‘Schmaltzed to Death’ illustration
Here is a personal piece, titled Schmaltzed to Death. (Please click for a closer view)
'Schmaltzed to Death' final art
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The Process
I originally started sketching it up for paper and ink, but halfway through I realised I could better achieve the look I was going for by doing it digitally, in Photoshop. My brush and ink is a lot looser these days, and I wanted to keep this a little tighter.
Roughs
I tried taking some photos of myself and my wife for head angle reference, but I just couldn’t get the right look. I found this one online, which was pretty close, so I used that as a rough guide.
Rough 1
Rough 2
Rough 3
‘Finished’ sketch
Because this was just for me, I didn’t refine it too much – just enough for enough detail to ink it properly.
Sketch
Inking
Well, digital ‘ink’, anyway! Still drawn the old-fashioned way – by hand – just using a Wacom Cintiq tablet display. I take the opacity of the sketch down and also add a blue/green background as a base. This is not only good for adding colours to a more neutral background, but is easier on the eyes when settling down for a few hours of inking. White screen can really burn into the eyes!
Inking progress
Colour Areas
Next I block in the rough areas to separate the planes. I do each on a separate layer, so I can Cmd-Click them to easily select that area later when adding more colour and shading.
My wife, Ash, also flagged the girl’s tongue as looking a little strange. I agreed – it had niggled at me till then, so I revised it.
Block colour areas
Base Colours
Next I carefully colour each element so I can use the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop to select the areas if need be. In this illustration, I actually wasted a little time by doing this, as I ended up going in and colouring without selection for the most part.
Base colours
Colour work
At this stage I started playing around with colours. My initial vision for it was for a multi-coloured sea of cute characters (below), but it wasn’t gelling.
Work in progress - colour variation 1
I also tried a quick colour gradient (below), which was looking a bit better, but still not what I had in mind.
Work in progress - colour variation 2
And then I thought that black and white would be better, so I gave that a go as well.
Work in progress - black & white
Colour crisis! Working freelance from my home studio is great, but you do miss out on interaction with fellow artists. Luckily, the internet makes things a lot easier, so I emailed the super-talented Dave Follett to ask for a bit of advice on the colouring.
Dave, like me was being a sad, sad person… drinking and drawing late on a Friday night, and he looked at these with fresh eyes, made a few quick adjustments and sent these suggestions back:
Dave's colour work-up 1
Dave's colour work-up 3
Dave's b&w work-up 1
Dave's colour work-up 2
Dave’s advice was to differentiate between the planes, and force the eye into the middle. He suggested that the last one (above) worked the best, and I tend to agree, but I felt like I was cheating on my original vision for the piece and struggled along trying to get the technicolour look to work. I ended up incorporating this theory into the next stage of the illustration.
I started by using his background colour suggestion (below), but I felt it made the illustration feel a little too dark. I wanted to keep it a little less sinister… well, as much as possible considering the ominous underglow and subject matter! It also felt a little claustrophobic – I wanted the scene to take place outdoors from some reason.
Colour and shading 1
So I lightened up the background and made it a dull green (below). I also made the border weathered, but later changed this, too. I have also darkened the foreground to push your eye into the centre. I’ve also started to colour the linework on the characters to make them a little softer.
Colour and shading 2
And below, the final art, again. I added clouds, made the glow a little more subtle (I used one of Chris Wahl’s great brushes – straight hatching, I think) plus finessed the colour and shading, adding many small details.
'Schmaltzed to Death' final art
Thanks for reading!
Awesome man!
Man watching your inking process unfold is an absolute treat.
I really loved this entry.
M
Anton
Thanx for taking me through all those steps, as I crash (and burn) at somewhere about step three!
I am glad to see that you agonise over your work, as much as you do, for as it is so polished in the final product, I tend to discount anything, but that you’d take a fluid nimble skip across the wide chasm twixt concept and art-form.
I’ll bank my Schadenfreude if you don’t mind, to make teeny withdrawals – when I battle all hell with art that fends off its own finish.
Does that make sense? I do hope so!
Each of your “how to steps” are wonderful; keep each and everyone, as I think you’ve enough already to publish a way-better-than-ordinary-to-bloody-good ‘illustrator’s guide’
Appreciated!
Cheers
Brian
PS ‘Schmaltzed to Death’?
… is there a personal history to this?
Thanks, guys! Your comments are much appreciated.
Brian – if you’re asking if I have recently been swarmed by a sea of cutesy-pooh cartoons, the answer (sadly) is no.
Sweeeeeeet…. process secrets are delicious
Great stuff Anton! thanks for taking the time to upload the step by step.. very cool to watch the piece blossom.
I enjoyed seeing the penciling stages as I am looking at changing the way I go about my pencils. Here’s a nerd question what grade pencils do you use, any brand etc? I usually just go for HB as I find 2B’s get too smudgy on the page.
Thanks fellas!
Anthony, I just use those blue Staedtler Mars Lumograph B or 2B. I started using them on this piece, but it was getting way too smudged on this bigger piece, so I actually ended finishing the sketch digitally. I have a few nifty techniques for sketching digitally which I’m planning on posting soon.
For doodling, I’m loving the Faber Castell Pitt Oil Extra Soft black pencil. Gives a great, thick black line, but doesn’t erase too well.
Awesome
Great process prost. Love to hear how your thinking through the piece!
Very, very cool. I love looking at process posts and this is especially great.
TIGHT!
Wonderful work! And thank you so much for sharing your process. Quick question: do you do your inking in Photoshop, with a custom brush? If so, would you mind providing some customization tips? Cheers!
Thanks, guys – much appreciated.
Elaine – I drew this one in Photoshop just using the standard ‘Hard Round’ brush with Size, Opacity and Flow set to “Pen Pressure” in the brush settings
Wow. Totally awesome work!
WOW! Super helpful, thanks!
When you are colouring over your illustration in Photoshop, how do you do the line work? Do you use the pen tool or brushes in photoshop – and also do you use any tricky settings or specific rather settings on the wacom?
Thank you!
Rene
Thank you!
Rene – No tricky settings. I just used a plain old ‘hard round’ brush (see my comment above for settings) for both inking and colouring. I did use an airbrush on a new layer (set to ‘multiply’ mode) to make the background and outside edges darker.
Thanks for walking us through your process. I love to see this kind of stuff. Your final image is fantastic!
Thanks Scott – I love your work, too.