A Pleasant Walk Through the Incomplete Design of My Contest Entry

by Tiredguy

Hi all, and welcome to my walkthrough. Maybe you'll learn something, or maybe not, but I hope you'll at least enjoy this walk through the process. Don't feel like you have to read ALL the text if you find it tedious- I'm just kind of verbose when it comes to writing. Let's get started, shall we?

After much searching for good reference poses for my idea, I was fortunate enough to read ReNaeNae's AWESOME advice about getting a starting pose from posemaniacs.com. It's an awesome anatomy reference. At the very least, it'll help keep those seemingly unavoidable anatomy criticisms out of your hair. Did I mention it was awesome? Anyway, here's what I found there:

I also found a pose for the second girl, cut out the white around her, and put her in front of the first girl. Then I desaturated the color to get a better idea of the shapes and shading.

 

Then I traced an outline of the image, and filled it with my base color, keeping the lines and the filling on separate layers. I made sure the actual size of the pic while I'm working on it would be as large as possible so pixellation isn't an issue. This image right here was 2749 pixels by 2499 pixels.

At this point, on another layer, I darkened all the parts that would be shadowed, using the musculature of the original as a reference.

Then I went through with an eraser to polish out the contours.

I used the blurred circle brush shape for my eraser, set at different sizes and opacities as needed. I found it's easier to just polish each area completely before moving on, rather than using one size and opacity brush for the whole thing then switching to other brushes. The whole process took me a few days 'cause I didn't want to rush it, and besides, I was busy with other stuff. I also colorized the lines. Also notice in betwen this step and the next, the lines have been blurred and faded to blend in more.

It was fun to draw the wings. Didn't use any specific reference for them, just made three rows of feathers for each wing, varying in size and shape. This is where a table pc comes in handy.
Then I filled in the lines and placed it behind the bodies. I used the smudge tool to add some texture to the feathers (yes, this takes forever, even with a tablet). See the images below to get a better idea of what I'm talking about. This took me a few more days to finish. I also duplicated the shading layer to add more dept to the image, and make it look more like it's at night.

Then I made the chalices.

I repositioned them, and colored them in.

...and added a decoration to make it less mundane...

And finally I made sure things that were supposed to be in front were actually in front. Had to cut out a thumb for the other chalice. The cups took a few hours in all.

And now I re-adjusted the color of the skin, added some highlights to it, and sketched out some lines for the facial features over the span of a day or two. I also started adding some shadows to one of the wings, filling it out by placing a beige and white background behind it, and giving it a nice soft look. The shadows took forever because I used the smudge tool on them to add some more texture to the wings. In all, touching up the wing took me over 3 hours.

 

 

And that's where I currently am in the project. I've got a long way to go (hair, spilled wine, cool background, etc.), but I think from what you've seen here, you have a good foundation to start your own picture, and you kind of get an idea of how much is put into this pic. I hope you enjoyed the walkthrough!