Process - Guardian

Going through the progression of making a full picture, of one of my character-species, Guardians. I basically just wanted to do something in real-media, and try some stuff I have trouble with. It proved to be pretty fun.


1. The sketch. Ash drew the right leg because I'm a complete goober at digitigrade leg perspective. I was also pretty sick when I drew this and yes, that twisty spine was intentional. .03 lead pencil, about an hour.


2. I FUCKING HATE INKING WITH BRUSH PENS. So, of course, I cracked out a brown Faber-Castell brush pen and proceeded to completely destroy the picture with it. This took about an hour, which is shocking. Normally I spend a day inking. I guess it's because inking with a brush pen is sort of like driving a speeding car with no brakes and bad handling..


3. Uh oh, something vaguely interesting has happened. I cracked out my Crayola pencils and set of Raffine colored pencils that were kindly donated to Ash and I by Savannah Horrocks (thank you!) The colors here are mostly Crayola, as I'm more comfortable with them than softer leaded pencils. The Raffines were used to strengthen certain colors, and were used entirely for the pink flesh.
4. The markings. These are entirely Crayola and Raffine, save for the orange striping, which is Prismacolor pencil. This part took me the longest, probably three hours because I was having severe vision problems (double image and blurriness, wtf).


5. Everything suddenly changes. I rarely use watercolors because I have bad luck with them, but I decided to try slopping them all over my picture, anyway. I used mixtures of Winsor and Newton Prussian Blue and Burnt Umber, which made for nice shades of green and blue. The bright aqua on the antlers and knife are from a set of Talens brick watercolors. Used some prismacolor pencils in yellows and whites to bring the highlights up a notch, then went around the edges with a white gelpen and light colored pencils to sharpen things up.

And there we go, the image from start to finish.