Halsin sketch (Patreon)

Hey there! I have been a little artblocky lately so I thought I'd doodle our favorite bear...

I didn't really feel like going for a full painting, so I suppose you could say this is a good look at a significantly more polished version of an earlier stage of what one of my paintings might look like. I don't love sharing WIPs as they feel very personal to me, but for some reason the psychology of planning to do something more unfinished in the first place makes me less nervous lol.

This was a black and white piece first which I'll share below, and then I added some color with gradient maps and overlay layers. I caught myself starting to overpaint and had to stop because that was NOT the plan!!! Gradient maps are a really good way to make sure your values are in order before adding color by painting in B&W, and I do use this technique some depending on how crazy I want the lighting.

I hope you all are doing well! It looks like the Dark Fey/Astarion combo is winning for this month's illustrations so I hope this Halsin doodle is some solace to the bear lovers.

~Lily