Before I illustrated the Raising Dragons Graphic Novel, I made miscellaneous fan art for the series. Upon request, I drew Sapphira Adi from the Oracles of Fire. I had not read the book at the time I made the drawing, which explains a few errors in her portrayal. I knew she was living in a cave and there was a scene where she was given a flower be someone special. I used her appearance form one of the book covers, which is why she's not in rags like she should be in this specific scene.

The Sketch

I actually drew this one in pencil first. This was in 2012, before I had a Wacom display device to draw directly on. I still relied on scanning my pencil drawings and inking them using my Bamboo fun tablet. I wasn't aware that she was suppose to be a young girl in appearance. I gave her an angular face and made her an older teenager.

The Line Art

I used Corel Painter Essentials to draw over my sketch to create the line art. I also used Adobe Photoshop to help clean up the lines afterward since the brush I used in Corel was not as thick as I would have liked and sometimes my lines were stringy and hallow. But I did like how Corel had a very nice smooth effect when making the lines, something that Adobe would eventually offer in the settings for their brushes.

The Flat Colors

I used Adobe again to create the flat colors. Using the polygon lasso tool, I would create shapes for each individual color and fill it with a solid color. I have anti-aliasing turned off so that I would use the magic wand to select my color areas without having the selection bleed into other areas. It's common practice to put the line art layer over top of the color layers to make it look finished.

The Finished Illustration

I went back to Corel to add the shading and the highlights. I would work with one color shape at a time and use a pre-made palette for the darks and the lights that I could easily pick from. Every color was on a separate layer, so I didn't have to worry about staying in the lines. After going back to Adobe, I would select each color shape from my flat color layer and remove any excess shading/highlights. I also did other things including coloring the line art and adding glows.

Currently, I do all of this in a single program called Clip Studio Paint. Also, using my Wacom Mobilstudio Pro enables me to draw directly on the screen. This has made illustrating much more natural and efficient. It was an investment, but definitely worth it for me.