about it in the next showcases. Next is Ivy's game scene, followed by Holly and Ian and finally Lena and Ian's scene.

Other posts about the art process: 

Ivy's game 

Holly and Ian  

Lena and Ian