Sorceress WIP snapshot

For my next piece in this fantasy series I am trying a slightly different process. As I have talked about before I really want to maintain more presence of line in my finished illustrations, but they still need to look painterly (to an extent) to satisfy the clients I am targeting. So, I’ve really gone in and cleaned the line-work on the sorceress piece and will be colorizing the line like it is done in many current comics. I am also rendering the entire image in gray-scale to completion first because I have been told and have read that it makes the digitally coloring process much quicker, which is usually where I get all hung up. Conveniently this month in issue 67 of ImagineFX is an awesome tutorial by Adam Hughes, doing this exact thing. I highly recommend the issue. It also has an article by the awesome illustrator and visual storyteller Justin Gerard on drawing and his process. If you are not familiar with his work check out his site here. I have been studying Adam Hughes’s illustrations in his book Cover Run to try and grasp the whole concept of maintaining line, while appearing more rendered because he does it so well in his illustrations. Here is a snapshot of the sorceress wip: I am currently in the middle of rendering the image in gray-scale.


I am very excited about this piece, lots of things going on: multiple light sources, detailed costume, magical effects, plus I like the flows in the composition. Should be fun.