6 COWBOYS - Final/Process/Wallpapers! (Patreon)

WHATS UP!!!???

Here is my big drawing of horses and cowboys!! I don't remember but I feel like this is the first time I've ever rendered a horse...? Could that be so? I feel like I've only ever done them with lineart! Kinda cool...

But I decided to make a lil process post about this one since it is a bit different than the stuff I've been doing lately. I'm gonna focus on only one cowboy since it was the same process for all of them

First, I started with a sketch. And I am using reference for the poses but I'm using them relatively loosely otherwise. I create my own saddles and gear and outfits (mostly) based on my red dead redemption knowledge.

The sketches are super duper loose pretty much to just get the silhouette and proportions!

After this, I had some trouble with how I want to render them and what color palette I want. I decided somehow that I wanted to not do a lineart-based rendering. The second phase is this cool-toned horsie base. Inspired by my purple Orville Peck drawing of yore.

 It's a pinky purpley base with some loose color on top, semi transparent. I end up going with more of a warm toned palette from now on, sorta vintagey. Makes more sense for cowboys I think.

The next steps I think were messing with color balance and adding some more brown tones and then adding some really rough shadows. I have a problem with not making my shadows dark enough so I just wanted to get all the colors down and see if I liked it.

 From this point on, I think I begin rendering! I think my process is just painting suuuper loosely until all the colors I want in the drawing are present, no matter how messy. Once they are, the rendering is just putting them where they belong and cleaning everything up.

 I put all the midtones in there, I make sure objects are more clear I make sure the things I indicate with lineart are...indicated... without lineart (all the reins and straps, stirrups (boo), rope specifically.

 If you blur your eyes, this step looks pretty identical to the previous step, its just way cleaner.. This step involves all the zooming in and detail brushes. I think I used a pretty big paint brush pen for all the preliminary color placing and then when I actually was rendering details I used a colored-pencil type of brush.

Then I do that five more times for all the other cowboys.

I had very little detailing on the cowboys faces besides one single color for shadows and another for hair. I really like this sort of style its very detailed but simultaneously quite simple! I think its good considering the figures are all quite small on the canvas. Its not too busy but still looks really nice.

That's all for now! Here are some wallpapers!