May Sketches (Patreon)

Hello! Here are the May sketches with in-depth progress shots of the "Pink" illustration. I like to change up the way I approach my illustration every now and then, but in this case, I ended up creating more work for myself.

1. First I sketched out the lines, then filled in the flat colors using the paint bucket. This creates a rather disturbing effect, but I fill in the gaps using the paintbrush tool.

2. Next, I drew the lines directly onto the colored layer (huge mistake). Part of me thinks the illustration looked its best at this stage...

3.  I begin to shade, using a combination of soft and hard brushes at varying transparencies to bring out the light and dark. This is a time-consuming and arduous process, and it's around here that I question my decision to do something semi-realistic. The problem with having the lines on the color layer is that they quickly disappear, and I have to re-draw them every so often.

4. Slowly, very slowly, the image emerges... I keep working away, trying different lighting effects to see what looks good.

5. After many, many hours, everything still looks muddy to me, so I throw in some hot pink for contrast and call it a day.

And THAT, my friends, is how "Pink" came to be!

-Y