Nuki News #53 - Color Communicator!

Wanted to share the process of a recent personal piece I did. :)
Hopefully it'll be helpful to those who are curious on how to go about tackling an advanced painting process, but I wouldn't really call this a tutorial by any means. Just the steps I take in the process!

It's not often I get to explore an idea for myself- but I had this in my mind for some time, of Artie surrounded by colorful magical spheres. I actually did this back in March- drawing purely for myself can be really challenging. So I kinda pecked at this over the course of the month trying to find the right energy for the pose.

Here's the sketch I went with that had the feeling/energy I liked. Something confident and kindve powerful!

With a drawing chosen we go to the oft-overlooked PLANNING stage where I decide on my lighting scheme and shading. Also used a shape tool for the orbs and positioned them better for the composition.

Oh, and of course line art for once! Not often I do line art, but for a bigger more involved piece, I do, haha.

And now to get to "painting"- which is just me doing a selection, then cel shading with gray, and then refining edges to soften some areas like the belly!

Also chose the color for the orbs- after this I use my colorization technique with gradient maps and add something to the background so its not so blank. 

For once I actually wanted a more ethereal background! Next comes lighting! Thanks to the planning stage earlier, it's pretty simple to do. Getting this far is about 80% of the work.

What could come after this point? Looks pretty done now yeah? NO!! The final 90% of the work is actually pretty long, those finishing touches and polish will be the difference-makers i feel. So I do some adjustments, add finishing values to key areas for added contrast, and add some filters to make it pop!

And then, I use what's called a liquify tool to adjust the face- while it is cutely plump in the cheeks, it's not quite the look I'm going for. I also do some rendering on the face and beaded necklace and soften up the belly button to get to the final piece!

Here it is! I'm very happy with this, I got to make something my heart desires and I'm glad to share it with yall. I hope you like it and enjoyed seeing the process!