Good Boy Extravaganza Step-by-step

This commission included a ton of characters, out door scenery, the works! So I really wanted to make sure it was set up correctly from the get go. The prompt was five good boys at the park, catching balls that Harris was throwing. I also had to include Harris' signature 78 Ford truck and make sure all the boys were identifiable in the same piece, which took some finagling. The last thing I really wanted to do was keep it landscape if possible so it could be used as a desktop background. 

First I sketched up a few options for the client!

While they all had different levels of dynamism, I wanted the moment to be of several boys going for a single thrown ball. D fit the criteria and was met with approval (though I accidentally forgot to draw the fifth boy at first!) so I added him in and carried on to refining the sketch.

I also chose a slightly tilted horizon line (also called a dutch angle) to increase the feeling of dynamism and movement~ 

During the inks I employed what's called atmospheric perspective, which is the reduction of detail and vibrancy the further back in space you go. There is more detail on the grass nearest to us than in the far background. 

For solid-colored background items like the grass or trees, I like to keep them on separate layers and then work on them individually on that layer, or flatten down to keep from overwhelming myself with too many layers after. However, with characters or complex multi-colored objects I use flats on a single layer and then above it use various layer modes like multiply, overlay and screen to produce shading effects. 

Here all the characters are shaded, the background is more or less complete, now it's time to do color holds on the lineart so it isn't just black. Then I flatten everything to a new layer and paint on top little details and edits. Then we're done! 

This piece was a lot of fun to do! Obviously a lot of work went into it, but I think the results are something I'm proud of~ Thanks for joining me for this step-by-step walk through and for your continued support!