I was recently commissioned by @bl23c for a drawing of himself with one of his close friends fighting off a horde of zombies. He specifically wanted to be holding a pipe like a baseball bat and a machete for his partner. I don't illustrate horror very often, so this was kind of a first for me in that regard. I didn't make it too grotesque, but I did want to give it a "Walking Dead" vibe.

The Wire Frame

I only laid the wireframe figure drawings for the two survivors. It's messy, but it gets the basic pose that I was going for. Most of the time I fill out my wireframes with more shapes, but time I just left it with straight lines. I don't always measure leg and torso length using the height of the head as the base measurement. I usually wing it and make adjustments on the fly if I think the proportions looks off.

The Sketch

When it comes to commissions, this one was definitely a lot of work because of the multiple layers and detail with all of the figures. I was very messy with my initial sketch and the more lines I put down the better. I wanted this one to have a lot of grunge and messy detail. It's not my favorite thing to do, but a good environment can really make or break the rest of the artwork.

The Line Art

Drawing figures is my favorite part of illustrating. However, having too many in a single piece can be really intimidating. It sometimes saps the joy of drawing and becomes mechanical, like grind-work. But it's important to draw, especially when it's not easy to do so. This is what pushes artists to new levels and sharpens skill.

The Flat Colors

I decided to go with earth colors for the horde because they are organic, in contrast to the blue hues I used for the rest of the environment. The male has a Star Wars logo on his black shirt while the female is wearing a shirt with The Eagles logo on it. Lastly, it was requested to have blood splatters on her shirt. By the look of her face, it's clear that she's a force to be reckoned with.

The Final Illustration

I used a combination of cel-style and airbrush shading for this piece, which is something I don't do very often. I usually use one or the other. I also added a texture overlay over the entire thing to give it a grunge look. I thought it looked much better than the version without it. I was really going for something that could be good enough to appear on the cover of a comic book.

When finished, the commissioner was very happy with it. I believe he printed a poster and gave it to his friend as a gift. What a nice way to commemorate such a unique and meaningful friendship!