Trinket defuses a bomb!!

So this post has been about 4 days in the making. I started this drawing three or four days ago. Time is hard to keep track of when you are working so the days tend to mix into each other. I call it Art Fever. A state in which your mind and body can no longer grasp the passing of time, and all that exists is you, your tablet and your drawing.

Now this is one of my step by step posts. I will be showing you the process of making the image

"Trinket defuses a bomb" which is based on a Pathfinder RPG session I had with my roleplaying group a couple of weeks ago. Trinket is a Gnomish Mage trying to defuse a bomb by using the spell "Ray of Frost". Trinket is my own original character and should therefore not be copied by anyone.

 Now that you know a bit of the story let's move on!

step 1:

I start by drawing a rough sketch with black, I just like sketching with black, though a lot of the pro's prefer blue or red sketches. I put in rough color suggestions to set the mood and decide what my palette is going to be. I then start drawing it up a bit more precise on a new layer before  start coloring in properly.

Step 2:

as you can see I have focused on drawing the character first. I've fixed her anatomy, figured out how I want her hair to look and worked extensively on her outfit. I've been particularly careful to remember where my light sources are going to be. (bomb and moon)

Step 3:

Now I've started working a bit on the foreground, drawing in the bomb and the sand where it has landed. I'm doing this on a new layer to keep them separate and to keep more editing choices available.

Step 4:

Not much has happened, I've done some detailing on the sand and drawn in a plant. Now the reason I'm showing you this little bit of progress is because the success of a picture is knowing where to put the minor details. Like in sandgrains and where light hits things and stuff like that.

Step 5:

More vegetation! As you can see I've added some fern looking plants here and there. I realised that th image looked a bit empty in the foreground and that I needed something that could create a sense of depth and visual interest.

Step 6:

I've now pretty much finished the foreground and have moved on to the background. Painting in the moon and the stars. It was suggested to me that moving the moon would be better for the backlighting so I did as advised. at this point I start to realize that the palmtrees in the back are too short. Damn it! So I have to fix them at some point.

Step 7:

I continue working on the background, I paint in the little houses on the cliff in the back, I scale the trees upp to a slightly larger size. and keep fixing minor details that start to pop up here and there. Cleaning up an image is just as important as the composition and the rendering. If the image is sloppy and full of little errors all over then it's not going to look good.

Step 8:

Her as you can see the backlighting from the moon has been added on trinket's clothes and her hair and on the palm trees. It's a minor detail, but has a rather striking effect in my opinion. The sky behind her looked a little dead and flat so I put in some white soft "fuzz" with the help of the trusty airbrush tool.

Step 9:

Finished!! The magical effect of her spell has been added to her hand. I didn't want to make it too bright as it would steal a lot of attention from the bomb and the rest of the image so I kept it small. Hope you like the end result as much as I do :)

Any questions? Dont hesitate to ask!

Until next time,

Anita K. Olsen