Finished Illustrations-On Going

[splicer]

Here is my process. First I designed the hover bike in 3D. I use this as a base to get the perspective and proportions down. I draw over the 3D render using lineart. The reason for this instead of painting directly over it is I find it helps me work out the technical details better using the line. I then merge the lineart with the color separated elements and then just paint over it. Though I think it becomes convoluted, the next one I will try painting over my render.

I think I will use this thread to show my process and progress in efforts to establish a unified style. I talk to a lot of artists about this, and many tell me they don't have a style, but when I look at their work, there is a level consistent throughout. I seem to skip around from line drawings rendered, to paintings, using 3D sometimes, photo bashing other times. I do think I am on the cusp of finally reaching a process and style I enjoy. Would love to get some feedback on generally establishing a style. I have heard, copy another artist you like, using them for inspirations. Also have heard, just study all the time and the style will come naturally from that. Maybe I need a mix of both and find a artist style, or benchmark, and aim for it.

[splicer]

My Batgirl Cyberpunk Bike concept was all 2D without using any 3D. I started with the lineart first and used several layers for the rendering. Flat layer, was done over a grey scale base which was not merged with the lineart. I kept the bike separate from the background. The final background was photo bashed together as was the ground plane. Final high lights were done over the entire piece to unify the rendering. Then I used a softlight blending mode to unify the color palette.

Rendering was kept rough as it was to be a concept, I definitely could polish it further.

[splicer]

This was done as part of a set of 3 sketches I did a few months ago. My idea for them was to tell a story about the civilization which the girl in the suit is wearing, mostly through her suit. She is the same girl, and each one is a concept of her, both the suit and the back story of where she comes from are different for the 3 different concepts. Each one is interacting with our own civilization through our meeting among the stars within our own ships, or without in the case of the first one. I've included a link to the first one at the end of this post to keep the focus on this new one. I want to go through my process of creating this.

Star Bind-Mars Mission

There is also a gif included and my reference wall for this. First I started with the loose sketch, I then turned it into a more finished piece of lineart. The reason I use lineart first is it helps me work out technical details better. After I create a flats layer to figure out my colors. At this point everything is, lineart, flats, two layers. Now I create 2 new layers, one set to screen the other multiply, the former for high lights, the latter for shadows. I take a deep purple of about 21B and 33S for the shadow, and in the yellowish hue, 100B 33S for the light. Just use HSB sliders on your color palette picker in PS and you'll get those colors. I do a base render over the flats with the lineart over it. Now, make sure you have black on your screen layer, and white on your multiply, this lets you eye dropper the values(set to current layer). After I reach a certain point, I merge everything together and cut up the elements, character form BG and the various overlapping BG elements, this gives me easier control later on when finishing up the piece. The value in doing my initial step is that I get my lighting pre mixed with the base flat colors, so I can eye dropper later once I get into straight paint. Various blending modes are used, special effects are done a number of ways, and you can see in the gif the entire process only comes together in the final stages of the render.

Link to first painting which I did back in February.
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bqd8G

[cedricgo]

I'm really liking your work so far! Lots of pretty cool stuff. I especially like the monochromatic Cyberpunk Batgirl. I find the look really fitting. And that last one looks awesome too. I love the rendering of the character and all the details her suit has.

Keep up the great work!

[splicer]

@cedricgo Thank you very much! Glad you dig it, and much more coming I've got in the works!

Want to share these finished concepts for League of Legends character Illaoi. Tried to make each one unique and give them a slightly different body type as well as the costume variants!

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I have started on the finished illustration thumbnail based off my concept.

[splicer]

New piece, same process as usual, lines are blended after I flat, with semi rendered colors, but a layer is kept of those flats.

[splicer]

Cyberpink is like cyberpunk, but less dark... You saw it here first folks!

Still a bit of the dystopia or it wouldn't have a touch of social commentary...

[splicer]

Haven't updated this thread in a very long time, reason being is I basically stopped making anything for my portfolio and instead started thinking about other projects I can work towards which will earn me money, both short term and long term.

I still actively work as a comic colorist, but that field doesn't pay too well.

I guess the way I see it, I'll always improve my art because of my mind set, and instead of making basically 'throw away' pieces for some portfolio to 'hopefully' work at some company...

I'll build my own