Digital work flow.

The Vulture King.

Swearing revenge to the ones that stole his throne.

This was done as an assignment in an online course in digital art. We were told to come op with a back story for a character.

Step 1: Sketch

I like to work from small thumbnails, so I don’t get too invested in each idea. It is a good way to explore several ideas. I keep tham simple without any details.

Step 2: Clipping mask

I make a mask by filling the character with grey, all future layers concerning this character will only affect whats within the gray mask. In photoshopit is called “create clipping mask”

Step 3: shadow and light

In this stage I paint the overall shadow on a multiply layer. Then within the shadow I use a “hard light” layer to paint the form within the shadow. Hard light layers I also use to paint the light from above and and the bounce light from below. Usually the light coming from above is cold and bounce light is warm.

Step 4: color

This is where I paint the different colors. Sometimes I do this step before I paint the shadows.

Step 5: finishing touch

Here I finish all the elements, filling in the background.