To start
There's various ways I start any painting, be it a personal piece, a promotional illustration or a professional commission. My favourites are word association, colour combinations, inspiration from other artists, music, movies, sketching, abstract shapes and meditation. I'll usually use a couple of these to get things rolling. Once I have an idea of what the painting will consist of, such as characters, environment, time of day, lighting, etc then I'll move onto the next preliminary stage - Thumbnails.
1. Thumbnails
I like to think of thumbnails as the real ‘nuts and bolts’ of the whole process. This is where I work out some of the hard questions and then commit to how the final image will turn out.
Thumbnails are essentially simple sketches that are usually fairly small and can be done quickly. They are incredibly useful for finding the most ideal composition without wasting time on details. The first few thumbnails that I do are generally the most obvious answer to how I want the elements to be composed in the scene and, as a result, are usually fairly generic. It's only after I've gone through those, do I start to find more interesting and unique compositions On average I do about 30 thumbnails per painting).
When I have around 3-4 thumbnails that I'm happy with, I'll then enlarge those and start adding a few more details so as to make things a bit clearer. Sometimes, after having gone through this stage, I'll remove 1-2 of the sketches as they're either not working compositionally or they're simply not as visually strong. Once I've done that I'll then move onto the next stage, the value studies.
2. Value Studies
Value studies are where I decide where the lights, darks and mid tones will be in the scene. I like to limit the values to just those three elements as I've found that it makes it easier to create dynamic lighting without over complicating things at this stage. That being said, I still have to consider the overall scene, the time of day, the weather, the characters, the environment and the mood that I'm looking to convey to the viewer. I usually tend to do up to 5 versions and when I'm happy with one then I'll do the 'squint' test (the ’squint’ test is simply looking at the study whilst squinting your eyes which blocks out any unnecessary details) as well as reducing the size of the study on screen to make sure that all the major elements are still easy to read.
3. Colour Studies
Now that I know roughly what the lighting will be and how all the elements of the painting will fit together, it’s time to flesh out the painting with some colour. I try to go with colour palettes that are as compelling and dynamic as possible. To some extent, the environment and time of day will denote which colour direction I’ll choose but I’ve also got to bear in mind the character(s), composition and the mood of the scene. For example, if I’m painting a happy and tranquil scene then I’ll choose colours such as yellows, cyans and greens and stay away from darker, heavier colours such as purple, red and black. I’ll also make sure that the majority of the tones are lighter with minimal dark greys/ blacks and keep the saturation level a little higher. I tend to do less of these studies as I’ll have already been thinking about the colour combinations when I created the value studies, so usually around 2-3.
4. Reference
Now it’s time to gather and create appropriate reference materials for the final painting. In the past, I would sometimes ‘skip’ this step in my rush to just start painting and pretty much every time I did I would come to regret that decision. No matter how many anatomical or environmental studies I’ve done, there’s always going to be elements in a painting that will benefit from having used some form of reference. I also noticed that when I didn’t use reference I was always frustrated with the painting process and ultimately disappointed with the final result.
Reference will help you describe elements such as figures, lighting and environmental aspects in a much more believable way. Most people, whether they’re artist’s or not, will instantly be able to tell you if something’s wrong with a painting and that usually comes down to a lack of good reference.
When I’ve gathered all the reference that I’m going to need I’ll access those elements in a couple of different ways. The first, and most obvious way, is to just open the reference photos that I need for the area of the painting that I’m currently working on. The second way is to create a reference board which has all of the relevant reference that I need for the entire painting. I’ve found that both of these methods work for me depending on what I’m painting and how comfortable I am with the content.
Once I’ve gathered all the reference and decided on how I’m going to use it, it’s time to create the final drawing for the finished painting.
5. Final Drawing
Now that I’ve gathered all the reference and taken any photos that I need it’s time to dive into the final drawing. I typically create this with a pencil in photoshop in much the same as I would’ve done with a physical pencil in the past when I was creating oil paintings traditionally.
At this stage I don’t include a lot of shading as I have a road map with the value studies that I’ve already completed. When I was painting in oils, I would pencil in the sketch and then go over that with a series of acrylic washes for all the line and tonal info. Now that I’m working digitally I’ll sometimes start washing black and white tones over the sketch in much the same way and other times I'll start blocking in all the main areas of colour. I'll also make sure to work out any last minute problems, such as anatomy, lighting or final placement of elements by constantly flipping the piece, walking away from the sketch for a while and showing/sending it to people who’s opinion I value. Once I’ve completed this stage then it’s time to start the ‘actual’ painting.
It’s always tempting to simply skip these ‘boring’ steps and dive straight into the painting - don’t! Working out all the details now is a lot easier than trying to do it in the middle or at the end of the painting.