Today, taking the suggestion of my friend @midlet I thought I would share with you all an illustration I did recently for the Cartooner game project. This is for the card representing the "Adventure" theme and the client suggested a girl looking for treasure underwater.

I usually start with a drawing, just like most people. One thing I have found over the years is that it helps me a lot to move the picture forward if the drawing is fairly precise from the get-go: this forces me to think in terms of specific details and also makes the forms less generic. When you start with something very rough and nebulous as you average it out the result often ends up being predictable, like the thing you see everywhere else.

I think you can see the lighter first layer underneath.

After that I start "guesstimating' color on a transparent layer. I might get into some of my ideas about color in another post but for now I can say that I use a big soft brush and I am mostly trying to make the pallette work as a whole. I think of colors I will definitely need and arrange the rest to match -or at least not disturb- those.

Also for lighting effects in particular and to create lighter or darker harmonies of existing colors I use Overlay and Hard Light layer modes. You can then adjust the layer opacity and hue/saturation. This gives you a lot of control over the strength and precise hue of the effect, allowing you to get very close to the way you want it to feel.

After I got something I'm generally OK with, and/or if the temptation to start painting opaquely is no loger possible to resist, I start using what I currently have to define and lock down separate areas more specifically. By "using what I have" I am referring of course to using the ALT button to activate the eyedropper and color-pick from by canvas. I try to remember to not rely exclusively on this feature and continue introducing new colors as I go. Otherwise things start looking really dull really soon.

In the end it is time for minor adjustments, such as playing with contrast, adding saturation to certain areas, painting the character's other leg...

I am thinking of posting more of these cards. If this is the type of content you would like to see more of, please upvote and comment with any suggestions you might have, and thank you for checking in.