(I had never used LJ before and now I feel like I'm spamming :).)
Just wanted to post a "making-of" of my last fanart - because I've been quite methodic for this one. I don't use the same process for all my drawings, I still have many things to try before I settle on one or two final methods.
(warning : the post is going to be quite picture-heavy after the cut)
First step : the compo sketch
It might look ugly at this step but it's the most important one, since it's the foundations of the picture.
It's also the most difficult part for me. If someone knows a science on compo, I'd be glad to hear it... because for me right now it's more or less "try and see how it looks - ugh it doesn't work at all, try again - and again - and again...".
step 2 : the detailed sketch
this step can be long and tiresome - but it can never totally go wrong since you've got as many tries as you want. Also, the better the compo sketch, the easier the detailed sketch. In this one I had a very precise idea of Peggy's pose from the compo sketch on, so drawing her came out to be very easy. Jarvis was another story (and it changed quite a lot in the final drawing)...
it's the step where I was lazy before. But then I've asked
alby_mangroves to beta my drawings and it's never been the same since then :)
step 3 : the lineart
it used to be the most difficult step but it's become much, much easier lately (Yay ! \o/). Doing digital art is very helpful here because you know you can always erase a bad line, so you can't be scared to fail - unlike traditional drawing with ink.
Still, I sweat a lot at this step. It's THE step where you really draw.
Step 4 : finding the hues
Hum... for this step it's quite random daubing until I find something like a palette to work from ? Nothing definitive yet.
step 5 : colors !
Now if the lineart and the palette are okay, coloring is easy and funny, and basically you cannot go wrong. Like when you were a child coloring drawings :).
Here I used cell-shading with a lot more gradations than my usual. I played a lot with rendering layers too. I'm quite happy with the result so I'll probably do it again.
aaaaand... Tadaaaa !!! :)