The process
Ideas are easy….
The only problem is that most of them are really not that good. Sometimes ideas come to me easily, they just seem to drop into my mind and end up exactly as they begin on the paper. Most of the time however, this is not the case. I usually start with an idea that I would like to explore or a particular image that has come to mind. I generally make a point of sitting on the idea for a day or two to see if it is still interesting to me. I call this ‘brewing’ by waiting a little bit before jumping into it, I get a better feel for whether or not this idea is going to keep me entertained and interested. If after a couple of days I still think its worthwhile, I get started with some rough sketches.
Sketches are absolutely central to getting the overall shape of the artwork. I try to avoid using any references at this point and just draw the same thing again and again in different ways, keeping the components that work and removing those that don’t. This is where being a digital artist really pays off. I create layer over layer over layer to come up with the final layout. After this I go hunting for reference pictures. These pictures include references for shape, texture and color. The more advanced I get in my drawing skills the more I use these references loosely. In the early days I would try to copy these images as closely as I could but now I can afford to be a little more fluid. Once I have a complete sketch I then go on to coloring the artwork digitally. The beauty of digital work is that I can create lots of layers which means I can keep using my initial sketch as a guide, but turn it off once it is no longer necessary.
I haven’t always been a digital artist, I love charcoal, pastels, pencils and paint, but at the moment digital art enables me to spend much more time creating and less time cleaning up. Much of the work you see on this site was done using an iPad Pro using a great program called Procreate. Once I started to be hampered by the capability of the iPad I graduated myself to a Wacom Cintiq Pro and have spent a great deal of time getting my head around Photoshop. While I absolutely love what Photoshop will allow me to do, I still love to play with Procreate because it is so much more intuitive and easy to use.