It’s started to feel like every piece has four stages. There’s the first stage where I dither forever about what to draw because everything seems blah and I have no inspiration. After I get over myself, there’s the stage where I’m mapping out the piece and drawing wireframes and boxes. Then there’s the rough and final lineart – the rough is usually where I actually draw clothes, and the lineart is where I do the details.
Then there’s the shading, which could probably be broken down into the flat color stage and then the shadows, highlights, and textures stage, but it still all feels like one workflow to me where the other three stages feel like each one is their own thing.
A very LONG workflow, but still part of a single stage.
I posted about the first three stages of my most recent piece here, so here’s the final stage that took me as long or longer than the other three combined.
First came the flat colors for the five main figures.
Then I swapped focus to do the background. I didn’t really bother with lineart for this, so it’s all just direct drawing/shading on a single layer.
And finally all the shading of both the mains and a bit for the background.
So yeah. A little less than two weeks to do one piece (probably working on it about 1-2 hours a day?), but I feel like I continue to learn a lot with each one.
Now I have to decide what to do next. Ugh. That stage is the worst.
Alyc Helms 