Sultry MJ (+ process)

Ooooookay, sometimes I do a drawing and then have literally no fucking clue I am doing with colors, as is SUPER indicative of this MJ piece. I really liked her pose, but when it came to lighting and deciding to do under-lighting, I had a massive issue with her face feeling too “buffed-out,” resulting in a really puffy look, primarily because I had a super heavy light on the face coming from above. Eventually, I fucked with layers and colors enough to get to a spot where everything became softer, thus allowing the under-lighting to actually take up more prominence. I feel like a piece like this, due to its muted color scheme, would be super hard to print well. It’s not wildly contrasty - apart from the background - and so it would probably look muddy and too dark. BUT! For a piece that will be seen only online, I think we are good 😌😌😌

As is sometimes common, I started with a messy sketch before I decided to ink and finish the piece; I honestly don’t always do this. Oftentimes, I will do a sketch that just turns into the finished piece, but I am trying to push myself to be a more deliberate artist, and as such I am trying to let my work be “cleaner.”

Inks and flats:

Shadows:

The highlights are the most interesting thing here, because, as you can see, without the multiply layer on top of them, everything looks like ABSOLUTE ASS. I think this just goes to show that you sometimes really REALLY have to trust the process, and that there are full stages of a drawing where it might seem almost incomprehensible until you push through (tho in this instance, I had already set my multiply layer on top of them, so I wasn’t seeing the colors looking this insane until I started turning off layers lol).

Highlights + shadows:

With the multiply layer:

And then I did some color holds on a bunch of the line-work, etc. 😌

What do you all think of this one? I almost feel like I want to apologize for doing so much fucking fan art - particularly of Spider-Man’s women - but I generally think people don’t mind???

What are y’all most interested in seeing? Is this kind of thing something that brings you joy? Are there other characters you would rather see — more of my own, perhaps? I do wanna get back to drawing some more NSFW stuff, but I WILL say that I have a very busy couple weeks coming up, and so if the art slows down, it’s only because I am working on OTHER art (which I might not be able to post yet)!

PS: I think the main inspiration for this piece was Alphonse Mucha, the great Art Nouveau illustrator, about whom I own a nice book from Taschen. Here are some select pieces that I really like (obviously this man is on a whole other level, but maybe some day I can get there lmao):