SPIDER-VERSE PROCESS (Patreon)

Hello gamerooskis. (Patrons)

Here is my beautiful gorgeous drawing that exists in the tangible 3rd dimension. It all started out from an email from Gallery Nucleus. They said hey would u like to be a part of this epic cool spider verse exhibition in partnership with with the actual and real sony animations?? And of course I was like sure yes. Historically, I would not be but this is my special perfect beautiful spidey love. However, there was a barrier in my way. I either had to draw a traditional drawing or worse....draw a digital drawing and GET IT PRINTED.... So I found it easier to just draw a massive drawing. I drew it as big as possible for me and spent so much money and time on drawing it that it is barely worth it but its more about the experience!!! They confirmed my sketch on the 9th, I started drawing on the 13th (was prepping the previous days) and shipped it on the 18th. Whew... it is over. But now I will tell you a bit about my process since 1) it is rare of me to draw traditionally and 2) when I do draw traditionally i never use all of these mediums together. 

It is on watercolor paper... and I used ink, pencil, marker, paint marker, colored pencil, and acrylic paint! 

STAGE 1: SKETCHING AND PLANNING

I started out sketching on my ipad since it was super easy to change stuff and move stuff around and ya know I clearly prefer to draw on my ipad. This part was very easy to me because I am now quite familiar with the drawing of spider folk. But there was an added pressure to make them PERFECT for accuracy purposes and also to save me trouble later on. So I got the sketch as good as humanly possible. PICTURED BELOW!!

Also, I planned how I was gonna be doin the drawing. Chose colors and all that bought paint and bought transfer paper.

STAGE 2: TRANSFERRING TO PAPER

This part was difficult because I am an idiot. I bought some transfer paper, which if you don’t t know is a thin sheet of paper loaded with some sorta graphite or charcoal and you samwich that between your sketchy sketch and your final paper and by drawing over your sketch, the pressure transfers it over to your final paper. You could also completely cover the back of your sketch paper with charcoal or a soft pencil and it will do a similar thing. But transfer paper seems easier and more reliable. 

ANYWAYS, although I did CHOOSE colors, I did not TEST THE COLORS ON MY FINAL PAPER. So I was like hmm and when I tried the markers on this paper that I spent all day transferring my sketch onto, I found that it was TOO ABSORBENT. Semi luckily, I predicted this may happen and when I was at the art store I bought two different pieces of paper and the other one (less texture) took the marker just fine. So I unfortunately had to also transfer my sketch to that paper... but this time it was faster. 

STAGE 3: INKING

Now the worst part was over and it was time to INK! I decided to use different types of inking styles that I felt suited the characters but also was just more interesting than one single style. For Miguel, I used a light blue ink with a dip pen. For Peter and Gwen I used a slightly darker blue ink with a chisel tip dip pen. In hindsight, I would not use the ink on Peter... I did not like how he turned out.... And the ink bled a bit with the markers it wasn't becoming. These characters' colors and styles blended well with this ink choice in my opinion, in theory. Miles and Hobie were done in a chisel tip calligraphy marker. This is my favorite style of inking as its super imperfect and graphic. For Jessica, I used a more controlled chisel marker so that I could be more precise for her motorcycle. I am really happy with how her character turned out, I was nervous about drawing a motorcycle but its sorta horse adjacent (steel horse as they say) and getting the silhouette down first has been super helpful for me. There was also a lot of good refs in the art book! Pavitr was done with a brown brushpen which I think suited his color palette... This is also one of my favs!

Here's the drawing around this stage:

STAGE 4: COLOR

Now it is time to color. Before I did so, I did one last color test with the exact inks and planned specifically how I would put down and layer each color. THIS WAS VERY HELPFUL!!! Heres a pic of that process! I also made sure that I could color outside the lines with no issue. I liked that the colors showed through the paint.

Then I simply colored! Pretty straightforward thanks to my preemptive work. HOWEVER! I thought this might happen and it did... marker streakiness. Sometimes it is ok but today and with this paper it wasn't my favorite. In some areas it was worse than others and so in those parts I would layer over them with colored pencil to add intentional texture and also homogenize the colors a bit better. I did this mostly on Miles and Pavitr. Colored pencil also looked super cool underneath the painted background so I made sure to scribble around haphazardly.

STAGE 5: PENCIL FILLER SPIDEYS AND BACKGROUND

The process of this part of the drawing was CRUCIAL to get right. I did the marker first to avoid the amount of time I would have to be drawing over and over on my graphite. I really did not want to smudge anything. However, I also wanted to do the pencil work at a time where I would still be able to cover up smudges with the background. So I colored first, then pencil, then painted the background. ALSO CRUCIAL.... I was going to use poscas for the starry spikey shapes behind the characters and I know those are water-based so I knew if I posca'd first and THEN painted the white background, the white paint would likely smudge and reactivate the posca. SO the process was color, graphite, paint, then finally posca. 

So I drew the pencil boys, very standard, just lots of layering. I used like F, H, 6B and 7B. Then I went over the whole thing with B. Or something like that. Then I painted the background with was TERRIBLE!!!! The paper was too absorbent and I knew it would be a pain to paint with acrylic but it was worse than I thought. I unfortunately had to go to the store midway and get some slow drying medium. That helped. 

Then I finally completed that and all I had to do was the posca stars. HOWEVER!!!!!! I actually.... liked it better before I added the black.... dang... smh... But its ok. I can't do anything about it!

AND THATS IT!!! 

Except it wasnt. As you can see, the edges of the paper need to be cut down. I previously tried on the other paper with just my raw hand and that did not work. And I did not trust myself to cut with a ruler. So I took it to my brother who works at a printing press shop and they have a mega industrial cutter. He helped me cut it perfectly and he also helped me box it up which somehow took two hours. It is shocking to me. I don't know how it took that long but there was NO WAY it was gonna get built. My package that consisted of one single piece of paper weighed six pounds. It had braces. It was like we were shipping a piece of glass. But, it got to the gallery two days later and she complimented our packaging job, said it was EXCELLENT and PERFECT!

THE END!!!