Wip time!! This time for my *ginormous chapter 35 art, so much is going on!! (*Ginormous as in complex-- this lil guy is 10x15cm)
I had to collect a trunkful of references for this one. I got lucky with Starfire and Raven, but everyone else needed a little more digging! It's not every day you draw the back of a character, after all. Looking for refs revealed another inconsistency: BEASTBOY'S CHAIR. Look closely. Big grey chair in one scene, then stool in the next! These frames are seconds apart! My goodness, animators 😂. Obviously i went with the big chair in my drawing, i think it's much more dramatic than just a stool. 💅✨
I made a quick sketch of the layout—
Then I built up the piece in layers! When I sent this wip to my brother (who hasn't seen the show for a long time) he thought Beastboy was being tortured 🤣. Sorry to disappoint, Tobi.
Because i was determined to have Batman and Cyborg be among the main focal points of this piece, I drew them first to make sure they'd be framed right. Batman only got his arm covered, but F in the chat for all Cyborg's lovely detail that was promptly and inevitably covered up by Starfire XD
'The gang's all here :D' I hear you say. You forget, however, their millions of nanoscopic free loaders. Once they were added, it was time for color blocking!!
I loved color blocking for this piece because of its distinct foreground, middle ground and background! Whenever i hit a satisfying point, i'd pull the ipad away and squint to see if the contrasts looked good XD even did a little scrolling on pinterest for greyscale backgrounds for inspo. I was tempted to make very bold shadows and big differences in color for each layer, but settled on less contrast in favor of more detail. i think it was a good tradeoff!
Alas, i forgot to take a photo of the lineart stage before adding the red. I have actual colored markers but i lent them to a friend and didn't want to stall finishing this drawing to get them back, so i went back to my roots and used another fineliner XD I'm lucky that the seven that i have include a red of a satisfying hue!
And there you have it, folks! Took the final photo and did my usual grey scale editing, then popped it onto procreate to put the red back in, just by layering the colored and the greyscale versions of the art and erasing the grey off the red. I also went all in with the vingette effect to give it that spooky gloomy glow.
And, Voilà!
[Masterpost]