Lindita

 I used the same paper i used for my 'INFERNICUS' piece. Canson Sketch pad on acid free paper. The only tool i used for blending were the pencils (Kimberly Graphite Pencils 2H, H, HB, B) i normally use and a little finger blending near the left cheek and chest. The texture of the paper is semi-smooth/rough. Good for smooth blending but eats up your HB's and B's. I prefer a little bit more tooth. Using this pad was an experiment at the time but as i got deeper into the drawing, it became finished work. The Canson pad is great but i don't think the Kimberly Graphite pencils hold up well with it. I'm happy with the drawing and finished just in time for Lindita's birthday. :)

INFERNICUS

My 2nd rendition of Lucia Infernicus from Glenn Danzig's Verotik. I tried to find as many references as possible for her from my own personal collection and from online pics. I realized that she makes an appearance in Satanika Tales (an issue I don't seem to have). A handful of different artists have taken a stab a drawing her and as much as I liked all of them, I stayed with the 3 artists who I think captured her best for what I wanted to do. Those artists are Simon Bisley, Joe Chiodo and Dan Brereton.

           

           Bisley

Chiodo

Brereton

I also added, The Inquisitor, who is also a Verotik character. This particular one below was painted by Simon Bisley.

The first few stages of my drawing began with the full figure of Lucia with her hands behind her back. There were other ideas but this is the one that seemed to flow better. Sorry guys, didn't take pics. The pics i did take were of her face in step by step form.....

Here is a very quick sketch of the basic shape of the head, eye, nose and lips. This is where I establish the basic idea (although the full figure had been drawn and finished already) so I wasn't too serious about proportions just yet. Everything is basically light and loose. Also, basic light, shadow and reflective light were added. Keep in mind, this was an old drawing sitting around in my pad for some time, so my approach was somewhat different back then. I added what I know now to the finished work.

Here i started shaping the form of the face a bit more. I softened up the shape of her chin, established the lighting on her nose as well as making it thinner, rounded her eye socket and shaped her cheek bone. Now she looks like a girl. ;)

Thinned her cheek bone a bit so that her proportions were correct. Added the ear (which you see in the finished piece), detailed the lips and added the eyebrows. Here you see where i placed what are supposed to be scars on her face that stretch down from through her brow to under her eye. This was the last part of her face. The Inquisitor was done a little more loosely to not take away from her face which is basically the focal point of the drawing. The lettering was done with Roman lettering in mind based on the Trajan system that they used for coins. I wanted the lettering to look like it was carved and a bit sloppy so i did it by hand without using a ruler. 

DARK EYES step-by-step (animated)

  

(Above) Dark Eyes finished painting in Photoshop

(Below) Animated step-by-step

THE WOMAN IN BLACK Step-by-step

This is the original preliminary sketch for the The Woman in Black painting. To save space, I merged most of the original files and wasn't able to get them back. I still remember my process and this will be a close to exact way of how I pieced it together.

I started painting in the face very loosely (see prelim image) in gray tones then began to smooth the edges of the face (using a soft airbrush set to low opacity) to get as realistic as possible while making sure my proportions were correct or close to correct. Photo ref used for the face only to capture the model's likeness. The rest of the painting is from imagination except for the costume and character which belong to Monarch Comics.

Once the face was finished, I painted in the basic form using a soft brush without pen pressure. Tried to keep the proportions as close to the model's as possible. She'd probably kill me if I didn't. ;P

This was the original version that I scrapped. The idea was to have the orb glowing while Witch Hunter was trapped inside but the idea had already been done and I think my version would have taken away from The Woman in Black's face which I wanted to be the main focus.

After scrapping the orb idea, the 2nd idea had her with more authority where her hands would be behind her back but that idea bothered me because it didn't show off the rest of her costume...

...so i made her arms visible. It still showed her as authorative and confident. Basic shape of her cape added.   This was the finished idea and now for the details.

Tightening up of the wristbands, right arm, neck and hips as well as the proportion of the head on the left side.

The details of the cape were added using the airbrush in Photoshop set to different sizes with Pen Pressure 'on'.

After the first underpainting was done in gray tone, a second underpainting was added to significant parts of the figure. Everything in black would be kept standard to bring out the background light that i add later towards the end of the piece. The flesh tone was as close as possible to model Cristi Duncan's skin complexion. Lips, skin tone and wristband colors all set to Pen Pressure 'off'.

After the 2 underpaintings were done, now it was time to add a finishing layer. I tinkered with the idea of having a blood red as you see in the first image, but it seemed too warm for her cold, dark stare. So i adjusted the color for something a little cooler and even though i liked both versions, they still didn't settle into her 'evil' demeanor and took away from the warm colors of the 2 underpaintings. These are the completed versions. I had deleted some of my layers so had to redo them for the purpose of this tutorial. :)

Fidgeting with color, i was blessed with one of those happy accidents that happen to some artists. While i was trying to find a nice warm color to fit the mood, i adjusted into some cooler ones and came across a bluish tone that enhanced the character in the correct way. It brought out the underpainted colors properly, and told the story that i wanted to tell. Cold, dark, evil but yet beautiful.

After the final overlay had been set, some background lighting was added as well as highlights to give the form of the figure some depth and i had my finished piece.

BATMAN

It's been a while since my last blog update. Been busy working on new stuff (and fooling around on Facebook). Here is a high res image of my latest--The BATMAN. I tried to combine a little bit of the classic  Batman with the Dark Knight from the comics and movie. Old school Bat-belt with Christian Bale/Nolan Bat gloves/gauntlets.  In the prelim, you can see i had the ears a little to big. I drew in a quick sketch, at first. Tested the lighting with charcoal for the cape, and a little white conte near his left shoulder. Scrapped both ideas because it took away from the highlights on his mask. 

IgRaT

Based on the character from the Verotik comic series from Glenn Danzig. The different renditions that were done of her by other artists had her wearing alot of 'accessories' and armor. I went with the best rendition which was that of Simon Bisley's which you can see here:

The other renditions are good but so stylized it was hard figuring out what was going on especially with her wings. Simon's version is straight and to the point and realistic (as well as Martin Emond's version here)

The wings were tough to do so i referenced some real bat wings. It started out as a quick sketch on paper i was testing out but i got carried away into making it a finished piece. Not a fan of the paper texture which is a Canson Sketch pad. Too smooth for me. Graphite Pencil on paper. 9x12

ANT Unleashed (animated)

There were a good amount of layers i had to merge to reduce the file size but the general images are still intact. You'll see the original quick sketch and the 2nd variation with ANT holding her antennae. Scrapped that idea with a paint-over of her holding one of the blades from her antennae (which made more sense). Painted in gray tones to get lighting correct. Reddish toned layer (set to 'overlay') added over the gray tones. And yes, i posed my arm using my webcam to get HER arm right. ;)  Painted in Photoshop. The character is based on Mario Gully's ANT during the "ANT Unleashed" series. *Click on the image to see the step-by-step animation*