I had NO CLUE what I was going to do. My only intention was to draw a “pretty Pinterest girl” as Youtuber ergojosh suggests.
Whereas “Fjord” and “Allura” were both linearts that I either scanned or re-drew, this one was completely digital from start to finish. I found a reference photo from Pinterest and did my rough sketch in Photoshop. Then, I went over my sketch and did a lineart. But I knew I wanted my “pretty girl” to be in the realm of fantasy. So, I guess I did have an inkling of what I wanted. The reference was of a cloaked figure and I added the hairstyle, the horns and the pointy ears to make it more fantastical. Then I started thinking of D&D races like Dragonborns and Tieflings and she sort of evolved into this fire demon…yup that’s my brain.
Again, I went for a graphic style, setting a base skin tone first, then layering primary colors over each other for my lights and shadows. And everything worked well until I had to figure out the background. Eventually, I settled on this fiery, cloud feel and I just HAD FUN with it! I added a few lines and ticks to be like embers and then started lasso tooling the crap out of some triangular shapes of varying sizes and colors, dropping the opacity on them. Weirdly, it came together and I really like the result. I’m definitely going to experiment more with this particular process. It just felt RIGHT!
But of course, let me know your take. What do you think about the finished illustration or my process?