Process Podcast Timelapse!

As promised, the second process video for this month, this time showing the sped-up full process of drawing and painting the 5 little cactus characters!

The original footage is about 18hrs, sped up 18x.
I tried to record a voiceover for this one but I didn't like how it turned out, so here's the abridged version of what I wanted to talk about in writing:

One tidbit you might find helpful when doing multi-image projects (kinda like this one) is to do each stage in bulk - finishing all the separate sketches, and then all the drawings, blockins and rendering in waves. This way, you'll have a clearer overview of the whole project (eg how the silhouettes or colors of characters compare between each other), and you'll probably be more effective with each step since you don't have to constantly shift mind gears (like going from drawing painting, for example).

Also, if you notice there's a particular part of the process which you're struggling with more than others, you can focus on that element, isolate it and hammer away at it until it improves and stops being a bottleneck. Instead of just doing reference studies and learning theory (which of course is a necessary pre-requisite), also do invention exercises as part of the image-making process - for example, if you find lighting to be difficult or uncomfortable, you can do multiple basic light blockins for the same drawing, that way gathering more experience with just that one part or the process and improving there. If you don't do invention exercises, there will often be a kind of disconnect between the reference studies and you fully applying them in your process.

On top of this, and probably more importantly, you should try to focus mostly on the initial drawing and blockin, and not necessarily the rendering, since rendering builds on top of those previous steps. It also happens that most beginners/intermediates struggle with drawing and big compositional/painting ideas, as opposed to detailing, which is pretty mundane by comparison. Because of this, I often suggest people not go into projects with full finished pieces for a start, but rather find a finish that consists only of lines, flats and a simple light blockin, and spam that, accumulating a lot of volume and experience with that more fundamental initial step of image-making, This way you'll have a much more solid foundation, and if you want to go into painting, all you need to do is add those extra rendering steps on top of your blockin.

If you have any thoughts or questions feel free to put them in the comments!
God bless,

Ognjen